Ferrari F138

[stefan_]

Belgium 2013 - Thursday (22.08.2013)

[JDC123]

why do some teams have such a curved leading edge on their rear wing. is it to get more air on the underside of the wing. just wanted to know as this year ferrari have had the biggest curved edge consistently no matter what track.

[Cuky]

why do some teams have such a curved leading edge on their rear wing. is it to get more air on the underside of the wing. just wanted to know as this year ferrari have had the biggest curved edge consistently no matter what track.

I am not an aerodynamic expert, but I think that is to shorten the distance that air has to pass over the wing in comparison to the distance that it has to pass under the wing to create larger pressure difference and thus produce more downforce

[Diff-user]

why do some teams have such a curved leading edge on their rear wing. is it to get more air on the underside of the wing. just wanted to know as this year ferrari have had the biggest curved edge consistently no matter what track.

I am not an aerodynamic expert, but I think that is to shorten the distance that air has to pass over the wing in comparison to the distance that it has to pass under the wing to create larger pressure difference and thus produce more downforce

Well its a commonly held misconception that lift is due to the difference in the path travelled because the fluid parcels have to reach the trailing edge at the same time. Infact any flow visualisation would show that this is not so. One way to look at lift is to think of it as due to a circulation, or crudely, a change in direction of air with air trying to resist it thus generating lift (read on kutta condition and kutta jukowski theorem to know more on this).

Now coming to the leading edge. Consider a flat plate at an angle of attack. The air parcels that hit the plate near its leading edge have to turn around sharply around the leading edge and then there is an adverse pressure gradient then on that might lead to separation. Now if you droop the front of the flat plate down, crudely speaking, the air parcels no longer have to turn as sharply as before. Advantage? Delayed separation.

Now why on an F1 car at some tracks? Well , may be, its there on most of the tracks but its too small to notice because what we see is the geometric angle of attack which does not include the effect of upwash of the rear wing. However at low downforce tracks the upwash on the wing is not as much as those at higher angles of attack. Hence the wings will see greater tendency to have flow separation and the curved leading edge solves that to some extent.

[stefan_]

Belgium 2013 - Friday (23.08.2013)

[majki2111]

High downforce rear wing on Alonso's car, low downforce rear wing on Massa's car.

[diffuser]

Belgium 2013 - Thursday (22.08.2013)


http://i.imgur.com/5zOS2D1.jpg

Totally new design of the brake discs - the wholes are three together, as opposed to the usual 4 or 5 rows of small circles.

I believ it isn't new; if I am correct they already have used those earlier in the season. Ferrari does switch constantly brake disks from race to race.

Edit: they are the same ones from the british grand prix.

SPA


GERMANY


SILVERSTONE(2 pics)






If I remember correctly what's important about these brakes is the slot that goes around the whole brake, it allows the air heated by the brakes to warm the tires.

From what I remember, it didn't have enough of a warming effect.

[aleks_ader]

SPA
http://i.imgur.com/YL14Xru.jpg

GERMANY
http://www.omnicorse.it/img/articoli/ev ... fiaggi.jpg

SILVERSTONE(2 pics)
http://img2.auto-motor-und-sport.de/Fer ... 9ju557.jpg


If I remember correctly what's important about these brakes is the slot that goes around the whole brake, it allows the air heated by the brakes to warm the tires.

From what I remember, it didn't have enough of a warming effect.

I think its all about keeping the brake temp on optimum level inside the operation window (Ceramic brakes are very Temp sensitive, due high efficiency on high operational temperatures, about 650 - 850, max 1400 °C). And from that reason because teams pretty well understand the behavior of C-Si brakes they adapt and opt the brakes during season more often. They made such adaptations by changing quantity of air inlet volume (altering the shape of brake ducts) or like is very common in Ferrari case play with shape of cooling disk.
From that fact + if you add in equation "scoppless duct design" you could quickly figure out the main goal of Ferrari engineers behind it.

So in my opinion Ferrari aero experts prime goal is to keep the shape of inside flow around the tire (so known tire wake) intact, unchanged as possible, they probably don't want to mess with it to much by different shapes of the scoops. That os probably cus they will hurt aero on the car to much. This aproach is convenient expecialy if you really have issues about knowledge and understanding of windunnel results=>bad correlation bv. really nice article about it LINK 3

In other words Spa is low demanding braking circuit according BREMBO drivers there keep the brake pedal down for about 11% of lap time with only 2 hard braking spots. (sources LINK 1, LINK 2)
And Brembo engineers find solution for Ferrari. They y simply reduce the total heat transfer and radiation area inside disk.0

SOME reading LINKS about BRAKES
LINK 4, LINK 5, LINK 6, LINK 7

EDIT: add link in about duct shape design, correct some word

[radosav]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPOISe-R ... ata_player
Car looks good here!

[Tim.Wright]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPOISe-R ... ata_player
Car looks good here!

That was an in lap...

[radosav]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPOISe-R ... ata_player
Car looks good here!

That was an in lap...

he was pushing it in S2 very hard. maybe they tried to adjust setup more for S2, Alonso was very fast in S2 at FP1.

[wesley123]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPOISe-R ... ata_player
Car looks good here!

That was an in lap...

he was pushing it in S2 very hard. maybe they tried to adjust setup more for S2, Alonso was very fast in S2 at FP1.

Just out of interrest, why would you push on an in-lap? I am no engineer or anything, but that just seems like the stupidest thing you can do.

But no, he was not pushing, just normal behavior on a dirty track in lower downforce setup

[tpe]

So, besides the low downforce RW, did you spot ANY other difference? And I am not talking about the brakes. From the pictures I saw, I could not understand if they bring to Spa any update or not.

[diffuser]

So, besides the low downforce RW, did you spot ANY other difference? And I am not talking about the brakes. From the pictures I saw, I could not understand if they bring to Spa any update or not.

I checked the diffuser, it's the same as they ran in hungry.
The rear beam wing looks different, it arches like a bird flapping downwards (the bird being in the middle with wings on either side).

The DRS actuator has changed as well. I think they've reverted to the electronic actuator they ran way back from the Hydrolic that failed on them earlier this year.

the front wing is different, it looks similar to what they ran in Silverstone but trimmed down. They have a new slot in it as well in the middle (like a sheet raised from a bed).

I haven't seen any pictures of the exhaust or side of the car to tell.

[rgkma]

Wonder if we will see the hole under the nose this year