Ferrari side pod aero

[mep]

The chassis is strong and stiff enough to transmit the loads. It is important to have a good balance between front and rear downforce and that just causes a CoP in the middle of the car. Otherwise the car under steers. The diffuser itself is not generating the downforce. The floor generates the downforce in the middle. It can be slightly balanced. For example by feeding vortices in the front. The front and rear wings are used to balance the car but they are not as efficient as the floor.

[mep]

I understand what you are saying. But like I explained further I believe it is packaged there because it is the best of bad solutions. Place it further back and ou got less of a coke bottle. Place it higher and you got a CoG disadvantage as well as fatter top bodywork. I believe it is best to house the electronics here.

The high pressure happening in this area might be used benificial, but from last year didnt Ringo name the smooth shape of the Red bull as an advantage for much lower drag? A thing most of us agreed with?

I certainly do believe that no team would have gone with a shape like this if there was nothing to be housed there, although I would love to be proven otherwise

Oh yes I agree that it is a good position to place it. Also because it is close to the CoG which means that the rotational moments of inertia are lower if you place the weight close to it. Even though they probably don't weight much. The point is that everything follows aero and not aero follows the packaging of some electronic units.
I don't want to say that a bulky shape is better than a more rounded one because I can't. Actually I would say nobody here can say that for certain here. They probably both work fine as with many things in engineering.

[hardingfv32]

That was the idea behind the first ground effect cars (the ones with the skirts) and the fan cars, they tried to have as little air mass as possible under the car. But they also didn't have diffusers.

A question: As comes to DF-for-drag is ground effect (and by extension suction assisted ground effect) more efficient than a diffuser?

I think it is wrong to say that early ground effect designs did not have diffuser like features. They used a foil shape. I would claim that the rear section of the foil shape had diffuser like characteristics. The current diffuser designs are dictated by the flat floor requirements.

Brian

[hardingfv32]

But when you create it there you cannot adjust balance that easily and you put more stress on the chassis. Best solution is to create downforce where it's needed in the end (at the tires) or near them (e.g. splitter).

You lack an understanding of the CP. It is one point that represents the summation of all the aerodynamic features of the car. It is located in a location similar to the CG of the car. You get your downforce where ever you can and then adjust the CP location with with the wings on either end. They have the most effect on CP location because of their distance from the CP.

Brian

[superdread]

You lack an understanding of the CP. It is one point that represents the summation of all the aerodynamic features of the car. It is located in a location similar to the CG of the car. You get your downforce where ever you can and then adjust the CP location with with the wings on either end. They have the most effect on CP location because of their distance from the CP.

Brian

Well, the CoP is the sum of all "single pressures" so it is rather a vectorial parameter, localized on the base area of the car. So it isn't strictly a point (it is free in one dimension, making it a line, although it has an orientation). In contrast to that the CoG (which really is the center of inertial mass) is a point well localized in 3D.
Also CoG and CoP have no explicit relation to one another, it is wise for the sake of balance to have them close together.

I admit, my reasoning with (balance, stiffness and what not) is not correct either. The reason is rather that it's much easier to create DF (in terms of drag and rules) at the rear of the car.

The chassis is strong and stiff enough to transmit the loads. It is important to have a good balance between front and rear downforce and that just causes a CoP in the middle of the car. Otherwise the car under steers. The diffuser itself is not generating the downforce. The floor generates the downforce in the middle. It can be slightly balanced. For example by feeding vortices in the front. The front and rear wings are used to balance the car but they are not as efficient as the floor.

See right above and:
The diffuser is an effective aerofoil and it creates DF, more so as it uses ground effect (low pressure between diffuser and ground creates additional DF). That's the reason why they try to increase massflow through the diffuser, effectively increasing the static pressure under the floor.

[gixxer_drew]

A diffuser only functions by taking a mass of air and accelerating it, if there is no mass of air or no velocity or its not in the right state that accelerating it will give result in the kind of energy you want to get out of the equation it wont do you any good, won't make downforce or drag for that matter. Same thing with the cars losing downforce when they get in the dirty wake of another car, dirty air, turbulent air, its no good. There's always air there (no sonic boom right?), its a question of its quality, state, direction of flow.