Flexible wings 2011

[Richard]

Given the test being run in isolation of the rest of the car, would applying a frontal load in concert with the downward load possibly root out bendy wings which are only bendy at speed?

Yup. The test only applies a specified load at a specified point. In reality the vertical component of the wing loading will be eccentric to that point, and there is also a horiz component. That results in torsion which can be harnessed to create a wing that dips under wind load but not under the test load.

All the teams have known about this from last season, so they all the teams have the opportunity to do the same as RB.

[FrukostScones]

I m not an engineer, Sorry for this maybe stupid question: Is it maybe possible to alter the structural behavior of the front wing through apllying voltage???

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Load applied from the front and from above will give far better results than load applied in just one direction.

I cannot fathom how circa 700 million quids worth of investment spent since flexing has been mooted, no one has managed to copy it.
What rankles me most is Charlie Whiting coming out and saying "I see nothing wrong" with the flex issue. Really? Maybe your getting on a bit Charlie....

[Lindz]

Load applied from the front and from above will give far better results than load applied in just one direction.

I cannot fathom how circa 700 million quids worth of investment spent since flexing has been mooted, no one has managed to copy it.
What rankles me most is Charlie Whiting coming out and saying "I see nothing wrong" with the flex issue. Really? Maybe your getting on a bit Charlie....

Or maybe it's just innovation, and Whiting sees it as such?

[forty-two]

Or perhaps he's got a few dozen fridges full of Cans of Red Bull?

I'm joking of course! I expect that sort of blind-eye turning if indeed that's what is going on (and I have absolutely no reason to believe that to be the case!) would cost more than a few cans of pop.

[Afterburner]

How about rear wing? Is it possible to RB apply the same principles and flex it?

[forty-two]

How about rear wing? Is it possible to RB apply the same principles and flex it?

That depends what you mean by flexing the rear wing, and what advantage you think they might be able to gain from it.

A number of teams (Ferrari for definite, not sure about others) in the past have had the upper element of their RW able to flex, which closed the gap between the elements causing the wing to stall at high speed, but this has effectively been prevented by the addition of spacers between the elements (although I'm not sure if they are still present since the advent of the DRS?).

[motobaleno]

Or maybe it's just innovation, and Whiting sees it as such?

I think that in this and many other messages there is a basic misunderstanding between rule and enforcing method.

If the rule is "The wing must not flex under a determined load applied in the following way etc..." then RB is making an innovation.

But if the rule is "The aerodinamic devices must not be flexible." and you use a device that is explicitly projected to be flexible but it is able to pass the enforcing test then you have 2 different problems:

1)FIA has a problem: the enforcing test is not enough "smart"
2) RB has a problem since the basic ethical rule of sport competition is broken


The comparison with the 2009 double decker of Brawn GP is not feasible: in that case how the diffuser had to be designed was included inside the rules: there was no enforcing test. Brawn gp completely honored the rules. Simply both FIA and the other teams haven't thougth in advance that this particular kind of design was perfectly compatible with the rules...

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Lindz

Flexing of Bodywork in F1 is forbidden. Sure there will be some flex from various materials, but actively seeking to make your bodywork flex further than the legal limit is very much not in the spirit of the rules.
Indeed you could say what relevance has a flexing front wing got to do with modern F1.

Here we are discussing 4cylinder turbos(more inline with modern needs), KERS(green tech), DRS(for the show)...and the game changeing piece of tech is a flexing front wing....I can only assume all other formulae are laughing there socks off over it.

Yet here we are, with Christian Horner saying there is no case to answer along with, incredulously, Whiting.

Spirit of Rules and Mr Horner have a very interesting past.
http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_ ... t_id=40313
http://www.yallaf1.com/2010/06/25/red-b ... an-spirit/


Yet Red Bull must have actively sought to get this material, and spent many millions doing so, to get their wings and nose to flex while it passes the FIA test. Im all for innovation, but a flexing bit of wing doesnt strike me as the sort of innovation F1 needs. Just my 2 cents mate.

[marcush.]

Maybe we have to look at it from a different perspective.

-Why are there static load tests? To assure the Wing is safe? surely not.
The whole story of static tests was introduced to all but eliminate aeroelasticity phenomenoms from F1 cars.
these rules have been more and more tightened over the last years ,even over this winter limits of deformation and tolerance have been tightened to get a handle on
this .
A few years ago it was mainly Ferrari but now it is rather obvious that some guy at RedBull really has a handle on things behaving rather unexpected for FIA and outside (RedBull) observers under aeroloads.This is clearly Against the rules of
competion in F1 ,it´s like having traction control .or having 2m wide cars or active suspension.If you could makethe wings behave like they were closer to the road that would be ok but they actually bend beyond legal limits on the track,simple as that.Shame on Fia to look away and accept being too dumb to enforce the rules.

[vall]

Or maybe it's just innovation, and Whiting sees it as such?

I think that in this and many other messages there is a basic misunderstanding between rule and enforcing method.

If the rule is "The wing must not flex under a determined load applied in the following way etc..." then RB is making an innovation.

But if the rule is "The aerodinamic devices must not be flexible." and you use a device that is explicitly projected to be flexible but it is able to pass the enforcing test then you have 2 different problems:

1)FIA has a problem: the enforcing test is not enough "smart"
2) RB has a problem since the basic ethical rule of sport competition is broken


The comparison with the 2009 double decker of Brawn GP is not feasible: in that case how the diffuser had to be designed was included inside the rules: there was no enforcing test. Brawn gp completely honored the rules. Simply both FIA and the other teams haven't thougth in advance that this particular kind of design was perfectly compatible with the rules...

+1 Very nicely put. The rules does say that the aero parts must not flex under any circumstances. Charlie simply cannot see it as innovation. Where is the innovation in this case? He must claim he does not see all those pictures and videos, and stick to the results of the flexy test as stated in the regulations. Otherwise he must go after RBR.

BTW, the comparison between the Ferrari and RB laps few pages back is so revealing.

[AndySeiji]

I m not an engineer, Sorry for this maybe stupid question: Is it maybe possible to alter the structural behavior of the front wing through apllying voltage???

No stupid question! Yes, it is possible, although it may not be viable. Shape Memory Alloys are "smart materials", which change their mechanical behavior when heated. They actually change (nonlinearly) their elastic modulus due to changes in its crystalline structure. The heating can be achieved through current dissipation.

In this thread there was some talk about it, with good videos.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=9558&hilit=ARW+Concept

I've been thinking that maybe not using a full SMA wing but some attachment parts could be used (and maybe in spots hidden from the judges, or internal to the wing structure).

Other materials that could act like it could be piezo crystals, although I don't know exactly how they change their mechanical behaviour.

[Afterburner]

How about rear wing? Is it possible to RB apply the same principles and flex it?

That depends what you mean by flexing the rear wing, and what advantage you think they might be able to gain from it.

A number of teams (Ferrari for definite, not sure about others) in the past have had the upper element of their RW able to flex, which closed the gap between the elements causing the wing to stall at high speed, but this has effectively been prevented by the addition of spacers between the elements (although I'm not sure if they are still present since the advent of the DRS?).

Well, they're more limited flexing the RW compared to the FW but they could flex the beam wing for example. I'm asking this because i started thinking about aero balance setup, flexing only th FW would make the RB setup more sensitive than it seems to be.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

The rules does say that the aero parts must not flex under any circumstances.

Agreed...
Mr Charlie Whiting needs to look at the rule book again. I cannot believe his stance on this when it clearly states:

3.17.8 In order to ensure that the requirements of Article 3.15(Aerodynamic influnce) are respected, the FIA reserves the right to
introduce further load/deflection tests on any part of the bodywork which appears to be (or is suspected of),
moving whilst the car is in motion.

Its clear cut. The cars bloody wings are moving more than the permissable amount. So instead of saying there is no problem, devise a test to prove what we all can see! Its what the mans paid for after all....

Incredulous

[segedunum]

I feel that certain esteemed forum members are not going to accept that the only time that the regulations apply is during scrutineering before and after the race. Always has, always will do. Hard cheese if you don't like it, there is no point whining about it here because that won't change. What you think you can see is not measurable and only certain engineering types seem to be getting that fact.

It's been that way since the dawn of time, with 'water cooled' brakes that did nothing of the sort but meant cars could be underweight once the water was jettisoned and then refilled again at a pit stop or after the race. That's the kind of thing that is reasonably easy to catch with changes in static scrutineering, as was Michelin's magically expanding tyres in 2003 because they simply got measured after the race.

The Red Bull wing situation is different. The static load tests have been changed umpteen times now and it has made no difference to what people think they can see on Red Bull's car during the race. Race observation is not scrutineering. The FIA has to ask themselves how much more changes to the tests they can come up with short of coming up with something infeasibly expensive. Unless someone on this forum can come up with a way to do this and recommend it then you can be as incredulous as you like. It's all hot air, it's becoming tiresome and it's off-topic really.