Golf ball aerodynamics in F1

[Tim]

As you probably know a golf ball has dimples to reduce its aerodynamic drag. Due to the dimples the air around the ball becomes a little bit more turbulent, instead of laminar, as a result of which the air sticks longer to the ball, reducing its vacuum. This principle also applies to fishes, who reduce their water resistance by their scales.

My question/suggestion is logically: why doesn't anyone use textures on F1 cars? Since this has proven to be usefull in other sports, such as on swimming- and ice-skating-suits, I think it might work in F1 (e.g. on wings).

[Carbon]

Good question. I think there was a thread a few months ago about this very topic. I look forward to the response from some aero-heads on the forum.

[Guest]

Could be sponsor related, dunno. Rules, more likely. It probably increases skin friction to the point that the gain is immeasureable as well as disturbing airflow from the vital points on the car. If that makes sense.

- West

[sharkie17]

i thought the dimples on a golf ball was to induce turbulant flow(which causes less drag) at low velocity.

...and it applies to spheres.... so it wouldnt apply to F1 cars (or an airplane wings) otherwise, they would have adapted it by now.

[Steven]

well, the following as true about the dimples in a golfball: "a turbulent boundary layer can better follow the curvature of the ball's profile. It travels farther around the ball before separating, which creates a much smaller wake, and much less drag. In fact, a dimpled golf ball has only about half the drag of a smooth one."

So we see that it helps reducing the drag of the ball, because there is a lower underpressure behind the ball.
Now f1 cars are shaped in a way like wings, ending as much as possible on a point, and thereby already severely limiting the low pressure behind the car (of course, you should consider than one without downforce generating elements).
The car itself would profit way less from these dimples, if it would profit anyway. I guess for the same reason airplanes don't have dimples in their wings.

[EvilPhil]

what about helmets though?

[sharkie17]

what about helmets though?

helmet by itself is not exposed to the air... so it wouldnt matter if it was dimpled or not.

[Steven]

idd, the dimples are all to make the flow better close behind the ball.
Now since a helmet has a head reast behind it, that would be quite useless

[StevegeK]

There was an F-18A hornet equipeped with em. They placed em on the wings. I saw that on discovery channel and it worked.

About F1:
or no-1 thought about it (Tomba hurry and get rick) OR:
when making the tiny dimples you also make the body thinner. If you want to have the same thickness you have to add material wich also adds a bit of weight... dunnow if its much though.

so it was used by planes!




+++ #11542
From: bearhwk272@a...
Subject: Re: Re: why dimples?

The dimples are there for the flush rivets. ( Duh! yes I know you know
that.) The wing will actually be stiffer and slightly stronger with
the flush rivets. The dimples and rivet filling the dimples makes a
much stronger shear joint which is what most of the skin to structure
sees. ( Again you know that.) The skin to spar rivets and the skin lap
joints would all have to be -4 if not flush. Bet the Bob will say
better do them flush, stronger and lighter you know !

My guess is that you are just tired of dealing with them pesky little
details. I was there just a few weeks ago. After 5 tries to add a
rating ( Never got into the air! ), One car crash, near total, a root
canal, 75 hr work weeks, new livestock acquisition, house flooded
during thunderstorm, all carpet ruined and removed..... I can not wait
to get back to flush rivets.

[Tim]

Actually it is used on airplane wings I found out; see the following link:
http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=73482002

Scottish scientists have succesfully tested the mechanism (slightly different from the golf ball-principle, but same principle...)

[Reca]

viewtopic.php?t=414
viewtopic.php?t=671

[pompelmo]

golf ball is a very simple "device" that could be turned at
any directionto move around a fluid!
a turbolent flow is very unpredictable and in F1 car is good
to be laminar to calculate where it flows when designing a car!
Tjis turbolent flow is a big pain in the ass!
I don't know what else to say!

[Aerodramatics(UK)]

Actually it is used on airplane wings I found out.....

....slightly different from the golf ball-principle, but same principle...)

Tim, I followed the link. The golf-ball analogy is wrong - poetic licence on behalf of the journalist I'd guess!

The article is refering to a branch of applied aerodynamics call "Laminar Flow Control - LFC". Here a laminar boundary-layer is artificially maintained (instead of a turbulent boundary-layer) over all or part of an aerodynamic surface. Because the artificial laminar boundary-layer generates less friction than the natural turbulent boundary layer, the skin friction component of drag can be reduced.

However, although the aerodynamic drag reduction is well proven, the overall system benefit is highly dependent on both good engineering integration and economic factors: Energy balance, servicability, reliability, maintainability, affordability, safety, system mass and -for aircraft- the market price of fuel to name but a few...

The solution to this remains something of a "holy grail" within applied aerodynamics .... but that doesn't mean budding engineers, scientists, inventors shouldn't continue to work on solving these problems... a step towards which may be laser-drilling in terms of manufacturability.

Sorry for the long post, but the devil is in the detail !

Hope this helps...

[Aerodramatics(UK)]

As you probably know a golf ball has dimples to reduce its aerodynamic drag... ....This principle also applies to fishes, who reduce their water resistance by their scales.

My question/suggestion is logically: why doesn't anyone use textures on F1 cars? Since this has proven to be usefull in other sports, such as on swimming- and ice-skating-suits, I think it might work in F1 (e.g. on wings).

I think you are right... Reca and Tomba answer your quezzy nicely ... I can only guess that the teams feel that the potential drag savings that low-drag surfaces and/or coatings may offer are not a primary "design driver", especially given that in pratice the "dirty" operating environmental conditions might well lead to substantial degradation during racing compared to their actual advertised "clean" car benefit - assuming these concepts would only reduce skin friction - which in a downforce producing F1-car probably remains a weak contributor to overall drag - rather than prevent localised or gross flow separation and attendant pressure drag and/or reduce downforce-dependent drag.

I suppose higher priority drivers for the aero package include holistic integration of all components to obtain the most efficient level of downforce for each track with optimal balance and relative insensitivity to ground effect at both the design ride height(s) and/or minimum ride heights...

However, I reckon such concepts like you highlight are well-worth pointing out. After all, mother nature is a wonderful designer, with the benefit of millions of years of evolution to optimise her designs... IMHO there's much to learn from the animal and plant kingdoms, unfortunately much of which we are yet unable to discern... imagine.... living, evolving machines! ok, ok perhaps I saw too much Sci-fi as a kid...!

Back in the real world, design is a compromise as they say and you don't ever seem to get something for nothing!!!

[Monstrobolaxa]

You are also forgetting that the turbulent boundary layer can only be achieved at determined speeds and depends also on the shape of the part....so the potential advantages might only be benificial enough at high speeds.

Another thing is the turbulent boundary layer will upset the airflow to the wings....do teams really want to decrease drag with the posibility of also losing downforce? Also it might only be an advantage with certain airflow directions....it might also upset (even more) the handling when the wind changes direction.