Sidepods must be there if not for cooling than for safety. They are multi-purpose and when it matters safety they are actually side impact absorbers. Front end of the sidepod is recent years actually part of the monocoque while bars, radiators and cover protect the fuel tank from side impacts. Since FIA saftey tests require certain level of stifness/resistance even if sidepods were not there for cooling additional impact absorbers would be implemented.
darksag3x wrote:are there any ways to replace the sidepods in an F1 car? if so, how badly would downforce be upset?
Downforce would be reduced dramatically. At the moment the wing and diffuser (rear of car - the bits at the front of the car feed the air to the underbody) work together to extract air from below the car. This encourages air under the car to move faster than it would, which creates a pressure drop (Bernouli). The more surface area you can reduce pressure over, the more underbody downforce you will get. Let's say you can get a 1psi pressure drop. Over 1000sq inches, you will get 1000lbs downforce, if the surface area is 2000sq inches, you get 2000lbs downforce.
A pretty simplistic explanation of something very complicated, but you should get the idea.
I think that floor and sidepod have been mixed in these posts. In recent years sidepods are dramatically changed in order to increase downforce – shape, upwards hot air outlets (chimneys, gills etc.) including the position and direction of exhaust.
However, regardless on fact that most of the hot air exits sidepods upwards and backwards there is still great amount of upforce generated due to upper shape of the sidepods which isn’t generating downforce at all. All gain in downofrce occurs only due to previously mentioned elements “hot air outlets (chimneys, gills etc.) including the position and direction of exhaust” and if it wasn’t for those long sidpod winglets overall sidepods effect would be generation of upforce.
As RH1300 said – more pressure you get above (above the floor) more downofce you get but since floor is there only due to FIA regulations it is very questionable how would F1 car look if it was air cooled without need for exposure of radiators to air stream. Safety structure shaped aerodynamically as much as FIA regulations would allow would be there but its shape definitely wouldn’t resemble on contemporary sidpods.
I think that such sidpods would basically resemble on some F1 cars from ‘70s. Unfortunately, back than sidepods contained fuel tanks while radiators were located sideways from engine, longitudinally. http://www.motorsportphotopage.de/bilde ... /ami10.jpg
Yes, but with smaller and more streamlined sidepods (safety structure). Shape of those sidpods and possible air inlet would greatly vary on if fan cooling would be allowed or not (fan allowed = much smaller air inlet).
Try to think of the whole car chassis as a whol ewing, one large aerodynamic device. Now, that device is trying to press the car against the ground, via downforce. If you remove the sidepods, you reduce the chassis area, and as RH1300 explained it, you reduce downforce. Even though sidepods are seen as just places to hang the radiators and a place to have side impact protection, please consider them as part of the chassis, used in generating downforce.
As far as using an air cooled engine, no, no way, nuh uh, not gonna work.
An engine produces heat, and to truly achieve high performance, you have to run high temperatures and pressures. The only way these days is to run liquid cooling, where conditions can be controlled, and heat removed efficiently. Air cooling, although cheap and simple, cannot remove heat from critical areas like liquid cooling can. You just can't get a high performance engine to run reliably and consistently with air cooling.
The last of the high performance air cooled engines, the Porsche, now has liquid cooled heads, as well as the oil system.
- the bits at the front of the car feed the air to the underbody) work together to extract air from below the car. This encourages air under the car to move faster than it would, which creates a pressure drop (Bernouli). The more surface area you can reduce pressure over, the more underbody downforce you will get. Let's say you can get a 1psi pressure drop. Over 1000sq inches, you will get 1000lbs downforce, if the surface area is 2000sq inches, you get 2000lbs downforce.