Solution to the F1 "nose problem"

[gold333]

This is a question to engineers.

What lowest level denominator in terms of regulation change would eliminate the current situation of designers wanting to channel air under the nose/car thereby resulting in these hideous nose designs (to comply with maximum nose tip heights.)

Back in the early 90's cars looked sleek because they were designed to be pushed into the ground by air moving over them.
Modern cars want to get air under the car. It seems counter intuitive, if something needs to be pushed into the ground (as a whole), air needs to move over it, not under it.

Anyhow, so the question to any engineers is: What single element in the regulations could be changed to eliminate the wish for designers to move air under the car, is it e.g. the stepped bottom? The wooden plank? front bulkhead height? track width? FW plane height?

[Lycoming]

Modern cars want to get air under the car. It seems counter intuitive, if something needs to be pushed into the ground (as a whole), air needs to move over it, not under it.

Bernoulli says otherwise. In light of that... as long as downforce is beneficial, really nothing will remove the incentive to accelerate air under the car.

If you just want nicer looking noses, you'll have to look elsewhere for solutions.

[n_anirudh]

Mandate cross sectional areas at different distances forward of the front axle and above the ref plane for any bodywork components. This will get rid of the "awkward" noses we are seeing this season. I think the 2015 rules also mandate the slope of the nose, so that cars do slide underneath another car.

I hope atleast one team puts out one pretty car this season..

[PlatinumZealot]

The high noses isn't really to get "more air" under the floor as people say. You can definitely have more air, but if the quality of air flow is poor you can't use it. In fact the high nose It is to get energized and more laminar air to the front splitter, floor and the barge boards. This gives the air going under the floor going through straighter and faster. You can create Better flow structures from the barge boards and other bodywork with straighter higher energy air than turbulent air coming from all over the place.

[gold333]

[...] In fact the high nose It is to get energized and more laminar air to the front splitter, floor and the barge boards. [...]

So what if the car had a flat bottom and 4-8 millimeters of ride height like in the early 90's before the current stepped bottom and inches of ride height were introduced?

[bhall]

I think eliminating the neutral center section of the front wing would go a long way toward solving F1's "nose problem," because creating downforce right then and there is a far more efficient use of that real estate than using it to move airflow toward the rear of the car. Without a dire need for that area to remain free from obstruction, we'd likely see a return to CoG-friendly 2008-spec nose/chassis heights, and teams wouldn't have to resort to aesthetic abominations like the step-nose and whateverthehellwe'recallingthesemonstrosities in order to satisfy the regulations.

Moreover, now that there are additional areas available for performance differentiation between the cars - power, fuel efficiency, tire wear, aero, DRS, etc - the effects of "dirty air" have been somewhat marginalized anyway.

[beelsebob]

I think eliminating the neutral center section of the front wing would go a long way toward solving F1's "nose problem," because creating downforce right then and there is a far more efficient use of that real estate than using it to move airflow toward the rear of the car. Without a dire need for that area to remain free from obstruction, we'd likely see a return to CoG-friendly 2008-spec nose/chassis heights, and teams wouldn't have to resort to aesthetic abominations like the step-nose and whateverthehellwe'recallingthesemonstrosities in order to satisfy the regulations.

Moreover, now that there are additional areas available for performance differentiation between the cars - power, fuel efficiency, tire wear, aero, DRS, etc - the effects of "dirty air" have been somewhat marginalized anyway.

I disagree. The teams are trying to send air to the rear, not because there's no efficient way to create downforce at the nose (if they wanted to, they could pile on snow ploughs, and all the AoA they can on the front wing). Instead, they send air to the rear because there isn't a way of generating downforce at the rear. They have a tiny diffuser, and a tiny rear wing, and no beam wing, and they basically have no way to generate enough downforce to push the driven wheels into the ground. The teams are already sacrificing front grip in order to get more rear grip. Adding more front grip is not going to change that.

The way to stop the high nose nonsense is actually to strip away even more room for manoeuvre with the front wing. That will make the teams have to actually use the front wing to produce downforce rather than to set up the rear of the car.

Of course, there's a reason that the FIA are not doing this, which is that as soon as they do this, the effects of following another car are multiplied many times over. The FIA have deliberately set up the sport as front downforce heavy, to minimise the penalty to following another car.

[piast9]

Since I've seen horrible sketches drawn several months ago of how the 2014 noses would look like some radical ideas came to my mind. The first one - mandate the front splitter to be much closer to the front of the car. For example at the front axis or at fixed distance from the tip of the nose.

The second idea: mandate that if you have a sun in an exact zenith shining on the car then no bodywork part with exception of wings, mirrors etc, may directly cast a shadow on the ground. Only the floor may do it. It would force that there were a flat floor planes at the heights specified by the current regulations beneath the whole car and possibly would bring back sleek car shapes from the late 80's.

What do you think?

[henra]

Anyhow, so the question to any engineers is: What single element in the regulations could be changed to eliminate the wish for designers to move air under the car, is it e.g. the stepped bottom? The wooden plank? front bulkhead height? track width? FW plane height?

The current trend is fostered by a quite significant imbalance of Front vs Rear DF.
Aggressively limiting the available front DF by making the FW smaller would go a long way to move towards traditional low noses.
The problem is FIA did this on purpose in order to facillitate overtaking. In earlier days the signifcant loss of DF on the front when closely following another car often meant that in a fast sweeping turn the chasing car would have massive trouble following because of loss of DF on the front axle.
FIA cured that problem to some extent at the cost of these ugly noses.
In a regulation environment where Teams are fighting desperately for rear DF the only solution to prevent these excesses we see at the moment would be super tight regulation of geometry of the whole front section.
Which again would be moving F1 even further towards a spec racing series which is not really intended.

That said some geometric restrictions could help to prevent the worst excesses. (No concave areas and no steps allowed forward of the AA line on the side of the noses when viewed from above (to prevent the D*ck noses) nor on the upper surface when seen from the side (to prevent Platypu noses)). Some clever designer will still find a way to cretate an ugly nose nontheless...

[autogyro]

I am a firm believer in 'what looks right works right' as far as cars and aircraft go.
F1 cars are now so far from looking right comparing them to the car art of the past is completely impossible.
This is because of the FIA regulations and the manic reliance on aero downforce.

[machin]

Rather than the 95x95mm (or equivalent) cross section 50mm from the nose tip, they should've gone for a bigger cross section slightly further back from the tip, as shown in my sketch below in red..... Although I agree with Autogyro; it is the fact that there are too many rules which is causing these weird shapes to occur.

[gold333]

What if the car had no splitter?

[AnthonyG]

It's just a brainstorm idea, but perhaps a standardized nosecone shape would bring a solution.
Teams would however be allowed to bolt on strakes and flaps to a limited extent.

[Adamski]

Go into a democratic way just like Ferrari did whit this years car name!

The FIA would mandate that teams should build three versions of their cars with the best possible aerodynamic solutions then the crowd can choose the best looking version by an internet poll prior to the first test.

Joking apart I don't think we can ever make anything about the look of a Formula-1 car so be happy if they move into a direction when looking ugly but we can see more wheel to wheel action on track. In theory we are moving this direction.

[acosmichippo]

I honestly don't see what the "problem" is. who cares if the noses are a little funky? I think it gives them character; so far we have 5 out of 5 completely unique takes on the nose design. I think most fans would agree that the sport is over-regulated as it is, so why should we support even more regulation to change something that doesn't affect the racing whatsoever?