Red Bull RB6

[aral]

Thats true n-smikle.
. Remember water is also weight. So it would be bad designed.

What? The amount of water required for cooling is closely calculated, and whether or not it is in a large or small tube, the weight cannot change. The weight of 1 gallon of water is the same irrespective of the way it is stored.

[marcush.]

they are talking about volume change due to use of more waterpipe crossection.

the flow will of course be more vulnerable if the pipe dimensions are borderline small..as every bend radius or worse: a kink -will course restriction ,even tube inner surface is not unimportantso with bigger diamters thats less of an issue .
the maximum 10k temperature drop in the core will have nothing to do with it.

[raymondu999]

I wonder, actually, if the RB5 also had this low top-speed weakness of its daughter the RB6. Does anyone know if this problem is a carryover from last year? Not much was made of any low top-speed for the RB5 last year.

[ringo]

The bodies are similar, and the bodies make most of the RB downforce, not the wings.
More downforce means more drag. The bodies can be the most efficient at making downforce, but the imense downforce may still carry a lot of drag.
So it's almost impossible to do anything about the top speeds. I think they are happier with the extreme downforce from the body though.

[Mandrake]

I think it's a well balanced trade-off RB went for. Most circuits require a lot of downforce and the benefit from high downforce in highspeed corners is larger than any straight-line speed advantage (See turkey as example).

However, on some tracks the RB will just not be competitive due to this fact. I expect Force India to be very very strong in Monza, they were among the fastest everywhere this season. I wonder how much the RedBull will be able to pull out in Spa's middle section.....maybe it can compensate some of the straight-line losses.

[raymondu999]

Maybe they will produce an RB6 with 1 degree AoA on the wings to chase the top speed?

[PNSD]

The RB5 was awful in Monza last year, but this year's car is an improvement in those areas which were bad. I dont expect RBR to lower than 2nd best car, even at Monza.

[747heavy]

some links to interesting close-ups of RBR RB6 details

Front wing/front brakes/floor/rear suspension/diffussor
Enjoy:

http://twitpic.com/2c2blj/full

http://twitpic.com/2bhg1x/full

http://twitpic.com/2bb4cy/full

http://twitpic.com/2aayl8/full

http://twitpic.com/2aaxo9/full

http://twitpic.com/2aawzc/full

sorry, I tried to upload them, but they want show for one reason or another

[imightbewrong]

some links to interesting close-ups of RBR RB6 details

Front wing/front brakes/floor/rear suspension/diffussor
Enjoy:

http://twitpic.com/2c2blj/full

http://twitpic.com/2bhg1x/full

http://twitpic.com/2bb4cy/full

http://twitpic.com/2aayl8/full

http://twitpic.com/2aaxo9/full

http://twitpic.com/2aawzc/full

sorry, I tried to upload them, but they want show for one reason or another

Thanks! I took the liberty to upload them to imgur, good to have a mirror and I prefer it to twitpic as twitpic is very restrictive regarding hotlinking as you noticed.

[ecapox]

That is just a massive front wing that generates WAY more downforce than what the FIA tests for. Taht thing is insane.

[ringo]

Insane indeed

The back of the car and diffuser openings reminds me of the f22.

[wesley123]

At the abck of the car, around the same position as the diffuser exits, above the crash box there is some sort of trailing edge of something, anyone knows what this part is? Is there an air exit over there?

[747heavy]

RB6 rear upright/driveshaft

[raymondu999]

Hey guys. I have a question. The RB6 we know just has huge amounts of downforce. In fact I believe Lewis guessed that the Red Bull had "double" the amount of downforce that McLaren had. I don't know if this is true, and it probably won't be, as Lewis wouldn't be able to know intricate details, and I doubt he can even be able to calculate to any degree of accuracy the level of downforce.

However, with the RB6 having so much vertical load pushing the car downwards, wouldn't the car have to be set up with a higher ride height, or with stiffer springs? say at a certain speed the McLaren produces 10000N of downforce, and Red Bull (let's take Lewis's twice the amount of downforce for the sake of this argument) generates 20000N. Using the same stiffness of spring, the Red Bull would compress twice as much.

[747heavy]

so far so good/correct

Your numbers are maybe a bit high, and I don´t think that the RB6 will produce twice as much downforce as the McLaren, but you general way of thinking is correct.

Now, there is another way to achieve this, which we should keep in mind.
You can stop the car going down, by using a progressive spring (e.g. spring plus bumpstop f.e.), or just a stop onto which the car will settle/rest.

In practice, they (RBR) will use, most likely ,a stiff(er) third spring/damper element to support the car at high downforce levels.

This will still enable them to run relative soft springs (at each wheel) for good traction/mechanical grip in low speed cornes, while supporting the higher (aero)load at higher speeds.
It´s unlikely, that they will run a higher ride height for this purpose, as it will reduce the overall downforce the car produces from it´s floor/underbody.