Ferrari F138

[Vanja #66]

It's a small change, but DRS activation handle is a lot smaller than last year...



Upper picture is from Sao Paulo...

[ringo]

They were gathering data for the simultator. Can it be a sensor? Cooling in that area? And mess with the air that's going to the T-tray? Odd!

It's not messing with the air going to the tea tray.
It's more likely a cooling area indeed.

[beelsebob]

They were gathering data for the simultator. Can it be a sensor? Cooling in that area? And mess with the air that's going to the T-tray? Odd!

My armchair aerodynamicist senses say there's no issue with "messing with the air that's going to the T-tray", though I may be far wide of the mark here.

My thoughts on what happens under the nose is that the goal is to
1) get as much air under the nose tip as possible.
2) Once it's under there, get it all flowing downwards, so that it slips neatly under the floor and drives the diffuser.
3) if it doesn't get far enough down by the T-tray, the job here again is to push it a bit side ways, and try and get it to go under the side pods, and again, drive the diffuser.
4) The absolute last resort is that if you can't make it do that, get it around undercut, and drive the top of the diffuser instead.

The air at the top, which is attached to the underside of the monocoque is the air that's most likely to end up doing 4. It's primary job is not really to get to the back of the car, instead, it's to compress the air underneath it. This can be equally well accomplished by putting some bodywork in the way, and stripping the airflow away to do something useful like cooling stuff. Better yet, the air that is used to perform the cooling is then heated, and can be used to drive some aero part at the rear more effectively than if it had just washed out into the undercut.

[C Plinius Secundus]

Sorry if this has already been posted, but did anyone else notice a big inlet under the F138's nose when Pedro was driving?

Great spotting, scotsman!

It looks like a stingray mouth, sort of…

I think it may be an inlet for a DDRS system, maybe…

[shelly]

Redbull has had a similar inlet for cooling under the nose since 2011, iirc, but not that wide.
In my opinion ferrari could have taken a leaf from rbr book by doing under the nose what was done with the letterbox inlet on rbr last year: a good cooling spot and the opportunity for ingesting some bundary layer and making it start new from the leading edge of the inlet lip.

If one wants to apply some imagination to it, thay could have put behind that inlet a fluidic switch (or just something to cool whose drag behaviour is dominantly viscous) to have a tuning of the flow to the floor for different car speeds - i.e the inlet is made to ingest a smaller/ bigger percentage of mass flow at different speeds thus altering the flow downstream on the car

[neilbah]

kinda upside down redbull letter box? could just be driver cooling

[siskue2005]

opening under the nose pic>>

colling for KERS battery or some clever DRS system?

[wesley123]

My guess is that it is both driver cooling and that it bleeds off the boundary layer. Much like the Red Bull did last season or the sauber duct in the nose.

[amouzouris]

My guess is that it is both driver cooling and that it bleeds off the boundary layer. Much like the Red Bull did last season or the sauber duct in the nose.

It is exactly that

[f300v10]

opening under the nose pic>>

colling for KERS battery or some clever DRS system?

If an inlet that large is needed for the KERS cooling, how where the cooling the KERS earlier in the test when that inlet wasn't there? Also it seems a rather long way to duct cooling flow from the nose to under the fuel tank.

It also seems rather large to be only for driver cooling. Didn't that used to be accomplished with the small oval whole in the tip of the nose? This inlet is 10x larger than that. Its also clear that this wasn't some last minute modification, the inlet is integrated into the nose structure and it must take days if not weeks to fabricate such a part. I'm stumped as to what its true purpose is.

[f300v10]

My guess is that it is both driver cooling and that it bleeds off the boundary layer. Much like the Red Bull did last season or the sauber duct in the nose.

I was thinking boundary layer as well, but how big can the boundary layer be after only 2 feet? And its not like a boundary layer under the nose is going to stall the flow down there, I wouldn't think there would be an adverse pressure gradient on that surface.

Edit: Scarb's seems to think boundary layer removal as well, so I guess thats good enough for me.

[bhall]

I'm of the mind that it's an illusion. I've been wrong before, though.

[wesley123]

It's a different nose cone fitted.

In the other pictures there indeed isnt a slot, however, there seems to be a little bit of an awkward transition of the lower side from the tub and nose cone edge.

[shelly]

This series of pictures and the discussion about the under chin inlet has reminded me of the peculiar shape of f138 nose pillars.
The kink in the middle of each pillar should develop and detach a vortex which interacts with the turning vanes under the nose.
If I am seeing corrctly, these turning vanes are mounted closer to the car centerline this year - having an inlet narrows (in y direction) the stream tube close to the turning vanes attachement.

Iirc there is a legality box of not allowed bodywork on the outside of them, so having a system of 1 inlet and two counterrotaing vortices allows maybe for a more inboard mounting of the turning vanes, which are then allowed to be more extended in the y direction before hitting the no bodywork legality box.
Wider turning vanes can develop stronger and more coherent vortices themselves

EDIT:

This drawing shows the turning vanes' position on last year's ferrari. It seems that they were not mounted much outboard than the f138 one. I rememeber a recent interview of Pat Fry though, in which he said that in 2012 turning vanes hindered accessibility to the pullrod components. and that they have removed the issue in 2013 - I do not know if this implies a different position for the vanes

[amouzouris]

Say what??

The Ferrari is using a DRS booster system using a Fluidic Switch, which channels air flow above a certain speed to increase the drag reduction system. It’s a difficult thing to get working right on a race track, but could be a useful gain if they nail it. Most of the top teams will probably evolve one as the year goes on.

It looks like this innovation could be the first “must-have” technology gizmo of the 2013 season.