Ferrari's flexible floor

[Ciro Pabón]

Sorry, I posted the same news as kilcoo316. Don't post here. Post here moRON speaks again

[manchild]

Apart from that I hope they'll be caught I have suspicion about technical logic about what Ron said. He said that a floor flexes down and that it helps straight line speed while active suspension worked exactly opposite - it raised ride height on straights and lowered it during braking and in corners.

[zac510]

Since when does stalling the underbody decrease overall drag?

[kilcoo316]

What would happen? It sounded logical to me: if less air enters the underbody you have less downforce and hence less drag. Or so that's the mantra I've heard here: downforce comes from drag. Of course I know as much about aerodynamics as I know about chicken maternity. It's not a lowering of the whole body they're talking about, just the front edge, manchild.

No - underfloor aerodynamics contributes very little in the way of aerodynamic drag. Its essentially free.


However, if (and thats a massive if for me) anyone would want to stall the floor, it would mean less downforce approaching Vmax, so there would be less loading on the suspension, meaning you could run lower ride heights without grounding on the end of the straights.

I'm not sure of the direct aerodynamic drag effects of stalling the floor - I would imagine since your reducing the relative air velocity with respect to the car to zero in real world terms you would be imparting energy to the air to speed it up to the car's speed - not good. [If your trying to picture this in your head, think real world NOT windtunnel].


But of course, there is the obvious point - if you were a driver, would you want half your downforce vanishing half way through 130R? Would you feck!!! Which leads me to believe speedtv do have the story wrong... or at least the details of it.

[dumrick]

it raised ride height on straights and lowered it during braking and in corners.

Exactly, but there the core issue wasn't the floor - were the wings. Moving them closer to the ground achieved higher downforce. Also, the strategy for high speed with active suspensions should - I need some confirmation here - be also raising the front - lowering wing angles relative to the direction of the movement and, that way, decreasing drag.
With current rules, with wing flexibility controlled by the FIA, the issue is no longer lowering wings, but only stalling the floor. this way, Ferrari could increase wing angles for more downforce at lower speeds without compromising top speed.

[Ciro Pabón]

Sorry, kilcoo and zac, I erased my post after seeing kilcoo had started another thread before I started this one. Thankx for the explanation, anyway. Please, post at kilcoo's thread. Again, is at viewtopic.php?p=48817#48817

[walter]

Correct me if im wrong but Im pretty sure that the long rectangular shape of the lowest part of the F1 car's floor is a wood composite. this is required in order to regulate "bottoming out" durring running of the car on the track. the thickness of this plane of wood is strictly scrutinized for grinding due to bottoming out as teams have been disqualified in the past for having excessive wear... and that was probably just a result of a suspension setup that is too soft and allows the car to touch the ground during bumps and such.

Furthermore the width of this plane of wood is quite narrow, i would say maybe 30 to 40 cm, thus effectively negating any "ground-effect" that the angle of the plane may create. The air to the diffuser does not come from beneath this plane but instead from the air around it, underneath the sidepods. The ground clearance of the floor underneath the sidepods is considerably higher than the plank, ENSURING THAT THE CAR WILL NEVER LOSE DOWNFORCE DUE TO LACK OF AIR GOING TO THE DIFUSER.

Oh and the difuser in an f1 car is not like that of most sports cars, its kinda like the nose of a ship, with a keel in the center.

But im pretty sure that everybody knows this and that there is just some error in either what the reporter stated or Ron being misinterpreted.

[jaho101]

You don't exactly know what mechanism Farrari built to pull this off, perhaps somehow working around the wooden plank, you never know.

[BreezyRacer]

It's most likely a flexing of the reference planes .. the two flat surfaces along side the plank area, which is 50 mm lower, plus minus.

Anyways if you can flex those planes you can likely increase diffuser performance. You might be able to flex those planes by not firmly supporting those surfaces so that when downforce is generated it sucks the surface into a curve, thereby creating a lower pressure behind the curve, where the diffusers begin.

[Ciro Pabón]

You can check the images of the device AT THE OTHER THREAD THAT HAS THE SAME SUBJECT. DON'T POST HERE ANYMORE, FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE! Please, click here: viewtopic.php?p=48817#48817