A place to discuss the characteristics of the cars in Formula One, both current as well as historical. Laptimes, driver worshipping and team chatter do not belong here.
Looking at the weather forecasts this weekend may not be a good judge of the running order anyway. Currently the circuit is predicted to have rain all Friday, lighter rain on Saturday, and then be dry on Sunday. This will mean that some teams will luck into, or out of, a decent balance and setup, the drivers will be able to have more of an effect in wet running than in dry, and any imbalances introduced under braking will be magnified in the wet running.
Max downforce levels on any of these cars are not going to be drastically affected, it's going to be stability and balance under braking. There's also a theory in one of the autosport editorials that whilst Red Bull may not be as badly affected under braking as the others, the closing of the throttle under braking may well cause them aero problems with their steeper diffuser angle, leading to them having to run less rake than they have been. This in turn causes a drop in downforce.
No one on this board can do any more than guess, and even many of the educated guesses being made internally by the teams are likely to end up being wrong and they have far more knowledge and experience than we do. This is going to take a few races to fully shake out and could have no effect at all on the running order all the way through to a major shakeup - we just don't know yet.
raymondu999 wrote:Regarding hot race exhausts, this mammoth blowhole they have for an exhaust above the beamwing is their hot race exhaust. They have one with a smaller hole actually. If you look back at Melbourne vs Malaysia (I think) you should see the difference VERY clearly.
Way back in this very thread, there was a discussion about the size of that outlet, and it seemed to correspond to whether or not they were running with KERS. With KERS = big outlet, without KERS = smaller outlet.
I don't know if that speculation turned out to be right or wrong though!
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Hamilton stated something about the RB running lower gearing not requiring as high revs when entering corners which is opposed to his own Mclaren which he states runs higher gearing (more exhuast flow). I'm still trying to figure out how this could effect RB more than others if this is indeed Mclaren's situation. The issue could be inherent to the MB engine and possibly show the Renault engine to have better exhaust flow characteristics or better volumetric efficiency.
bjpower wrote:they have been experimenting with a rough skin design on planes.
( not sure if this is why there are dimples on the red bull car or not)
the theory is...
air gets "trapped" by the dimples bascally giving a thing cote of air around the car.
the friction generated by air passing over your car is now air passing over air. so less drag.
the theory is the same for shark skin and Olympic swim suits, they trap water around them so it is water over water.
but i have not heard of anyone getting it to work at high speeds.
god im crap at explaining things
google shark skin
...When you simulate icing conditions on aircraft its common to put sandpaper on the wings I can tell you that they do not work better with a rough surface.[/quote]
Well...there is something new on that area. Wortmann profiles for wings of a glider witch by the way have to be wery efective (L/D ratio from 40 and even up to 60) can be modified with just a strip of tape, to increase performance by as much as 15%, becouse of reduced friction. That tape helps to reduce transition bubble at the wing and helps at airflow over and under the wing.
Read this article (it is a little long, but with pictures, grphs): http://www.deturbulator.org/TheDeturbulatorTape.pdf
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Ferraripilot wrote:Hamilton stated something about the RB running lower gearing not requiring as high revs when entering corners which is opposed to his own Mclaren which he states runs higher gearing (more exhuast flow). I'm still trying to figure out how this could effect RB more than others if this is indeed Mclaren's situation. The issue could be inherent to the MB engine and possibly show the Renault engine to have better exhaust flow characteristics or better volumetric efficiency.
Lower gear = better acceleration out of the corners perhaps?
bjpower wrote:they have been experimenting with a rough skin design on planes.
( not sure if this is why there are dimples on the red bull car or not)
the theory is...
air gets "trapped" by the dimples bascally giving a thing cote of air around the car.
the friction generated by air passing over your car is now air passing over air. so less drag.
the theory is the same for shark skin and Olympic swim suits, they trap water around them so it is water over water.
but i have not heard of anyone getting it to work at high speeds.
god im crap at explaining things
google shark skin
...When you simulate icing conditions on aircraft its common to put sandpaper on the wings I can tell you that they do not work better with a rough surface.
Well...there is something new on that area. Wortmann profiles for wings of a glider witch by the way have to be wery efective (L/D ratio from 40 and even up to 60) can be modified with just a strip of tape, to increase performance by as much as 15%, becouse of reduced friction. That tape helps to reduce transition bubble at the wing and helps at airflow over and under the wing.
Read this article (it is a little long, but with pictures, grphs): http://www.deturbulator.org/TheDeturbulatorTape.pdf[/quote]
you hurt your own argument there though. Reynolds number is important. Rough surfaces work well with small aero surfaces. Good examples are moth wings, other insects and small model air craft. The same does not apply to big air craft.
Scale is important, and principles work differently at different scales.
They have KFM airfoils in RC stuff to I ave my doubts on how well they work bu in no way do I discredit my theory its pretty proven that rough wings throw on a bunch of drag not much lift. A moth is creating lift from a vortex of the wing tip more than off of the lift of its wing shape not to mention as you do its Reynolds number is much different than a F1 car or an airplane. The glider article was interesting but no much different than adding a vortex generator to a wing to improve low speed performance.
Rough surfaces work well. The main idea is to minimize the boundary layer. Depending on size and speed ( reynolds number) different methods are used to solve the problem of boundary layer transition. I believe lockheed were dealing with suction on their starfighter jet. But in fact it really works VERY fine.
All the cars have that bumpy surface somewhere on them. it's just the carbon fibre, not any special intent with the design or anything. It's even more optically bumpy that it feels. Even cars in other racing series have that type of surface, no big deal.
ForMuLaOne wrote:Rough surfaces work well. The main idea is to minimize the boundary layer. Depending on size and speed ( reynolds number) different methods are used to solve the problem of boundary layer transition. I believe lockheed were dealing with suction on their starfighter jet. But in fact it really works VERY fine.
I am sorry to call you out like this but you are completely wrong. On well designed wing adding surface roughness is not beneficial. If you have a poorly designed wing that is stalling at low speeds adding VGs can improve low speed performance at the expense of higher speed drag.
Rough surfaces work extremely well on the right surfaces. I am certain there are area's on a F1 car where they could be beneficial, just as well as there would be area's on an F1 car where they would be more detrimental then beneficial.
However, I am certain (having work extensively with CF and composites myself), that the "dimples" we see on the pic's are only there since they use pre-pregged CF. This is CF that is pre-impregnated with Expoy resin by the manufacturer. It is harder to manipulate and must be heat-treated in an oven in order to achieve maximum bonding and strength when compared to manual impregnation. The benefit of using pre-preg is that you do not have a single-drop of expoxy resin too much and all fibres are equally impregnated (something that is very hard to do manually). As well, using pre-preg, reduces the time required for the manufacturing process since you do not need to use peelply to remove excessive epoxy resin during the hardening process.
Where do the dimples come from:
Pre-preg CF has it's epoxy-resin applied to the CF before it is woven (or so I have been told by the person from the shop where I buy my Cf and epoxy). Therefore, no excessive resin builds up between the different weaves of CF. When you apply resin manually on dry CF (and even when using peelply) you can't get everything off (although peelply helps a lot already), but there still will be excessive resin within the weave-pattern. That in itself fills the "gaps" between the weaves hence giving a smoother finish but with a higher weight. in "normal applications, the paint will cover the gaps between CF weaves, again here (and i am truly amazed by it), the paint on these F1 cars is so dense in colour for such a thin layer. they cover the CF black with probably with a very thin layer of paint, something everyone that has painted there home themselves knows it is not an easy thing to do). This is absolutely high-tech paint (was mentioned in a McL press-brief earlier this year when they announced extending their partnership with their paint supplier).
Personally, I typically apply 1-2 additional layers of GF (GlassFiber) over my CF layers in my boards and constructions to protect the CF from abbrasion. On top of the GF layer, I apply DD-lack which is (almost) scratch-resistant. After that, the bottom of my boards is briefly sanded in the direction the water will be moving in order to get a thin layer of water to attach to the board. Since doing that, the friction is much reduced, speed increased and i can enjoy my sport earlier then most.
An example where there usage of dimples would be good and bad:
The teams for off-shore boats are applying this on their stepped-hull, but not on their propellers. In an F1 car, I'd assume the teams would/could apply the technique to the bodywork and floor/diffuser, but not to it's foils and wings.
Last edited by shamikaze on 08 Jul 2011, 10:28, edited 1 time in total.
Ferraripilot wrote:Hamilton stated something about the RB running lower gearing not requiring as high revs when entering corners which is opposed to his own Mclaren which he states runs higher gearing (more exhuast flow). I'm still trying to figure out how this could effect RB more than others if this is indeed Mclaren's situation. The issue could be inherent to the MB engine and possibly show the Renault engine to have better exhaust flow characteristics or better volumetric efficiency.
I don't know, but would it not be the opposite ?
Everyone seems to agree that the RB corner speeds (entry - mid - exit) are higher then anyone elses so using lower-gearing would mean higher rev's hence more exhaust-flow over and through the diffuser. If McL would be using taller gearing that would mean lower rev's (unless they are 1 gear down from the RB) at the same point in the same turn. So lower REv's meaning lower exhaust-gas flow through meaning less DF generated by it. Maybe that is a reason why McL "assume's" or "hopes" to be less affected by the diffuser restrictions compared to RB.
I seem to remember LH stating that in turkey Turn8 they where one gear lower then RB making the "bad" situation only worse.
Has anyone noticed RB7 running less rake than before? It's difficult to tell at this point but from the pictures I have seen that certainly appears to be the case
Ferraripilot wrote:Has anyone noticed RB7 running less rake than before? It's difficult to tell at this point but from the pictures I have seen that certainly appears to be the case
I thought so too but hadn't said anything as it's really hard to tell with any certainty, doubly so with the wet running we've had so far. However if the most recent reports about Red Bull being able to run at 50% throttle instead of 10% for the others are true then they'll probably be able to crank the rake back on.
