Red Bull RB8 Renault

[Raptor22]

Just a little thought RE the apparent slot/vent on the nose hump, has anyone considered the aero characteristics of hollow point ammunition?

Such ammo might appear to have the aero characteristics of a house brick, but is actually pretty good. The trick apparently is that the area directly in front of the hollow point forms a sort of bubble of high pressure air, which is what then encounters the oncoming air first, making the effective nose of the projectile a rounded ball, which has much better aero.

Or am I way off the mark here?

My first thought, exactly. Similar notion to rear spoilers and keeping a truck's tailgate up.

Not related

Raymond,

A stagnation point is really just a point where airflow in a stream is said to be zero relative to the surface its flowing over. This zero velocity point and it is just a point that has a higher local pressure that the surrounding freestream. Its position is controlled by the shape of the obstruction. SO in this case it woul be positioned around ahead of the overhang and at around 30degrees below the horizon of the radius of the curve of the overhang

Of course if there is an opening then the stagnation point is aligned more to the radius of the "overhang"

Its net effect will be to set up a wedge that would approximate a straight line tangent to the overhang and stagnation point and intersect the top surface of the nose

[RB7ate9]

Not related

Could you elaborate? I suppose what 42 was talking about was creating a stagnation point while the theory behind spoilers is more about creating a turbulent vortex in a low-pressure area that, in turn creates a buffer that improves flow over an object? I apologize if I have my concepts turned around.

[forty-two]

Just to illustrate what I meant a little better, consider these two projectiles:

First, a wadcutter:

Punches a very neat hole in a paper target, but flies true for only quite a shorrt distance. Note the blunt nose.

Second, a hollowpoint (same calibre, same manufacturer):

Makes a bit of a mess of a paper target, but is accurate over many times the range of the wadcutter above. Note the tapered edges of the nose, and especially the recessed hole in the middle.

Granted, the design objective of a hollow point is to cause expansion when striking the target, and not for aero reasons, but the aero advantage is huge when comparing these two. The hollow point seems to be more accurate over medium range than pretty much everything other than a diabolo (domed) head in fact.

Perhaps the slot isn't a slot at all?

[JB2011]

As I said at the top of page 10 about thinking it was not a hole, but there to create some sort of turbulence or build up; here is the photo I was talking about.



I'm fairly sure that opening does not go right through, the slit itself is far too light for that.

[dren]

That slot/intake is probably blanked off until testing.

[JB2011]

That slot/intake is probably blanked off until testing.

Or it's closed, who knows. I'm saying it's not a hole, time will tell.

Or, it is a hole and it replaces the hole in the nose cone for driver ventilation, as that is not present as far as I can see. Perhaps they've just relocated it to the 'bump' because they won't lose anything more by putting it there.

[forty-two]

Perhaps they used silver or white duct tape to blank it off, that'd explain why it looks so light?

[Just_a_fan]

side pods dont seem as tight? or is the wheel base smaller?

Yeh, I was thining that too – there doesn't seem to be anywhere near as much floor showing at the back.

Last year's car was designed around the EBD. Remove the EBD and you need to design for some other method of downforce production. It's possible that without the EBD the extreme sidepods of last year are not needed or are even detrimental.

Also, the position of the exhaust outlet will have changed the internal exhaust manifold design which will have impacted on the sidepod packaging. This might be as tight as they can get it.

Or it might be identical to last year but just looks different because of the rest of the details in that region create the illusion of less volume.

[yace]

could this hole just be the same one as under the f2012? just for cooling electronic hardware

[PlatinumZealot]

Could it be an air dam?



Ansys eat your heart out!

[Ian P.]

Just a little thought RE the apparent slot/vent on the nose hump, has anyone considered the aero characteristics of hollow point ammunition?

Such ammo might appear to have the aero characteristics of a house brick, but is actually pretty good. The trick apparently is that the area directly in front of the hollow point forms a sort of bubble of high pressure air, which is what then encounters the oncoming air first, making the effective nose of the projectile a rounded ball, which has much better aero.

Or am I way off the mark here?

For the bullet case, you are probably on target.
Unfortunately while F1 cars are fast, they are definitely sub-sonic. The bullet case is supersonic with considerably different flow characteristics. F1 cars also don't spin around their long axis at high rates (150K RPM).
Anyone taking wagers on how long before another one of these aero-slots shows up??

[PlatinumZealot]

How do you know it is a slot? There is no evidence to suggest there is a rectangular hole in the front of the chassis.

[rayden]

How do you know it is a slot? There is no evidence to suggest there is a rectangular hole in the front of the chassis.

the images are pretty clear. We just dont know where the slot goes.

[hardingfv32]

There is a massive bulkhead just behind this opening. This opening does not flow through.

No engineer in his right mind puts a void in this area of the front bulk head. It is too close to the top edge.

This is last years chassis.

Brian

[ringo]

I am not an aero specialist, but I think the above outlines flow path lines are not quite right. The first point where, direction changes to air flow will take place is the very tip of the nose cone. Pressure and velocity will change there, together with re-direction the air. Once the air leaves the tip of the nose cone it likely will not even get directed onto the 'hump' but above the same. So, teh hump will likely not have any and if then a neglectible small influence. Likely some eddy style (dead water) circulation might go on. Probably below the nose cone and on teh side is what counts.

In practice though, the diagrams are wrong – the reason for the hump is to get the nose as high as possible, because of that, everything in front of the hump is flat and level – the air doesn't hit anything before the hump, and hence doesn't get redirected up and over it.

What they do is ignore the top surface in the beginning. Focus is placed on the bottom surface of the tub. After the bottom surface is made as high as possible, with whatever curve, or whatever goal they are aiming for, then the top follows suit. Sticking to the regs on the heights of the different crossections will define the top surface.
In short the bottom surface being the focus is the reason for the step noses really.