Flexible wings controversy 2010

[xpensive]

Aha, that worm-like thing is what does the 6 degree adjustment, hence the lever-like shape, but it does so much more.

Ingenious.

[ringo]

I commented on this 20 page back or so.
That's the one part that stands out the most.


my concept was slightly different, but now that i think about it, the actuator could be used to weaken the wing somehow.

[xpensive]

There you go, imagine that crooked carbon-fibre worm, being loaded ahead of itself or behind, helluva difference, no?
Twisting "forward", wing bends up, Twisting "backwards", wing bends down.

They made it a friggin lever, brilliant!

[marcush.]

btw the plank is made of light colour ,the dark colour is sprayed on by the mechanics after each run to highlight the wear patterns on the plank! a very effective means to highlight were the car is touching and how severely.

ah and btw ..simply calculation will reveal that a rigid front wing centre would need a rake of 2.7° ( plank leading edge rubbing the ground and rear ride height at axle 80mm to get to something like 69mm of front wing height...,using the plank leading edge as the pivoting point)

the car length will play a serious part in just how much the back of the car would have to rise to get the front wing close enough to the ground ,150mm in wheelbase would account for no less than 4 mm rear rideheight...definitevely a drawback for the longjohns this year..

about the raising of the plank front section ..could this be something to do with all these damaged monocoque issues we see this year??? could it be the teams purposely let the ancor point for the front splitter stay rise under compression loads coming from the nosecone??? or could the torsionbar spring mounts perform this trick ,lifting the attachment area a few mm under max load..

[SiLo]

It still passes the F1A tests. But if it was really intended for the wing to bend I think with this the wing will vibrate like a spring anytime you have turbulence especially with the large percieved displacement. Almost like a plane wing fluttering.

Well some people argue, that they just see this "wing flutter" or "buffeting" of the RBR front wing when in runs in the down wash flow / vortiece of the Ferrari in front.
Webber travels in a straight line.
It is also noteworthy, that the RB& is appartenly struggleing a lot when running in traffic, behind another car. See Vettel in Hungary, really struggeling to overtake.
So I do think, that the front wing of the RB6 is affected by running not in "clean air", and when in front, they just make max. use of it and disapear into the distance.
Even in Touring cars (DTM) running in traffic affecting the cars quite a lot.

Don't forget that the RBR wing bend during yaw, and you can see Webber is turning in one of the pics and not in the other. But considering his hand are actually only moving slightly, that travel is way too much to be just yaw. It's almost as if there is travel in the FW pillars, which would explain how it yaw's so much and how when travelling in a straight line, the entire wing is lower.

[mep]

ah and btw ..simply calculation will reveal that a rigid front wing centre would need a rake of 2.7° ( plank leading edge rubbing the ground and rear ride height at axle 80mm to get to something like 69mm of front wing height...,using the plank leading edge as the pivoting point)

Ahhhh finaly...
I was waiting long time until someone finaly came up with this.
I wanted to do myself but was to lazy to look into the rules about the dimensions.

front wing height: 69? starting from 75 or how do we have to understand this.
What angle and rear ride height do we need to get front wing heigh to 0 or something they have.

A drawing would help to understand what you did.

[raymondu999]

We've seen this year that the movable front wings (I mean the actual, 6 degree allowed movement, which most teams are using to trim the car's handling, introduced in 2009) can fail and be stuck. What happens if this happens to the movable rear wings? And I wonder, actually. Will the teams gear the ratios for top speed in conjunction with the "non-flexed" configuration? Or will they sacrifice some engine power in "normal" situations, and only use their top speed when their wing is moved?

[tok-tokkie]

That picture of the Red Bull wing 'flexing' seems to be it wobbling. Looking from a distance when in 6th gear left is up & right is down whereas in 5th gear left is now down & right up. (Might be the other way around. Have to move a bit away from the screen & I am not certain as it is a bit fast to be sure.)

The wear pattern on the board is also affected by the curvature of the road. Going over a hump (or kerb) it is half way between the axles that is most likely to ground.

[fausto cedros]

That picture of the Red Bull wing 'flexing' seems to be it wobbling.

The most important thing to me is, as for 747heavy, to notice how each wingtip moves as the ferrari in front slides in...To me it's the proof that the wing is overflexing, but we all agree on this. The matter is: if an evaluation can be made about the downforce loss when the wing enters the wake, we can maybe have some interesting thoughts about the expectable behaviour in the next stiffness test.(or at least figure out if the whole thing deflects in a linear fashion:not, to me).

[747heavy]

We've seen this year that the movable front wings (I mean the actual, 6 degree allowed movement, which most teams are using to trim the car's handling, introduced in 2009) can fail and be stuck. What happens if this happens to the movable rear wings? And I wonder, actually. Will the teams gear the ratios for top speed in conjunction with the "non-flexed" configuration? Or will they sacrifice some engine power in "normal" situations, and only use their top speed when their wing is moved?

good question...
IMHO they would need to keep 100rpm or something off the limit, otherwise they would just hit the rev limiter and still can´t overtake.
On the other hand, this would only happen at the end of the longest straight (being close to the rev limiter), so if the overtake is initated earlier, it won´t be much of a problem.
Maybe the FIA will/can combine it with a slightly increase in max rpm (rev limit) for the time when this is used.

[747heavy]

I commented on this 20 page back or so.

my concept was slightly different, but now that i think about it, the actuator could be used to weaken the wing somehow.

Yes Ringo you did !!!
Did not remember your nice drawing, but your "how to bend a phone book" thouht stayed with me for quite some time.

So all credits to you Ringo, some of us make the water boil quicker then others.
=D> =D> =D>

Have a great day

[marcush.]

I just took the 747h posted FIA drawing were you find the allowed dimensions .




the rule for the plank is from formula1.com site.

3.13 Skid block :
3.13.1 Beneath the surface formed by all parts lying on the reference plane, a rectangular skid block, with a 50mm radius (+/-2mm) on each front corner, must be fitted. This skid block may comprise more than one piece but must :
a) extend longitudinally from a point lying 330mm behind the front wheel centre line to the rear wheel centre line.
b) be made from an homogeneous material with a specific gravity between 1.3 and 1.45.
c) have a width of 300mm with a tolerance of +/- 2mm.
d) have a thickness of 10mm with a tolerance of +/- 1mm.
e) have a uniform thickness when new.


so with this information you can take the wheelbase of the car ,say 3000mm for a very short car and remove those 330mm from wheel centreline to leading edge of the plank.
the leading edge may scape the floor so you got your pivot point there with zero rideheight.
the forward lever is now 1000mm till the trailing edge of the wing profile so you get roughly a 3:1 leverage of rear rideheight to the trailing edge ,wich of course is parallel shifted 86mm +/-2 upwards as per regs.
Add to this the 10mm +/-1mm of the plank ,(I forgot that in my hand calculation),
of course half wingsection height would have to be removed from the calculation as well...so it is a bit too rough admittedly...
the rest is a little trigonometrie ..very basic but you can see instantly you need a lot of rake to get the height of the wing.

Mind you ,the splitter scraping the track would instantly compromise braking as you would hit the brakes ,tyres squashing would instantly unload the tyres ..no good idea...

that one in the regs is very nice:

No part having an aerodynamic influence and no part of the bodywork, with the exception of the skid block in 3.13 above, may under any circumstances be located below the reference plane.

[xpensive]

Intersting measurement that, 760.643 mm, but with a +/- 2 mm tolerance...anyone of my designers putting that on a drawing would be fired on the spot!

[marcush.]

Intersting measurement that, 760.643 mm, but with a +/- 2 mm tolerance...anyone of my designers putting that on a drawing would be fired on the spot!

[mep]

Ahhh you are very strict. Last week I had to work with a experienced engineer who failed to measure/calculate the distance between two points.
These are the days when I start to get desperate....