Endplate-less Front Wings

[OO7]

Thanks guys.

[OO7]

Mercedes have an interesting idea where they have a "V" on the inner portion of the tunnel underneath the wing, this seems to separate the wing into inner and outer channels.

What do you mean here?

I think trinidefender means the junction between the silver grey inside part of the flap, vs the outside black/carbon part.

[bhall II]

It's the channels bit I don't understand.

[andylaurence]

I'm keen to try this on my competition car. I can 3D print some wing ends that curve as per some of the examples instead of meeting flat end plates as they do now. Bolt them to the end of the existing wings and do a back-to-back test in practice.



Anyone up for helping design them or shall I just draw something that looks about right? I can provide dimensions and existing wing profiles. My category is rather open in the rulebook!



I'm thinking something like this...

[Fifty]

This is an awesome discussion! I wish the closed wheel (sedan based) racing forums could get this type of info/discussion growing so we could "steal" lol!...borrow...the tech for our own weekend warrior cars!!

[Vyssion]

Essentially the only part of an F1 car which acts like an actual "wing" is the Rear Wing itself - the front wing is more of a short diffuser than an actual wing in the typical sense. Because downforce is created via the pressure differential between the top and bottom of the aerofoil, you want to maximise this - and the easiest way to do that is to increase the pressure drop under the wing as much as possible, rather than try to increase the pressure on the top side of the aerofoil. With the front wing being so close to the ground plane, you can make use of a very strong ground effect presence and so the way to optimize your wing becomes one of strengthening those edge vortices whilst using all other aerodynamic shapings to divert the flow around the rotating wheels, feed the underbody and the sidepods.

Regarding the canards (dive planes) which were spoken about, When they're placed on the side of a closed wheel race car, their main purpose (at least when i have had to design them) is to create a strong longitudinal vortex which travels down the side of the vehicle effectively acting as a virtual "seal" to prevent normal freestream air from being drawn under the car and therefore reducing the efficiency of the underbody venturi and diffuser. In open wheel race cars its a little trickier to get right since your "seal" would need to travel inside where the wheels go - when the location of the plate is on the outside of the wheels usually... You could potentially mount the canard in a lifting aerofoil position which would induce a vortex which is counter rotating to the ones shed from the top and middle of the rotating wheel, or perhaps the typical downforce generating position is used to reduce the vortical strength of the vortex shed from the base of the wheel.

Either way, still a pretty cool idea

[bhall II]

Regarding the canards (dive planes) which were spoken about...

To which components does this refer?

[andylaurence]

I should point out that the maximum front width allowed for my car is 1500mm and that the inside edge of my front tyres are ~1380mm apart. With bodywork allowed to be up to 1400mm wide, I can have bodywork that meets the tyres and people have started to exploit this, notably on this Wraith designed by Willem Toet...





Clearly, the physical control of wake negates the need to create vortices for the same purpose by modifying the front wing.

[Vyssion]

Regarding the canards (dive planes) which were spoken about...

To which components does this refer?

Was referring to this image here:

https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7312/2823 ... f013_c.jpg

[OO7]

I should point out that the maximum front width allowed for my car is 1500mm and that the inside edge of my front tyres are ~1380mm apart. With bodywork allowed to be up to 1400mm wide, I can have bodywork that meets the tyres and people have started to exploit this, notably on this Wraith designed by Willem Toet...

https://c4.staticflickr.com/8/7308/2738 ... 14de_c.jpg
https://c8.staticflickr.com/8/7373/2738 ... 981a_c.jpg
https://c6.staticflickr.com/8/7415/2800 ... eed1_c.jpg

Clearly, the physical control of wake negates the need to create vortices for the same purpose by modifying the front wing.

Thanks for the excellent pictures andy. I can only assume the down side to those humongous endplate extensions would be a significant increase in drag?
The design is similar to those used on the Jordan 191, however the F1 regs at that time mandated that bodywork ahead of the front wheels couldn't extend further rearwards than the rear edge of the front wheels:

[andylaurence]

The canard/winglet on the outer side of my endplate was just an emergency fix to address balance problems. I needed a large forward shift to rid me of the understeer I had. There was no more adjustment in the front flaps or the rear wing. I thought the vortex shed from it would pull the corotating vortex from the dip in the endplate closer to the outboard side of the wheel, eventually combining and hopefully reducing pressure ahead of the wheel.

As far as the Wraith goes, how much drag would those wake control boards really create? I wouldn't expect much as they're rather aligned with the flow direction.

[Vyssion]

The canard/winglet on the outer side of my endplate was just an emergency fix to address balance problems. I needed a large forward shift to rid me of the understeer I had. There was no more adjustment in the front flaps or the rear wing. I thought the vortex shed from it would pull the corotating vortex from the dip in the endplate closer to the outboard side of the wheel, eventually combining and hopefully reducing pressure ahead of the wheel.

I'd be more tempted to rivet along a small 90° half square tube along the aerofoil trailing edge to form a gurney for that - you would find that it would also kick the air up more which (depending on how tuned the rear wing position is) would also serve to slightly reduce the rear performance at the same time.

As far as the Wraith goes, how much drag would those wake control boards really create? I wouldn't expect much as they're rather aligned with the flow direction.

Yeah you're right there. From what I can see, those vanes serve a few purposes. The first is that the 6 shed vortices around the rotating wheels are diverted immediately away and along the body of the race car without being able to influence the flow regime into the side pod and undertray - a rolling vortex travelling along the top of the vane and flowing towards the outside of the wheel would also develop from the high pressure region on the top of the front wing which would aid in the "virtual sealing" effect. Secondly, it ensures that the edge vortex which is formed under the front wing from the endplate footplates is diverted straight into the undertray and sidepod. Most of the drag that would come from the device would be form drag rather than pressure drag given that it is mostly aligned with the flow. There would be some performance drop on the front wing given that you need to take a chunk out of the planform area to have the vane there in the first place, but the further the air has to be drawn into the edge vortex as you move from the leading edge to trailing edge, the stronger the vortex can become due to the streamline flow speeding up to account for the increased distance. I would be surprised if the undertray didnt also gain a decent increase in performance from it as well.

[andylaurence]

Fair point about gurney flaps. I'll print a few variations out for next week.

Edit: 4, 6, 8 and 10mm gurneys printed. Gotta love 3D printers!

[andylaurence]

New ends for the front wing. Needs the flap adding, chopping up and printing. Good times!

[OO7]

Thanks for the clarification guys. One of the reasons I thought the end-plate extensions were very draggy, was because they don't appear to be used all the time, but perhaps that's because they are a recent development.