2018 Aerodynamic Regulations Thread

[PhillipM]

Turn the bird around and look at it's backside, you're still not in ground effect, your resemblance has gone, and the pressure gradient is the wrong way around but at least you've got the air going the right way over it then.

I'll concede the point once the Merc has a full fan of spread tailfeathers.

[godlameroso]

Regulations don't allow it, but they try to get as close as they can, what do you think prompted all those little vortex generators on the bargeboards? We will end up full bird car, look at the 2017 McLaren vs this year right over the side pod it's sprouted 3x as many little vortex generators. Inverted bird car is only a matter of time.

[PhillipM]

Ah, those would be the fingers you claimed were bird inspired too and obivously the way forward because it was mimicking nature - those ones that have now been replaced with update curved ones a la Mclaren?


(arrows not mine)

Which bit of random animal are they from that's better at aero than birds? Is there an oddly shaped insect with bargeboards and a ground-effect floor to seal?

[godlameroso]

Really dude... right on top of the side pods come on. Doesn't look like feathers at all.



Also on that Mercedes image it's full of nature inspiration, those catfish wiskers, the barge boards themselves have feather like serrations, the floor of the bargeboard looks like bent wings.

[PhillipM]

You're right, they don't they look like armour scales from a stegasarous - a dinosaur well known for a it's flying skills.
Which bird has 6 little vortex generators like that stuck out perpendicular from it's body?

You're taking flow structures built for a completely different purpose and then because they look similar on odd occasions, like spread feathers, etc, claiming they should copy the bird.
As someone said earlier, show me the diffuser on the bird you're claiming they should be working towards, because currently, the pressure gradients, the slats/primary feathers, and the airflow are all working in reverse of a diffuser. Unless the bird is flying backwards and upside down?

Of course we will start to mimic organic shapes with aero, simply because we're at the point where much more complex 3d airfoils, vortex, control, etc, can be modelled easily, but when the purpose, execution and function of them are completely different you can't just take a passing similarity from one and claim that's the ideal, that's about as logical as me claiming that since some insects have two wings, and the rear wings have two wings, we should simulate an insect body in the middle of the rear wing.
Because insects have been doing it a lot longer and are much better at it.

[godlameroso]

Yeah stegosaurus, some fictional animal no one has ever seen that makes sense. It makes a lot more sense to think they copied that from scales on an alligator/crocodile, or the head of a rooster. Also while we're on the McLaren the rear of the engine cover, the little tabs at the rear remind me of a mallard duck with closed wings floating on the water.


Look at the rear of the wing.


And so what if birds generate lift, so will an F1 car if you drive it backwards. Human aerodynamics is what 105 years old? Birds have been flying for 105 million years. They already figured out everything we're trying to figure out, it's this arrogance and lack of humility/creativity that keeps Ferrari firmly in 2nd or 3rd place.

[3jawchuck]

Yeah stegosaurus, some fictional animal no one has ever seen that makes sense. It makes a lot more sense to think they copied that from scales on an alligator/crocodile, or the head of a rooster. Also while we're on the McLaren the rear of the engine cover, the little tabs at the rear remind me of a mallard duck with closed wings floating on the water.

....

The apophenia is strong in this one.

It's not unusual for engineers to borrow ideas from nature. But you're not looking at it here, that duck's protrusion has nothing to do with the aerodynamics of the McLaren's protrusion. The duck isn't taking advantage of any aerodynamic phenomena when it is bobbing around on the water.

BTW, stegosauruses are not by any means imaginary and we have most definitely seen them. We may not have seen them alive, but that's not necessary to know how they looked.

P.S. I wonder what this line of conversation has to do with the 2018 aerodynamic technical regulations.

[santos]

So, an F1 car should be wrapped with feathers? Because that's what birds have.

[PhillipM]

And so what if birds generate lift, so will an F1 car if you drive it backwards

If you drive it backwards the diffuser will choke, stall and billow turbulant air all over the back of the car - along with the rear tyres, the front wing will also choke, the rear wing will act as little more than a vortex inducing parachute because the air wouldn't stay attached almost anywhere and about the only thing that might work half reasonably is some flow backwards inside the sidepods.

So. No.

You can check this by noting that when the cars spin they don't immediately leap upwards into the air at 5g of acceleration and land in the Pacific.

[Just_a_fan]

Birds have been flying for 105 million years. They already figured out everything we're trying to figure out,

There isn't a single bird in the world that knows anything about aerodynamics or the mechanics of flight.

[godlameroso]

And so what if birds generate lift, so will an F1 car if you drive it backwards

If you drive it backwards the diffuser will choke, stall and billow turbulant air all over the back of the car - along with the rear tyres, the front wing will also choke, the rear wing will act as little more than a vortex inducing parachute because the air wouldn't stay attached almost anywhere and about the only thing that might work half reasonably is some flow backwards inside the sidepods.

So. No.

You can check this by noting that when the cars spin they don't immediately leap upwards into the air at 5g of acceleration and land in the Pacific.

You can check by noting the various pirouettes in the air Mark Webber has had in his many crashes.

[godlameroso]

Birds have been flying for 105 million years. They already figured out everything we're trying to figure out,

There isn't a single bird in the world that knows anything about aerodynamics or the mechanics of flight.

No they just fly for a living, I'm sure you can train a parrot to regurgitate concepts they don't understand like most "aerodynamicists".

[godlameroso]

So, an F1 car should be wrapped with feathers? Because that's what birds have.

They're getting there, if it was allowed by the regulations they would, all those little appendages are trying to emulate feathers, granted they're nowhere near as effective as actual feathers.

[godlameroso]

Yeah stegosaurus, some fictional animal no one has ever seen that makes sense. It makes a lot more sense to think they copied that from scales on an alligator/crocodile, or the head of a rooster. Also while we're on the McLaren the rear of the engine cover, the little tabs at the rear remind me of a mallard duck with closed wings floating on the water.

....

The apophenia is strong in this one.

It's not unusual for engineers to borrow ideas from nature. But you're not looking at it here, that duck's protrusion has nothing to do with the aerodynamics of the McLaren's protrusion. The duck isn't taking advantage of any aerodynamic phenomena when it is bobbing around on the water.

BTW, stegosauruses are not by any means imaginary and we have most definitely seen them. We may not have seen them alive, but that's not necessary to know how they looked.

P.S. I wonder what this line of conversation has to do with the 2018 aerodynamic technical regulations.

That the cars are sprouting up more feather looking devices all over, maybe I'm imagining things, maybe the computers they rely on so heavily, are just mimicking nature because nature already solved these problems with millions of years of evolution. The computers are merely converging with solutions nature had millions of years ago.

[PhillipM]

Maybe the rest of us realise you can borrow shapes and principles without them being used for anything like the same reason.