CFD - 2022 Ferrari F1-75 (sidepod analysis)

[SiLo]

It would be fascinating to see the entire cars modelled although I realise that would be a massive undertaking. It would interesting to seehow the front wings and the underfloor strakes of each design affect the flow structures.

I had hoped we see plenty of flow viz shots from Barcelona, but I've only seen the occasional one so far.

That is asking FAR too much

We need to start working on some F1Tech Aero departments to get this sorted. I'm happy to join and tell people what to do.

[Zynerji]

It would be fascinating to see the entire cars modelled although I realise that would be a massive undertaking. It would interesting to seehow the front wings and the underfloor strakes of each design affect the flow structures.

I had hoped we see plenty of flow viz shots from Barcelona, but I've only seen the occasional one so far.

That is asking FAR too much

We need to start working on some F1Tech Aero departments to get this sorted. I'm happy to join and tell people what to do.

There are enough photos that GANverse3D could give near perfect models of all cars in a few hours.

[f1316]

Usual caveats apply regarding the models, but it's interesting to see that the RB design hits the driver with more air but the roll hoop inlet with less air than the other two. The "Mercedes" has high pressure in the roll hoop and sidepod inlets which presumably is a good thing on both counts. The "Ferrari" has less in the sidepods but good in the roll hoop.

Of course, the front wings and suspension will have a big effect on what actually goes where, so this is unlikely to be what happens on the real cars. It is, however, interesting to see that the design of the sidepods - particularly the leading edges - has an effect well away from where we might intuitively expect.

I'm not sure we can take this particular area too seriously, since I didn't redesign the engine cover of Ferrari and Merc and what I did with RB18 engine cover is an unoptimized monstrosity As LM10 noted, the pressure on top of rear wing is higher, I guess this has a lot to do with that cannon outlet design. In turn, this higher pressure might have had an influence upstream, including the airbox.

Does the RB-model work the rear wing even more than the tub-sidepod?

Yes, thanks for noticing this, I completely missed it

I wonder if this is why Ferrari have the smaller roll hoop on the actual car - ie to compensate for the trade off on rear wing performance that comes with their concept?

(Fantastic work btw and super appreciated).

[Vanja #66]

Judging by Mercedes design, they would have had to make an even smaller airbox. And yet...

[Just_a_fan]

Usual caveats apply regarding the models, but it's interesting to see that the RB design hits the driver with more air but the roll hoop inlet with less air than the other two. The "Mercedes" has high pressure in the roll hoop and sidepod inlets which presumably is a good thing on both counts. The "Ferrari" has less in the sidepods but good in the roll hoop.

Of course, the front wings and suspension will have a big effect on what actually goes where, so this is unlikely to be what happens on the real cars. It is, however, interesting to see that the design of the sidepods - particularly the leading edges - has an effect well away from where we might intuitively expect.

I'm not sure we can take this particular area too seriously, since I didn't redesign the engine cover of Ferrari and Merc and what I did with RB18 engine cover is an unoptimized monstrosity As LM10 noted, the pressure on top of rear wing is higher, I guess this has a lot to do with that cannon outlet design. In turn, this higher pressure might have had an influence upstream, including the airbox.

Does the RB-model work the rear wing even more than the tub-sidepod?

Yes, thanks for noticing this, I completely missed it

I wonder if this is why Ferrari have the smaller roll hoop on the actual car - ie to compensate for the trade off on rear wing performance that comes with their concept?

(Fantastic work btw and super appreciated).

They have a small roll hoop inlet because they don't need anything bigger - all of their air-cooled cooling will be in the sidepods. Teams with bigger roll hoop inlets have air-cooled cooling packages along the spine.

Don't be tempted to look at this analysis and try to dissect every design choice on the car based on it. The analysis is a partial one and only useful for the thing it set out to do - look at the sidepods.

It's interesting to note the "Viking horns" either side of the Ferrari roll hoop inlet whilst looking at the inlet itself. These will be helping to tidy up air spilling from the inlet when the car is off throttle - air that was being sucked in to the roll hoop is now tumbling around it and potentially messing with the rear wing at just the time you want the rear wing to be working well and giving good rear stability. The cars with cooling inlets in the roll hoop don't need these because any spilled air will be picked up or affected by the inlets either side anyway.

[LM10]

Yes, thanks for noticing this, I completely missed it

Oh, you're welcome!

[vorticism]

To wrap up this short series of posts on 2022 sidepod designs via CFD, I'm presenting the visualization on RB18-like sidepods...

Does your sim have enough resolution to give much insight into the Williams sidepod flow-through/bypass ducts?

[jacobianminkowski]

I don't know if its been mentioned but the Ferrari and Redbull bodywork doesn't appear to be completely within the allowed volumes.

[SiLo]

To wrap up this short series of posts on 2022 sidepod designs via CFD, I'm presenting the visualization on RB18-like sidepods...

Does your sim have enough resolution to give much insight into the Williams sidepod flow-through/bypass ducts?

I am also very interested in this. I think they are the most interesting behind Ferrari.

[Blackout]

I'm not sure we can take this particular area too seriously, since I didn't redesign the engine cover of Ferrari and Merc and what I did with RB18 engine cover is an unoptimized monstrosity As LM10 noted, the pressure on top of rear wing is higher, I guess this has a lot to do with that cannon outlet design. In turn, this higher pressure might have had an influence upstream, including the airbox.

Can you expand on that?

[Andi76]

Judging by Mercedes design, they would have had to make an even smaller airbox. And yet...

Just saw F1 TVs weekend debrief of the Barcelona-Tests. Sam mentioned your CFD-Simulation of the Ferrari sidepods and the drag reduction!

[jjn9128]

Just saw F1 TVs weekend debrief of the Barcelona-Tests. Sam mentioned your CFD-Simulation of the Ferrari sidepods and the drag reduction!

Seriously? I saw Scarbs reference it on one of the Peter Windsor videos.

[Andi76]

Just saw F1 TVs weekend debrief of the Barcelona-Tests. Sam mentioned your CFD-Simulation of the Ferrari sidepods and the drag reduction!

Seriously? I saw Scarbs reference it on one of the Peter Windsor videos.

So now we have Scarbs and Sam reference it. I think you can watch it on youtube tomorrow. All the Tech Talks etc. were on youtube the day after it was aired on F1 TV.

[Vanja #66]

Does your sim have enough resolution to give much insight into the Williams sidepod flow-through/bypass ducts?

I'm not sure if there is a radiator in front of that ducting. Looks like there isn't, but not quite sure. If not, then a sim could be done, but we won't be able to see all the benefits in flow conditioning without the entire car geometry. All in all, the ducting seems to be a typical slat design - energizing the flow above the steep downward curve so it stays attached all the way down.

There was a short discussion regarding F1-75 and if the sidepod sausages are acutally channels guiding air from the front all the way to the beam-wing. Looked far-fetched to me and photos from Barcelona indeed suggest this is not the case. Seeing what Williams did with their slat-like design makes much more sense to me for this kind of "fake" ducting.

Can you expand on that?

Not much to it, to be honest, just that I didn't incorporate any engine cover changes to micro- and tub-pods model. Seeing how this cannon addition led to a big RW change, I assume the two might be connected.

Just saw F1 TVs weekend debrief of the Barcelona-Tests. Sam mentioned your CFD-Simulation of the Ferrari sidepods and the drag reduction!

Thanks, that's very nice to hear. I hope they will post a YT video, please share the link here if you see it.

[vorticism]

Does your sim have enough resolution to give much insight into the Williams sidepod flow-through/bypass ducts?

I'm not sure if there is a radiator in front of that ducting. Looks like there isn't, but not quite sure. If not, then a sim could be done, but we won't be able to see all the benefits in flow conditioning without the entire car geometry. All in all, the ducting seems to be a typical slat design - energizing the flow above the steep downward curve so it stays attached all the way down.

There was a short discussion regarding F1-75 and if the sidepod sausages are acutally channels guiding air from the front all the way to the beam-wing. Looked far-fetched to me and photos from Barcelona indeed suggest this is not the case. Seeing what Williams did with their slat-like design makes much more sense to me for this kind of "fake" ducting.

For fun (maybe ours, not yours) it would be cool to seek you mock up your Ferrari model with the engine cover slats, but duct them to the inner half of the sidepod inlets. We saw in testing they used both small and large slats. Now, that could be for testing heat rejection. Or, maybe it's an aero device. If so, what effect would it have? They'd be playing around with how much air is being deflected around the front of the sidepod, in one sense.

Might seem compromised, but what other way is there to move air in a straight shot through this part of the car? Short of making L-shaped sidepods as done by other cars in the past, there isn't one. Rather than pushing air up and over or around the sides, they allow it to pass straight through, with some surface drag penalty.

edit: looking at some of the engine bay photos there doesn't seem to be any dedicated ducts from the inlet to the louvers.

As for the Williams, there are photos which show that the duct does not have heat exchangers ahead of it. It seems to be either for directing flow down the sidepod, as you suggest, or I'm also thinking it could be a way for them to adjust cooling based on weather. Larger duct for cool weather, no duct for hot weather. In testing the ran the duct both closed and open.