wesley123 wrote:Indeed, those bumps on the OAK Racing car existed solely to reduce the angle of the mandatory gurney flap, reducing drag, Peugeot took that design even further.
Not sure if the idea has any benefit though. The use of vortices on airplanes are either used where their initial design has issues(think DC9, or was it the DC10 that had a large VG on the engine pod because the pod connection to the wing reduced lift, or to extend the lift through high ranges of maneuverability(Think fighter planes).
F1 wings don't operate through a high range of AoA conditions and the wing box is generally designed to work in their high AoA setting. Therefore I think that F1 wings don't really benefit from vortices like an airplane(as pictured in the OP) does.
Coming from an aviation background I can see other situations where vortex generators are used that you may not have thought of that doesn't have anything to do with bad design.
1. Gate constraints. Commercial aircraft are designed to fit in certain gate sizes. Why not just design the wing to fit into a wider gate slot you ask? Money that's why. It costs a lot of extra money to rent larger gates at airports. Therefore some airframe manufacturers put vortex generators or design sub par cruise performance wings just so customer companies have access to smaller gates with still quite a large passenger load. The vortex generators allow an airframe manufacturer to create a smaller wing with the same lift capacity as a larger wing with slightly reduced lift:drag efficiency. *a gate used in this context is not a physical gate. It is the place where aircraft board and de-board passengers and cargo. Many time the aircrafts is connected to the terminal building by a walkway*
2. Using an aircraft outside of its original design envelope. Many times commercial (and general aviation) aircraft have to fly into short runways or maybe the airport is among mountains or whatever have you. This factor may influence a company to run short on passengers or cargo to reduce landing weights and hence reduce required approach speeds etc. By using vortex generators, a wing can operate through larger angles of attack and therefore have a lower certified stall speed or a higher payload at a given approach/landing speed. This is why many general aviation aircraft have them fitted as an aftermarket addon to allow them to carry more of their very restricted payload into the smallest runways.
3. Most delta wing configurations above 45 degrees of sweep generate much of their low speed lift through the use of vortex generators. Vortices form along the leading edge of the wing and flow back along the top surface of the wing. Some delta wings have vortex generators as well to enhance this effect and their low speed performance.
You say that F1 wings don't operate in a large range of AoA situations. That I agree with. However I must add that they almost always run very close to stall, with some teams even having problems last year with part of their rear wing stalling *cough cough ferrari*. Therefore it may be beneficial for some teams if they could run vortex generators on their rear wings which can allow them to run with less risk of stalling their wing or running the wing at a higher AoA
