Flexible wings 2011

[raymondu999]

I would've thought they just set up the wing with rake. Are they allowed to do that?

[hollus]

I borrowed a picture from this thread, showing the Red Bull front wing obviously raked; and another from F1fanatic without the rake from as close a perspective as I could find, and tried to contour the noses and the wings by hand.
It is nothing sophisticated, I just used powerpoint, so please, if someone has the time, the inclination, a better software and better pictures, by all means, improve on this work. This comparison is only as good as the precision of the (hand drawn) contours, and while one picture is made from exactly the height of the nose, the other is taken from a a slightly elevated view-point as it is made clars by the top of the front wheels. In the second I tried to follow the profile of the nose wall closest to the camera, but it is blurry at some points and I might well have deviated a bit from the target.
Anyways, enough talk, let's go to the point.

The areas chosen for the comparison:



I used green for the "legal" shape and red for the one that is "bending" the rules.

Zooms of the fits, judge how good (or bad) the contours are by yourself:




Now the overlay:



I got the nose tips with a slightly different shape. It could be that they used different nosecones, but I am more prone to blame my hand-drawn contours.

Anyways:
This wing is not simply pivoting at the struts. There might be some of that too, but the whole nose cone is bending down like a fishing rod. The wing, at least to a large extent, largely follows. So pure downforce is bending down the nose tip, drag wouldn't do that. (Edit: I guess downforce plus a lot of drag can also do that...).
It is perfectly possible that drag is also bending the wing at the struts, but from these contours, I don't dare to take any conclusion in that direction.

[marekk]

@hollus: nice work, but i still think there is more pivoting on the struts then nose cone bending. Bending of the nose cone will be strictly total downforce/load realated, and should fail to pass FIA tests.
I don't think struts are bending due to drag forces - centre of pressure (downforce) for front wing is far forward in relation to where the struts attach, and this gives momentum to bend struts (and maybe nose cone, but just a little).
On the other hand, load testing points (as per regs) are almost in line with struts, so no momentum (and no bending, just tension).
We have to wait for better pictures to be sure.

[shelly]

I think that maybe the fact that fia testing is asymmetrical has a relevance in building a nose compliant with tests that bends on track. Still, pivoting around fw pillars seems an easier trick, so it is the most probable thing happening.

[marekk]

I think that maybe the fact that fia testing is asymmetrical has a relevance in building a nose compliant with tests that bends on track. Still, pivoting around fw pillars seems an easier trick, so it is the most probable thing happening.

Nose cone is crash structure (and homologated), i don't think they'll play with this, could be even criminal.

[hollus]

Looking at the contours, the fit of the noses is quite good right up to the pillars, then the tip nosedives.
It looks as if the bending is happening mostly at the point there the pillars meet the rest of he nose. If bending was mostly in the pillars, the nose tip wouldn't dive.

Or, of course, I might have compared two different nosecones from two different testing days.

[shelly]

I think that maybe the fact that fia testing is asymmetrical has a relevance in building a nose compliant with tests that bends on track. Still, pivoting around fw pillars seems an easier trick, so it is the most probable thing happening.

Nose cone is crash structure (and homologated), i don't think they'll play with this, could be even criminal.

Playing with bending nose is as safe as playing with flexing pillars. As far as rash,it is a rule that you have to obey to; if you pass crash test with a bending nose you are ready to race.

So tere is no difference in principle; however I agree with you that the trick is probably in the pillars.

[lolzi]

... I might have compared two different nosecones from two different testing days.

I think it might have more to do with the fact that even though those photos are very alike in terms of angle, they're still not close enough to do the very detailed analysis in terms of shape etc.

[marekk]

I think nose cone shape's change between both pictures is due to elevated view-point of the camera on "raked" photo.
We can clearly see that distance between nose cone and leading edge of FW is bigger, and almost not changed for trailing edge - so maybe not bending of pillars (pendulum), but some elasticity in forward-looking part of pillars or pillar-wing interface (solid pivot point exactly at FIA's test point).

[xDama]

Interesting that nobody has spotted the next image yet:



Mclaren' front wing is also clearly flexing!

[thestig84]

I spotted it onboard during fp1 and 2. Tweeted scarbs when he said they are all looking rigid?! That is a good picture of it, well found. I didnt find any good ones really.

Edit: Saying that if the picture is just before the breaking zone into turn 1 they it could just be the frame after hitting one of the bumps and the wing reacting.

[bot6]

How did the FIA not modify their test to outlaw these bendy wings, which obviously contradict the "no movable aerodynamics" philosophy?

[Joie de vivre]

good job from RB, just stunning how the front wing is flexing like crazy

i wonder how others still havent figured it out or maybe there are just not trying to understand the concept of it

[bot6]

McLaren and Red Bull are the only two teams who have the bendy front wing. And they finished qualifying in Oz miles ahead of everybody else. The FIA needs to find some new way to test for this, as it is against the rules and is going to kill the racing this year...

[bot6]

good job from RB, just stunning how the front wing is flexing like crazy

i wonder how others still havent figured it out or maybe there are just not trying to understand the concept of it

Definitely what puts them ahead. McLaren are the only other team doing this and look how much better they suddenly are...

I think the others know what is going on, how could they not? But that bending wing thing is blatantly braking the no movable aero regulations, therefore illegal. So I'm guessing the other teams are more tentative in braking the rules.

Going around the FIA test does not make this thing legal. So either the FIA needs to change the rule so that this is made legal, or they need to change the test so no one can use it.

At the moment, this is just going to kill the racing...