McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes

[speedsense]

the RBR wing certainly looks like it loads the outer of its wing more, where as the Mclaren has a shocking apparent lack of element area.. possibly a more streamlined design, creating smoother flow to the rest of the body

Why does it matter whether the wing loads the ouside, the middle, or the inside? I mean this for reasons other than devices downstream (aero implications).... I know a reason if the wings were spilt one side of a low nose to the other with the nose inbetweeen.... but cantilever wings have no side to side dominance, only slightly so, (left to right) as they have center support systems (two)

more downforce on the left side, helps the right side tire, equally as much..IMHO

[marcush.]

from this perspective the RedBull wing looks much less complicated and less trying to micromanage the flow...whereas the Mclaren approch seems to try and influence every single molecule of air and give it guidance
.


edited for wrong use of quote feature ,sorry shamikaze!

[Tjakka]

the RBR wing certainly looks like it loads the outer of its wing more, where as the Mclaren has a shocking apparent lack of element area.. possibly a more streamlined design, creating smoother flow to the rest of the body

Why does it matter whether the wing loads the ouside, the middle, or the inside? I mean this for reasons other than devices downstream (aero implications).... I know a reason if the wings were spilt one side of a low nose to the other with the nose inbetweeen.... but cantilever wings have no side to side dominance, only slightly so, (left to right) as they have center support systems (two)

more downforce on the left side, helps the right side tire, equally as much..IMHO

I think what he means is that the DF on the RBR wing is generated and flowing towards the outer edge (levarage) so it is able to flex more. And move the airflow over the wheels.

But because the MP4-26 is designed to let the air go between the nose and wheels over there specificly designed sidepods to the rear wing to gain DF on the rear, they are not able to use the same front wing design as the rbr. And maybe therefore could have trouble generation front wing df (?)

[Mchamilton]

the RBR wing certainly looks like it loads the outer of its wing more, where as the Mclaren has a shocking apparent lack of element area.. possibly a more streamlined design, creating smoother flow to the rest of the body

Why does it matter whether the wing loads the ouside, the middle, or the inside? I mean this for reasons other than devices downstream (aero implications).... I know a reason if the wings were spilt one side of a low nose to the other with the nose inbetweeen.... but cantilever wings have no side to side dominance, only slightly so, (left to right) as they have center support systems (two)

more downforce on the left side, helps the right side tire, equally as much..IMHO

I think what he means is that the DF on the RBR wing is generated and flowing towards the outer edge (levarage) so it is able to flex more. And move the airflow over the wheels.

But because the MP4-26 is designed to let the air go between the nose and wheels over there specificly designed sidepods to the rear wing to gain DF on the rear, they are not able to use the same front wing design as the rbr. And maybe therefore could have trouble generation front wing df (?)

bare in mind that this FW designs has been a feature of the mclaren sing singapore last year, the mp4-25 had 'standard' sidepods so i wouldnt be so sure that this front wing is optimised for the U-pods. ive always thought the RBR FW is a much better design for DF, as said before it seems to have a much greater element surface area and angle of attack

[shamikaze]

edited for wrong use of quote feature ,sorry shamikaze!

No problem Marcush

bare in mind that this FW designs has been a feature of the mclaren sing singapore last year, the mp4-25 had 'standard' sidepods so i wouldnt be so sure that this front wing is optimised for the U-pods. ive always thought the RBR FW is a much better design for DF, as said before it seems to have a much greater element surface area and angle of attack

I full agree with You McHamilton. I found these pictures the best ones i'd seen so far showing the upper-area from a above-angle in a pretty much identical shot between both. The difference in size and approach (RB seems to aim a lot to divert air over the Front Tyre, much more so then the McL imho) is quite large to say the least.

Also the angled inside-flap (start from the middle section of the FW opening up towards the center of car, seem to aid channeling air towards the space between the thub and the wheel to probably get more air into the sidepods and/or push air under the car.

I don't think that applying the same or identical design would necesarily benefit mcL, but the RB's design would be more likely to aid in the FW-tip's flexing on their extremities.

Anyone on here who could do some "guestimate" work with downforce generated by the RB7 FW on fixed speed's (assume 200 and 300kph) ? Taking the size and AoA, I would bet that the 100kg the FIA tests with, would be aburdly low in comparison.

Does anyone know what the saturation-point would be of the Pirelli Front-Tyres (max. weight that can be loaded on these tyres ?) I remember that last yr Mercedes where claiming to run close (or at) to the saturation point of these tyres meaning, they could not add more df without comprimising the structural stability/strength of the tyre. I'd think that that woudl also put a limit on how much DF you could add without risking that. At a certain point, I would assume that too much is smply too much and you'd risk "exploding" the tyres with the total amount of pressure you'd load on them.

I know, many questions in this one

[Carmack]

Once I heard that F1 FW generates aprox. 700-800 kg of downforce, but as far as I remember, these numbers are for pre 2009 seasons...

If it helps..

Cheers!

[ringo]

700 to 800kg for the front wing is a gross over estimation i think.
Most of the downforce numbers are also for speeds that the car will never see with a high downforce setup becuase it is drag limited.

[beelsebob]

700 to 800kg for the front wing is a gross over estimation i think.
Most of the downforce numbers are also for speeds that the car will never see with a high downforce setup becuase it is drag limited.

The last number I heard bandied around on this topic was 350kg of downforce from the front wing by the BBC commentators.

[wesley123]

350kg is pretty plausible imo. that would be around 3500N, then a similar amount of the rear would make it a total of 7000N, that sounds pretty plausible because the ridicilous downforce of the group C cars was around 9000N in the end and there everything was allowed lol.

[timbo]

700 to 800kg for the front wing is a gross over estimation i think.
Most of the downforce numbers are also for speeds that the car will never see with a high downforce setup becuase it is drag limited.

In 2000 FW contributed ~37% of overall DF.
Seeing that today cars can manage 5g turns (with tyre mu of 1,7?), it would seem 700-800 kg is not much of an overstatement.

[timbo]

350kg is pretty plausible imo. that would be around 3500N, then a similar amount of the rear would make it a total of 7000N, that sounds pretty plausible because the ridicilous downforce of the group C cars was around 9000N in the end and there everything was allowed lol.

13kN were possible in 2000.

[PlatinumZealot]

4.5g turns - mass 620kg - mu 1.7 you say?

620*4.5*g = 1.7 * Downforce + 620 * g

Downforce = 620* g * (4.5 - 1) / 1.7

= 620 * g * 2
= 12400 N
= 2800 lbs

I think The Le Mans cars have more

[ringo]

that's 1272 kg for the whole car.
Which would be, 37% x 1272 kg = 470kg for the front wing.

37% is also very overestimated. The front wing could be 25 - 30% according to some references. Making that value as low as 318kg.

Lemans cars have more downforce than an F1, so that's why i guessed initially that 800kg was too much. The whole car would have 2700kg of DF or over 5800 lb of DF.
That's disgustingly high.

[timbo]

The 37% figure is from F1-2000 data from this book http://www.amazon.com/Ferrari-Formula-U ... 0768013410
On modern car the figure might be slightly different but should be in the same ballpark.

13kN is data from the same book too.

I don't think drivers are able to exploit the max g envelope at all times, so the 4,5g figure is a bit of understatement of maximum capacity of the car.
For example the g-g envelope for F1-2000 goes up to 4.8-4.9 g of lateral acceleration and that is 2000 car.

But yeah 350-450 kg is more likely .

[Pierce89]

350kg is pretty plausible imo. that would be around 3500N, then a similar amount of the rear would make it a total of 7000N, that sounds pretty plausible because the ridicilous downforce of the group C cars was around 9000N in the end and there everything was allowed lol.

Group C cars at the end all quoted in the neighborhood of 10,000 lbs of downforce at 200 mph.(Couldn't go 170 in high DF trim though)