F1 2017 Front Wing Proposal

[danwilkie90]

F1 has gotten me through tough years, I'd like to give something back. The "Midplate Wing".

(Rough sketches)




My proposal for the “Midplate Wing” design achieves 2 objectives:

1.
It removes the ability for teams to use the front wing elements to influence the aerodynamics over the main body of the car. It achieves this by first shortening the elements to bring them directly in line with the front tyres. These elements are then allowed to be taller to counterract the loss of Downforce that narrowing would otherwise create. Next, the Endplates are moved to create a wall inbetween the wing’s elements and the Mainplane. This majorly restricts Airflow access to the rest of the car, whilst still acting as a traditional endplate. The likely simplification of wing elements as a result could help to cut costs.

2.
It creates a much wider “Neutral Zone” in the middle of the wing. This coincides with the Overtaking Working Group’s findings that turbulent air from the car in front tends to affect the middle of the wing first, then spreads outwards as the car gets closer to the car in front. The theory is that the wider the Neutral area is, the closer the driver can get to the car in front before the turbulent air reaches the outer wing elements and begins to disturb Downforce.

Benefits
————

The benefits of this design are Three-fold:

1.
Cars should be able to follow closer to the car in front before Airflow is significantly disturbed.

2.
When the Airflow is disturbed, the downforce loss would be contained to the front wing and not affect the entire car’s Airflow structures as it does currently. So less Downforce overall would be lost, compared to normal conditions.

3.
The Neutral area of the wing, free of complex elements, would allow a clean passage of Airflow. When paired with the taller and narrower elements directing air more efficiently over the front tyres, this would lead to a large decrease in Drag, allowing for higher top speeds and better Fuel efficiency.

Considerations
———————

In order to create a truely “Neutral” area of the wing, a rule might be considered dictating that the entire tip of the nosecone must touch the mainplane of the front wing, allowing for no Airflow to be passed through/under the nose.

To stop turning vanes appearing to try to move Airflow inside of the Endplates, a rule might be applied stating that “No elements outside the Neutral Zone can be visible above or ahead of the Endplates when viewed from the side.” A rule to outlaw “In-wash” style turning vanes would likely not be needed, but could be considered.

Alterations to the shape of the Endplate itself should be outlawed to keep the design effective.

Conclusion
—————-

In conclusion, the introduction of the “Midplate Wing” promises faster, more Fuel efficient and cost effective cars, capable of following each other closely around high-speed corners, allowing for more opportunities for close quarters overtaking. The design is largely in-keeping with designs and aesthetics traditional to F1 and so should not prove controversial when introduced for those reasons.

[bhall II]

A front wing, which is an inverted airfoil in ground effect, relies on the formation of vortices just inside the end plates in order to create downforce. Without end plates, the pressure differential between the high- and low-pressure sides of the wing will be greatly reduced, because there will be nothing to prevent equalization, and high-pressure flow will be pulled over the wingtips by the low pressure underneath. Since the strength of a vortex is directly proportional to the pressure differential that creates it, reducing pressure differential means reducing vorticity.

In other words, a lack of end plates effectively reduces wingspan.



Check out this article for more information, and keep thinking outside the box. It's good for you!

[danwilkie90]

That's true! Thanks for reading it and getting back to me. I'm very much an armchair aerodynamicist so excuse me for making rather silly and vital mistakes, I've mocked up a new image, one with traditional endplates and the "Midplate", would this solution create too much drag? I think it would still help to somewhat isolate the downforce creating areas far enough out of the way of turbulence to help with overtaking.

[vibrating_cake]

Hi. Long time lurker here.
but with a good idea.
Designers want freedom, what I'd love to see is, here is an area. You can fill it with anything, with no requirement for an endplate etc. And see what comes out of it.
but, the best part of the idea is, the neutral section being changed to a "lift" section whereas the neutral section makes x lbs of lift.
When the following car gets closer to the car they want to overtake, the dirty air helps reduce the lift in the lift section, which in theory is a net gain of downforce when following in dirty air, protecting the front tyres allowing closer racing through the corners.
Which also has a knock on effect that the front to rear balance of downforce changes to a front biased system which may make cars twitch on the rear, looking spectacular in the process...
any downsides to the neutral section changing to a lift section, bar increased drag maybe

[bhall II]

...I've mocked up a new image, one with traditional endplates and the "Midplate", would this solution create too much drag? I think it would still help to somewhat isolate the downforce creating areas far enough out of the way of turbulence to help with overtaking.

Look familiar?



I never know how to react when I come up with what I think is a brilliant idea only to discover it's already been done. Is it disappointing to be beaten to the punch, or is it gratifying to get real-world validation?

For what it's worth, I think too much is made of "dirty air," and even the problems it does cause can't be solved permanently (without gimmicks).

As an aero formula matures, adding downforce compels designers to become increasingly reliant upon tenuous interactions that are easy to disturb, and that has the effect of making the cars more and more sensitive to turbulence. The W06, for instance, is well into this territory, as evidenced by Hamilton's inability to overtake Vettel on-track in Barcelona (admittedly, not exactly a paragon of overtaking)...


via f1fanatic.co.uk

...and his inability to overtake either Williams on-track at Silverstone.


via f1fanatic.co.uk

Absent completely standardizing the cars, I'm pretty sure this outcome is inescapable, because F1 teams will never stop looking for more downforce.

[toraabe]

Remember that indy cars has venturi tunnels (groundeffect) See picture http://media.cleveland.com/autoracing_i ... 72617f.jpg.

[mrluke]

The teams do stop looking for more downforce otherwise they would run a Monaco set up everywhere.

Cost of the front wings is not from the manufacturer of the wings themselves, it is the R&D time associated with them. By making the front wing less efficient the teams need to increase their R&D time to get the absolute most out of it. Therefore this wing is going cost the teams more than the current ones do.

Wings are very sensitive to "dirty air" underbody aero is much less sensitive to dirty air, increasing the downforce available via the underbody would make the cars faster, give them less drag (more fuel efficient) and allow closer racing.

If you wanted to be really radical you could mandate a single element front wing, ban the rear wing and open up all of the underbody / floor area.

The top teams will protest this as at the moment they know they have the best cars, with such a radical change they might not anymore.

[danwilkie90]

I was actually thinking of Indycars when I was making it xD It's good to know it's been tried but this would be a more extreme interpretation of the idea, just aimed at getting the nose to still turn in the same more than anything. I understand that F1 cars will always lose downforce no matter what they do with them, but my idea hinges on the fact that because the cars will be wider in 2017 and so the wheels will be further away from the body with those wing boxes directly in front only as wide as the tyres and walled in, it would physically impossible to use those parts of the front wing to direct airflow to the main body of the car anymore, there would be no interactions between the two to rely on, that's the admittedly rather optimistic theory at least. The thought that costs might come down was born from the idea that research on getting airflow from those parts to the main body would cease because it couldn't be done anymore, but maybe that's just wishful thinking.

If this design is a dead end though, perhaps moving the front wing closer to the ground and bringing ground effect into the equation for the wing itself would work better instead/as well? But then there's the problem of the wing shaking. Damn. Not easy this, is it?

[danwilkie90]

Funny thing is, I actually tweeted Craig Scarborough that picture of the first wing and he replied that he thought it was "a solid idea", but then he was probably just amusing me!

[bhall II]

The teams do stop looking for more downforce otherwise they would run a Monaco set up everywhere.

The combination of engine power and circuit layout gives teams a drag budget, so to speak, and the goal of aerodynamic development will always be to get as much downforce from it as possible, even at Monza.

If this design is a dead end though, perhaps moving the front wing closer to the ground and bringing ground effect into the equation for the wing itself would work better instead/as well? But then there's the problem of the wing shaking. Damn. Not easy this, is it?

The whole car is already in ground effect.

I think all aero concepts are dead ends, though; it's unavoidable. Even fan cars would eventually encounter the same issues, because nothing is completely impervious to "dirty air," and teams tend to converge upon the optimum solution for everything, i.e. relative performance tends to equalize.



DRS will become ineffective, too. It's just a matter of time, which is why I really don't understand the sport's obsession with aero solutions to address what are fundamentally non-aero problems. Overtaking is performance differentiation, and there's no need to make it more complicated than that.

The only reasonable solution my meager imagination has ever conjured up is to reconfigure circuits to allow for more than one racing line through selected corners, preferably those which lead onto the longer straights.

[wesley123]

Wings are very sensitive to "dirty air" underbody aero is much less sensitive to dirty air, increasing the downforce available via the underbody would make the cars faster, give them less drag (more fuel efficient) and allow closer racing.

Until they bottom out even slightly and all your downforce will suddenly be gone, exactly the reason why underbody aero is so heavily regulated virtually everywhere.

Underbody aero is far more sensitive because it requires an optimum height from the ground, any more or any less and boom, there goes your downforce.

[McMrocks]

If we search for a front wing which is less sensitive to dirty air and a front wing which is producing less vortices, we end up with this.

http://www.dream-car.ch/Beitraege/Arosa ... 0Kopie.JPG

Really? Really!

the angle of it is minimal so it is less likely to stall in dirty air. It has rather smoth edges which generate just small vortexes.

I'm sorry but this is what we need!

Until they bottom out even slightly and all your downforce will suddenly be gone, exactly the reason why underbody aero is so heavily regulated virtually everywhere.

Underbody aero is far more sensitive because it requires an optimum height from the ground, any more or any less and boom, there goes your downforce.

Lifting the ban of active suspension has been around for a while. What happened to it

[trinidefender]

A front wing, which is an inverted airfoil in ground effect, relies on the formation of vortices just inside the end plates in order to create downforce. Without end plates, the pressure differential between the high- and low-pressure sides of the wing will be greatly reduced, because there will be nothing to prevent equalization, and high-pressure flow will be pulled over the wingtips by the low pressure underneath. Since the strength of a vortex is directly proportional to the pressure differential that creates it, reducing pressure differential means reducing vorticity.

In other words, a lack of end plates effectively reduces wingspan.

http://i.imgur.com/6OLcJlF.gif

Check out this article for more information, and keep thinking outside the box. It's good for you!

It is my personal belief that the endplates are only there to meet regulation design. From the CFD models that i have seen there isn't so much a small vortex right on the endplate but the wing has a general outward flow with a large mass of flow going over the endplate. This forms a vortex rotating outside the front tyre regardless if there is an endplate there or not. The reason is because this high pressure air still reacts with the low pressure flow coming behind the wing from the underneath. I believe the vortex that is used for sealing the front wing actually comes from the semi-circle curved footplate right at the end. That is why RedBull were looking so much into wings that's outer edge flexes and gets closer to the ground further aiding the sealing by this vortex.

P.s. On the gif you posted. The vortex showed there is from the edge of the trailing edge flaps and not from the wing itself.

[bhall II]

It is my personal belief that the endplates are only there to meet regulation design.

Though I recognize most people only refer to the vertical portion as the "end plate," it's functionally everything that's outboard of the main plane/flap. A wing is more or less useless without it.

[trinidefender]

It is my personal belief that the endplates are only there to meet regulation design.

Though I recognize most people only refer to the vertical portion as the "end plate," it's functionally everything that's outboard of the main plane/flap. A wing is more or less useless without it.

http://i.imgur.com/cCQRu8P.jpg

The regulations only refer to the vertical section as the endplate.

Even so, it appears that you consider all the wing surface in front of the front tyre to be part of the endplate as well. I do not see it this way as this are in front of the front tyre also creates a fair chunk of downforce and as such is not considered part of the endplate by me at all.