Moveable wing

[ISLAMATRON]

In qualifying I can see the drivers trimming out coming off the corner onto the longest straight... about the same time they deploy the KERS. And then putting the trim back in just before hard braking at the end of the longest straight.

Remember the wing can only be moved twice per lap.... so each corner is out of the question.

[Giblet]

I don't see it being a huge deal to the drivers. Schumi was famous for adjusting his brake bias for every corner in quali that needed it, with an awkward knob in the wheel's center.

Oh and KERS when used behind another car the draft could make a lot end of the straight overtaking.

[Ian P.]

The intent of the moveable segment of the front wing was to allow the following car to get back some of the lost downforce. Nice idea, but it ain't gonna work as intended.
In qualifying, the car needs to be as quick as possible over a single lap and you won't worry about following another car. This means, tune the wings and balance of the car for best overall lap times, with adjustments. The adjustable wings will be used to the maximum the rules allow without regard to following another car.
If you were race engineer, you will set up the wings for max speed on the fast part of the track and max downforce on the slow bits. End of story.
The interesting bit will be if the teams rig the adjustable wings for in-race balance adjustments. Yes there is a 6 degree adjustment, but where does it say you can't use 3, 4 or 5 degrees and use the adjustable element for in-race tuning.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
My bet.....this feature will be gone in 2010.

[Giblet]

Really?

So in quali its not advantageous to have a flatter wing in the straights? Or a steeper one for the corners and braking?

This idea was developed by Pat Symonds, Rory Byrne, Pedro de la Rosa and someone else I can't remember off the top of my head.

Everything was tested out in the most advanced simulator in F1 and real data was collected.

But if you say it won't work, I guess I'll believe ya.

[Ian P.]

Just remember the tree rules of engineering....
1. Don't believe anything you hear.
2. Only believe half of what you see.
3. Never....ever....give the original away.

I didn't say the moveable wing wouldn't work. In fact it will work extremely well. It just won't do what MM wants it to do. That being only be used when following another car.
My bet is that it will become just another adjustment for tuning the handling and balance of the car, twice per lap.
Yes they will cut it back to reduce drag on the straights, yes they will go full-wing for the brakeing zone. How long they leave the wing in that position will depend on the configuration of the track.
Example, Indianapolis, US GP (someday again we hope...)
Main straight... 0 deg
Braking zone... 6 deg
Twisty bits ... 4 deg (this gives you 2 deg to play with for balance adjustment)
Entrance to last corner...no change
Last corner (Ralph's favourite) drop to 0 deg after apex.
Two changes per lap. Job done.
Once the teams figure the optimal way to use the system and the FIA finds they have been had, then the rule limitations will start.

[kilcoo316]

In fact it will work extremely well. It just won't do what MM wants it to do.

I disagree - to a large extent.

It will be used for trimming, but bear in mind that a 1/4 degree of change makes a big difference to the car balance and you'll see moving the wing 6 degrees for balance reasons is simply out of the question.

The wing will be useful in following another car - the problem is going to be building a system where the wing can compensate quickly and accurately enough to restore optimum car balance. What happens when your exiting a corner in the wake of another car in front (wing at max downforce) then move out of the wake to overtake into the braking zone - if the front wing does not reset to default very quickly, you'll find yourself going backwards down the track after a rear wheel lockup.



Also, front wing drag isn't really all that big an issue (although as I indicated earlier - calculating it would be very problematic). The main drag sources on the car are the open wheels, in comparison the front wing drag is puny.

[djos]

Really?

So in quali its not advantageous to have a flatter wing in the straights? Or a steeper one for the corners and braking?

This idea was developed by Pat Symonds, Rory Byrne, Pedro de la Rosa and someone else I can't remember off the top of my head.

Everything was tested out in the most advanced simulator in F1 and real data was collected.

But if you say it won't work, I guess I'll believe ya.

Frankly I'd be shocked if they didn't take advantage of this in Qually at F1 circuits with one big main straight!

Think about it, they can adjust twice per lap so if they start off in qually with the flap at the optimum position for 70% of the lap and configure the flap to flatten by the allowed full amount once out of the corner on on the straight then just as they hit the brakes at the end of the straight they can reset the front wing to optimum position again and get a small aero braking effect in the process?

Of course this scenario is only good for tracks with one big main straight but it could go the other way to where there is a particularly twisty section of an otherwise "normal" circuit they could up the front downforce for that section allowing their car to grip & turn better and then back to normal exiting that section?

[xpensive]

Just to go back a little bit to the original posting of this thread, wind-resistance, at a density of 1kg/m^3 can be described as:

Force(N) = Cv*A*(V^2)/2, while Power(W) = Force*V = Cv*A*(V^3)/2, where V is Speed (m/s).

The cross-section area "A" does not change with the front-wing width or angle, as long as wings are inside the front-profile of the rest of the car. The resistance coefficient "Cv" does however, a flat surface is 1, a sphere is 0.5 and an aerodynamic sportscar typically less than 0.3. An F1 car can be well over 1 becasuse of the front- and rear-wheels causing independent drag within the same cross-section. The value of Cv is very difficult to calculate, you can do certain things with CFD, but I belive that you still need a full-scale wind-tunnel to be certain. Anyone?

[Roland Ehnström]

but it could go the other way to where there is a particularly twisty section of an otherwise "normal" circuit they could up the front downforce for that section allowing their car to grip & turn better and then back to normal exiting that section?

Wouldn't this just make the car oversteer a lot in this section? To have a balanced car is absolutely crucial in F1, I don't think they can afford to add front wing for a twisty section without also adding rear wing to keep the car balanced. I think it will only be used on the longest straight, as a means to get a little less drag. But I could be wrong.

Ah yes, it may also be used as a means to adjust the balance of the car through a long race stint, for example they can add a little front wing if the front tires start to blister.

[djos]

Wouldn't this just make the car oversteer a lot in this section? To have a balanced car is absolutely crucial in F1, .

Possibly, I guess it depends on how much control the driver has over this funtion - I suspect they'd have a dial for the 6 degrees and an on/off button to activate it.

If true the drivers would be able to work out if a degree or 2 extra flap is good for a particular section etc.

anyway how many times have you heard drivers comment that a track (eg Indy) has 2 totally different halves that require a major compromise to setup for?

It seems possible to me that this could potentially help?

[Roland Ehnström]

Just to go back a little bit to the original posting of this thread, wind-resistance, at a density of 1kg/m^3 can be described as:

Force(N) = Cv*A*(V^2)/2, while Power(W) = Force*V = Cv*A*(V^3)/2, where V is Speed (m/s).

The cross-section area "A" does not change with the front-wing width or angle, as long as wings are inside the front-profile of the rest of the car. The resistance coefficient "Cv" does however, a flat surface is 1, a sphere is 0.5 and an aerodynamic sportscar typically less than 0.3. An F1 car can be well over 1 becasuse of the front- and rear-wheels causing independent drag within the same cross-section. The value of Cv is very difficult to calculate, you can do certain things with CFD, but I belive that you still need a full-scale wind-tunnel to be certain. Anyone?

Yes, we can never know the exact impact of the movavble flaps without a wind-tunnel, the maths to calculate the Cv are just waaaaaay too complicated. However, I think we can get a pretty good estimate of the flap's impact on top speed by making the simplified assumptions Crystalix makes in the first post in this thread. His result is that the raised flaps on their own slows the top speed down by 2 kph, and this is probably not too far from the truth.

I think the impact on top speed would have been greater if the REAR wing was movable rather than the front wing (but lowering the rear wing on the straights would be dangerous as it would make the car very unstable).

[Roland Ehnström]

Wouldn't this just make the car oversteer a lot in this section? To have a balanced car is absolutely crucial in F1, .

Possibly, I guess it depends on how much control the driver has over this funtion - I suspect they'd have a dial for the 6 degrees and an on/off button to activate it.

If true the drivers would be able to work out if a degree or 2 extra flap is good for a particular section etc.

anyway how many times have you heard drivers comment that a track (eg Indy) has 2 totally different halves that require a major compromise to setup for?

It seems possible to me that this could potentially help?

Yeah, you're right, there are cases where a car will normally have understeer in a certain bend or section of the track, which could be helped by adding one or two degrees to the front wing flaps. But since they are only allowed to fiddle with this flap setting twice a lap ("up" once and "down" once), it's probably best to save it to get that little boost of speed on the longest straight, with one or two exceptions.

[xpensive]

Right Roland, aerodynamics is still something of the black-art of engineering. Which is one reason why it's so popular to have opinions on, it's difficult to be proven wrong.

[ISLAMATRON]

Yes they will cut it back to reduce drag on the straights, yes they will go full-wing for the brakeing zone. How long they leave the wing in that position will depend on the configuration of the track.
Example, Indianapolis, US GP (someday again we hope...)
Main straight... 0 deg
Braking zone... 6 deg
Twisty bits ... 4 deg (this gives you 2 deg to play with for balance adjustment)
Entrance to last corner...no change
Last corner (Ralph's favourite) drop to 0 deg after apex.
Two changes per lap. Job done.
Once the teams figure the optimal way to use the system and the FIA finds they have been had, then the rule limitations will start.

That is obviously more than 2 changes per lap... did you lose count as you were typing that?

[xpensive]

What if the driver wears a wing-shaped helmet, can he nod as often as he likes?