Mercedes GP MGP W01

[Herr_Koos]

Interesting to see the front wing deflection in that Schumy pic above. intentional? I think not ..

The wing isn't deflecting.. It's shaped that way. It has a little kink in it. Look at some other pictures of the new Merc and you'll see the same thing.

[ringo]

It's not a waste of downforce per say. The downforce is only wasted when the wing is in the motion of delfecting. As soon as it reaches it's maximum deflection and stops moving, the car is taking the full downforce.
One other thing to consider is that the wing is close to the ground, the closer it comes to the ground the better the ground effect. So really the downforce is increasing while it deflects to the ground. If it were higher off the ground like a couple feet, then it could be said the movement is wasted in bending and not pushing the car down.
Ground effect from the front wing greatly influences the downforce of the whole car. The closer the better, as long as it's not in the boundary layer.

edit: in fact bending does not waste downforce. The force is still going to the root of the wing. Wasted force during bending is dependent on the rigidity of the material. Carbon fiber is very rigid, so the force will go to the root of the wing along with a moment couple.

[Herr_Koos]

I repeat, the picture does not show the wing flexing.

[RacingManiac]

draw a FBD around the car, the DF is external force and contact patches are the reaction point, and tell me if the DF is wasted. Yes parts bend/deform/whathaveyou, but the whole body is still being pushed down.

[marcush.]

draw a FBD around the car, the DF is external force and contact patches are the reaction point, and tell me if the DF is wasted. Yes parts bend/deform/whathaveyou, but the whole body is still being pushed down.

The force that is bending the wing is what you would normally get in downforce,so actually the bending is a reduction in AoA so a bending Wing is self restricting its producing downforce .
Or put the other way round ..you could use it as a means of having more AoA at lower airspeeds and the wing reduces AoA with speed . In earlier years there was a distinct kink in line of downforce vs Airspeed so effectively you had big downforce up to a certain speed then the wing deflected into a new shape to produce less downforce /and drag..

[tok-tokkie]

draw a FBD around the car, the DF is external force and contact patches are the reaction point, and tell me if the DF is wasted. Yes parts bend/deform/whathaveyou, but the whole body is still being pushed down.

The force that is bending the wing is what you would normally get in downforce,so actually the bending is a reduction in AoA so a bending Wing is self restricting its producing downforce .
Or put the other way round ..you could use it as a means of having more AoA at lower airspeeds and the wing reduces AoA with speed . In earlier years there was a distinct kink in line of downforce vs Airspeed so effectively you had big downforce up to a certain speed then the wing deflected into a new shape to produce less downforce /and drag..

If that last bit was true then the wing would immediately spring back (since the downforce was suddenly less than required to deflect it).

For each action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Whatever downforce is on that wing is counteracted by the tyres pushing up. Newton 3.

[siskue2005]

ok, so what do you guys think of the underdeveloped rear wing?

[marcush.]

draw a FBD around the car, the DF is external force and contact patches are the reaction point, and tell me if the DF is wasted. Yes parts bend/deform/whathaveyou, but the whole body is still being pushed down.

The force that is bending the wing is what you would normally get in downforce,so actually the bending is a reduction in AoA so a bending Wing is self restricting its producing downforce .
Or put the other way round ..you could use it as a means of having more AoA at lower airspeeds and the wing reduces AoA with speed . In earlier years there was a distinct kink in line of downforce vs Airspeed so effectively you had big downforce up to a certain speed then the wing deflected into a new shape to produce less downforce /and drag..

If that last bit was true then the wing would immediately spring back (since the downforce was suddenly less than required to deflect it).

For each action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Whatever downforce is on that wing is counteracted by the tyres pushing up. Newton 3.

yes Newton. Newton is sitting on the wing ? downforce is created by pushing the wing through air and the resulting vertical component is ddownforce hopefully.If the wind will bend the wing the resulting downforce is not necesarily the same.

[autogyro]

+1
There are a lot more forces involved I think.

[RacingManiac]

If the wing bends and it actually makes less df because of the "new" geometry, then sure, you are reducing downforce. But it does not take downforce to bend something, and the NORMAL LOAD(which is where DF ends up) ends up being less. A 10 kg object sitting on a solid block that does not deflect sitting on a scale will read 10kg(+weight of the block), the same 10kg object sitting on a spring will still read 10 kg(+weight of the spring).

[RacingManiac]

Why a waste of DF? The load still goes into the tires.....

No .. the load goes towards deflecting the wing. The DF has to travel thru the chassis before it goes thru the suspension to the tires. Imagine the car sitting still in the pits .. now put enough weight on the wing to make it deflect the 15 or so mm that the pic above seems to show. That weight is the energy used purely to flex the wing. That is the DF wasted, keeping in mind that DF is NOT mass/weight, but rather a force.

You are telling me, that if you put a car on a scale, you put a load on the wing, the scale will not read the load?

Seriously?

[siskue2005]

[RacingManiac]

xkcd is awesome....and I am bored at work staring at excel for the last 4 hours.

[newbie]

I'm sorry BreezyRacer, but you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about!

[BreezyRacer]

I'm sorry BreezyRacer, but you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about!

Indeed I may be wrong about this .. just because the wing flexes does not mean that the forces creating the flex do not transmit to the chassis, all other things being equal. Sorry ..