Whales and Aero

[dickon]

Mimicking Humpback Whale Flippers May Improve Airplane Wing Design.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 044455.htm

is this legal in F1?

I guess not. Comments welcome!

Dickon

[Monstrobolaxa]

I didn't read the whole article but it does seem legal to me.....It's all down to the wing design.

[humble sabot]

I was actually looking at a couple of the surfaces on the latest cars and this came to mind.

[NickT]

Very interesting dickon reminds me a little of golf ball aero dynamics with raised little bumps rather than scalloped dimples.

My only concern now is that the Japanese whaling fleets will be out looking to get their F1 teams an advantage

[Gecko]

This is actually a very old concept in aerodynamics but it is great to see that nature developed it as well. The whale flipper has a serrated leading edge, and this sort of "dogtooth" vortex generators can be seen on many aircraft (F-4 Phantom, F/A-18E Super Hornet). It is however interesting that the F1 teams do not use them, especially since all the wings on the F1 car are high lift devices where such vortex generators are most beneficial.