Ground Effect - Bring It Back

[bhall II]

Nah, that's a case of 'can't get close enough to pass', exactly what needs fixing.

What I meant is that 35 years of aerodynamic development has changed the way cars interact, and I don't know that we can turn back time.

The F2005 probably got as much of its total downforce from under the car as 312T.

[rjsa]

Nah, that's a case of 'can't get close enough to pass', exactly what needs fixing.

What I meant is that 35 years of aerodynamic development has changed the way cars interact, and I don't know that we can turn back time.

The F2005 probably got as much of its total downforce from under the car as 312T.

http://i.imgur.com/tXPyTMR.jpg

And most of it sitting right on top of the rear axle. F1 diffusers are like that due to bad rule making, not by design choice.

[bhall II]

Actually, the bigger pressure drop tends to occur along the leading edge of the floor.



And that was definitely the case back when large, elaborate barge boards were allowed.

[rjsa]

Actually, the bigger pressure drop tends to occur along the leading edge of the floor.

http://i.imgur.com/clJewDJ.jpg

And that was definitely the case back when large, elaborate barge boards were allowed.

Mind sharing the source of that image? No making too much sense to me.

[Andres125sx]

And you've just relocated the problem, because, between two cars with venturi tunnels, the one operating at higher efficiency will always be faster through a corner than the one operating at reduced efficiency.

The glory days of overtaking were wholly enabled by cars with a variety of engines running with different fuel loads. That supplied the required performance differentiation, and everything else was coincidental. At least, that's the way I see it.

You keep arguing about perfomance differentiation, when that´s a different problem IMO. I guess you don´t see any sense in this I said some posts back?

Dirty air does not affect perfomance differentiations, but makes it more or less relevant. With a lot of dirty air you need huge perfomance differences to overtake because the trailing car need to keep a gap before the straight, so to overtake the perfomance difference need to be huge

But if there´s little dirty air, or less, then the trailing car can start the straight much closer to the car in front, so perfomance difference need to be much smaller to overtake.

Overtaking wise, dirty air and perfomance differentiation are directly proportional. Little dirty air and overtaking will be posible with small perfomance differences. A lot of dity air, and overtaking will be posible only with huge perfomance differentiations.


So if you keep same pefomance differentiations beteween cars, but minimize dirty air problem, overtaking will be easier

[bhall II]

Mind sharing the source of that image? No making too much sense to me.

I'm pretty sure I nicked it from this, which came from this guy.

You keep arguing about perfomance differentiation, when that´s a different problem IMO. I guess you don´t see any sense in this I said some posts back?

So if you keep same pefomance differentiations beteween cars, but minimize dirty air problem, overtaking will be easier

And what I've said is that it's next to impossible to minimize the "dirty air" problem in a developmental racing series that moves toward greater aerodynamic sensitivity as a matter of course and, incidentally, devotes an entire track session toward making sure that the faster cars start a race ahead of the slower cars.

[rjsa]

Mind sharing the source of that image? No making too much sense to me.

I'm pretty sure I nicked it from this, which came from this guy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjjYtmIA7aM&

Now that's why throwing random web mages is bad for the technical discussion:



This run means absolutelly nothing regarding how the car interacts with the ground. Look at the car position.

[bhall II]

How about this one? Bear in mind it has a double-diffuser.





I'd love to have more than random web images. it's just that when it comes to F1 aero, they're kinda hard to get, yanno?

[zeph]

Ground Effect? I say bring back the Brabham BT46B. Now that was an inspired solution, and unfortunately forbidden for reasons that remain unclear to this day.

[Andres125sx]

You keep arguing about perfomance differentiation, when that´s a different problem IMO. I guess you don´t see any sense in this I said some posts back?

So if you keep same pefomance differentiations beteween cars, but minimize dirty air problem, overtaking will be easier

And what I've said is that it's next to impossible to minimize the "dirty air" problem in a developmental racing series that moves toward greater aerodynamic sensitivity as a matter of course and, incidentally, devotes an entire track session toward making sure that the faster cars start a race ahead of the slower cars.

So you think the drag and turbulence from F1 high cambered wings when moving over 300km/h is standard, nothing wich may be improved with a more efficient design without wings or with more traditional airfoils for this speeds

Then sorry but I can only disagree, teams design their cars to get the maximum posible downforce , and that means using airfoils wich produce a lot of downforce, but also a lot of drag and turbulences, that´s dirty air.





This lateral effect of generating the maximum posible downforce (dirty air) could be minimized if they´re forced to use different airfoils, period.

[mertol]

They are using agressive wings because they keep making them fewer and smaller. If they had bigger wings they could go for more efficient designs.

[Andres125sx]

No they´re using agressive wings because regulations allow those high cambered wings and in F1 drag is a minor problem compared to the advantages downforce provide

BTW, F1 wings are a lot more agressive (cambered) than that representation

[Scorpaguy]

We Yanks resolved the GE vs. Aero argument back in the 70's...

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/ ... 0920fd.jpg

...and it was f***ing awesome. Big engines, wide tires, and no wind tunnels.... just innovative, red-neck engineering

[bhall II]

No they´re using agressive wings because regulations allow those high cambered wings and in F1 drag is a minor problem compared to the advantages downforce provide

BTW, F1 wings are a lot more agressive (cambered) than that representation

No, they use "aggressive" wings, because that's the only way to create downforce at the sloooooooooooooow airspeeds in which F1 cars travel.

Aside from a fan car, which has its own unique set of challenges and limitations, there's no way to solve the problem of "dirty air." Given two cars running in tandem, the leading car will always, always, always displace air as it passes through the atmosphere, which means this number...



...will always, always, always be lower for the trailing car.

As a hypothetical, extremely simplified example...




Well, I shouldn't say there's no way to solve the problem of "dirty air." The sport could always reduce its reliance on aerodynamics for performance. But, since the pace traditionally associated with F1 is completely a product of its advanced aerodynamic development, I don't know if such a move would be popular.

[hollus]

The whole CFD approach relies on the assumption of constant density. I think that holds specially a few meters from the leading car. What the car ahead does is to make the air for tha car behind turbulent, possibly moving upwards and definitively moving forwards . The latest is key as it goes as v2 in the formula, or that's how I see it.