Espresso wrote: ↑27 Feb 2024, 01:29
venkyhere wrote: ↑26 Feb 2024, 15:41
SSScoffee wrote: ↑26 Feb 2024, 14:18
Could it be that they are finding less floor gains, and are trying to find more gains elsewhere, hence the massive sidepod aero change?
Other way around... everything that is done on the 'visible' bodywork is solely meant to increase the efficiency and productivity of the 'invisible' bodywork - the floor underneath. All this reworking the non-roll-hoop cooling setup (to increase the undercut by a huge margin compared to RB19) and splitting it into 3 inlets per side (instead of 1 per side for RB19) is aimed to improve the flow characteristics of the sidepods and engine cover, in a particular way such that the flow to the rear of the car is enhanced in such a way as to utilize the benefits from the way the floor works, even more.
Or stating the obvious? With increasing speed the sidepod generates a marginal lift countering the increasing downforce, supporting the suspension and stabilizing (the downward motion of) the floor in result preventing a stall of the floor at high speed....
The game is to keep the ´suction´ generated at cornering at maximum and at straight line optimal & minimal whilst preventing a stall.
To be honest, I've thought about this, that's why I worded my reply without including the words lift or downforce. Because we have two low-pressure surfaces near the 'blocking area' of the sidepod undercut's high pressure zone -> one above the sidepod and one below it, the outwash portion of the underfloor. So where is the 'resultant' force from the sidepod going to be ? upwards or downwards ?
The surfaces and shapes might be designed in such a way that the two opposing forces follow different non-linearities with the car's speed:
1) when there is an actual yaw-angle present, the floor-pressing may dominate
2) when there is no yaw, the 'lifting' may dominate, reducing the severity of the underfloor downforce at near Vmax straighline speeds, and thus preventing stall/porpoising etc.
All this, apart from the primary jobs of the high-pressure zone in the undercut's 'blocker region'
a) bleed sideways and bulldoze the front wheel wake outwards of the car, not giving it a chance to meet the car's bodywork (assisted by the floor edge vortices)
b) bleed (or squeeze) itself through the entire undercut path, all the way to the coke bottle area, providing assist (apart from other assistants like cooling rejected hot air, sidepod top downwash, elephant-trunk/sausage gullies, main engine cover cooling reject hot air etc, all of which are flowing towards the rear) by gushing into the beamwing area, improving diffuser extraction.