Dirty air sensitivity and regulations

[Blackout]

Please stop focussing on the removal of the rear wing ... no one said "hey lets just remove the rear wing, ground effect will do the rest" ... Paddy lowe is kinda avoiding the question and changing the subject... He's not totally objective and did not really recognize the mistakes that the OWG did. They did some good work on some rear but as you see, they also did some big mistakes. Byrne and Head who where his colleagues desagree with him.
Racecar engineering did some interesting research on this subject latley.
http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... &start=165

[bhall II]

To be fair, you're saying, "the Overtaking Working Group's solutions have been ineffective," in just about the most complicated way possible.

To be fair, it would have effective if not for double diffusers.

If it wasn't double-diffusers, it would have been something else. Rules that promote overtaking and rules that allow aero development are fundamentally incompatible.

[turbof1]

To be fair, you're saying, "the Overtaking Working Group's solutions have been ineffective," in just about the most complicated way possible.

To be fair, it would have effective if not for double diffusers.

If it wasn't double-diffusers, it would have been something else. Rules that promote overtaking and rules that allow aero development are fundamentally incompatible.

Which I underlined myself:

Development ultimately undid this gain, but the solutions presented in 2009 were actually beneficial towards the goal if not for certain developments and oversights in the regulations.

Still, I believe in a solution that atleast makes the situation "less bad".

[rjsa]

To be fair, you're saying, "the Overtaking Working Group's solutions have been ineffective," in just about the most complicated way possible.

To be fair, it would have effective if not for double diffusers.

If it wasn't double-diffusers, it would have been something else. Rules that promote overtaking and rules that allow aero development are fundamentally incompatible.

So just curb the development. Period.

How deep will F1 need to go before the top teams figure out they're holding tight to their status quo in something that's just fading away.

[strad]

For the record: I personally do not care in the least about the amount of overtakes. Close racing, that's what I and most fans of the sport want.

Hear , Hear! Include me in that group.

[Big Mangalhit]

I can really see this season having a lot of close racing and overtakes. In China Hamilton overtook Bot in an unusual place and then later he couldn't do the same to Massa in the same place. I am just afraid everything will be undone with a new set of rules. Now that we have three teams starting to slowly being competitive and probably McLaren will be there eventually as well, maybe Renault too. The backpackers are also very close together and promoting a lot of action.

Also I think the new tyre rule was a really clever way of dealing with this problem. A team can offset massively its strategy so it will eventually arrive to the next car with a fresher softer tyre and overtake it, the way Kimi's and to a lesser extent Vettel's strategy were planed last race, maybe Ham would've done the same is not for underfloor damage that made him use the Mediums in the last stint.

That solves the big picture of overtakes/fights without directly addressing dirty air, but instead by promoting bigger range of pace differences as Bhall said many times before in the many topics that eventually get recycled into talking about dirty air.

[FW17]

I really don't see how going from 3 elements of down force (floor, front and rear wing) to 1 will be a bad thing?

The reason is teams have invested a lot in current 3 elements and do not want to let go of that knowledge.

Regulations also has to make sure that the flow through the floor remains as 2 dimensional as possible.

[Andres125sx]

Dirty air will always be a problem because any car making use of air to create DF, is actually disturbing air, so next car will always find turbulent air and it will always create less DF than the car in front, harming overtaking as the trailing car has a big handicap compared to the car in front

Yes, but like Bhall tries to point out is that everybody assumes this without trying to understand why. Have a look at ground effect cars from the 80's: everybody is pointing, including myself in the past, that they were more easy to follow due the downforce being produced by the floor, which supposely creates less turbulent air.

Which is wrong in actuality. It was not the ground effect itself that caused these cars to follow eachother close. Take a look at this picture:
http://www.fine-grains.com/theinspirati ... 2_BC1.jpeg
And now take Paddy Lowe's comments, which do make sense. A large rear wing close to the diffuser, yet with a low camber, combined with the absence of a front wing. If you remove the rear wing and include a current grade front wing, you'll have massive issue's with overtaking, where the turbulent flow coming out of the diffuser is not upwashing enough and is going over the front wing of the trailling car.

In my eyes, it's a story of managing turbulent airflow vs. reducing turbulent airflow.

But Turbo, where did I proposed removing some wing or increasing relevancy of the floor?

It´s you guys who keep thinking about how to reduce dirty air. I desisted from that route some time ago. Now I assume dirty air will always be there (it could be a bit higher or lower depending on the car´s aero, but there will always be dirty air), so instead of trying to reduce something wich will always cause problems, try to solve those problems (drop in DF)

That´s the reason for my proposal, instead of reducing dirty air, try to increase DF when in dirty air with active aero. I´m far from an aeronautycal engineer, but I think there must be some solution to increase DF only when in the slipstream, and that would make posible what now seems imposible, aero dependant cars (fast cars) wich can provide close battles

[Andres125sx]

The document has a lot of ideas in it that appear to have disappeared in to the fog surrounding F1.

It reads like a dystopian sci-fi nightmare...

The chassis, including all bodywork, cooling ducts, radiators and major suspension parts will be subject to an annual homologation process. The list of parts and details of homologation will be decided in association with the Cost Reduction Working Group.

[...]

The under-tray will be specified by the Overtaking Working Group and designed (a) to produce the aerodynamic characteristics required and (b) to be mechanically stiff so that aero-elasticity issues are avoided. The part is not only to be prescribed, but also supplied by a third party.

[...]

The desire to bring to a halt the pursuit of downforce extends to the whole vehicle. Thus the chassis itself must also comply with the no overlapping surface rule. This effectively bans barge-boards, [?]-wings, chimneys, flip-ups, and the like.

[...]

There are a number of items on the cars which offer little advantage in terms of anything that race fans would appreciate, but are very costly as they are unique to each team and freedom is allowed in development. Some of these have a marked affect on downforce generation. In particular the whole wheel-upright-brake-and brake-duct assembly is a sensitive aerodynamic part. Clearly the prescription of these parts offers a double benefit, firstly as it draws a halt to their non-road-relevant development and secondly because prescription should lower the reproduction costs considerably. Thus the FIA will put to tender the following:

- Wheels, uprights, brakes (and associated system), brake ducts i.e. the complete "corners" of the car

[...]

The introduction of prescribed uprights has the consequence that the outboard suspension pick up points are fixed, constraining the suspension design. It is suggested that the "corner" design is based on the design that wins the 2007 constructors championship.

[...]

A turbulence sensor complete with an aircraft type back up system (for robustness) will be supplied by the FIA. When travelling in high turbulence levels such as those generated by the close presence of a leading car, the ride height of the car, both front and rear, must be altered in response to the output of this sensor (within a set range, at a set rate, and with appropriate hysteresis, determined from time to time by the FIA) to compensate for the degradation in performance. In free stream the car is to return to a baseline ride height. The purpose is to allow for full compensation for downforce losses due to being in the wake of another car.

That last bit ought to tickle Andres to pieces. Can't say I ever thought I'd see legitimate proposals for wholesale standardization in Formula One, though. Despite being conjured up ten years ago, when F1 was a very different animal, I'm still surprised by that.

I´m not a fan of standarization either, but when you think about it, F1 actually is standarized in so many aspects (engine size, type, dimensions, CoG, wings sizes, materials, flexibility, tires, suspensions, cockpit, gearbox, ERS....) I can´t see how standarizing some more will make any difference

The difference would be they could provide close battles. I very much would prefer a 30% standarized F1 wich provides close battles, than current situation with 25% standarized cars wich cannot provide close battles. Percentages are invented obviously, just trying to explain it better



PS: so the OWG did a similar proposal but you keep repeating that´s absurd, I don´t understand aero, etc.????

[turbof1]

Dirty air will always be a problem because any car making use of air to create DF, is actually disturbing air, so next car will always find turbulent air and it will always create less DF than the car in front, harming overtaking as the trailing car has a big handicap compared to the car in front

Yes, but like Bhall tries to point out is that everybody assumes this without trying to understand why. Have a look at ground effect cars from the 80's: everybody is pointing, including myself in the past, that they were more easy to follow due the downforce being produced by the floor, which supposely creates less turbulent air.

Which is wrong in actuality. It was not the ground effect itself that caused these cars to follow eachother close. Take a look at this picture:
http://www.fine-grains.com/theinspirati ... 2_BC1.jpeg
And now take Paddy Lowe's comments, which do make sense. A large rear wing close to the diffuser, yet with a low camber, combined with the absence of a front wing. If you remove the rear wing and include a current grade front wing, you'll have massive issue's with overtaking, where the turbulent flow coming out of the diffuser is not upwashing enough and is going over the front wing of the trailling car.

In my eyes, it's a story of managing turbulent airflow vs. reducing turbulent airflow.

But Turbo, where did I proposed removing some wing or increasing relevancy of the floor?

It´s you guys who keep thinking about how to reduce dirty air. I desisted from that route some time ago. Now I assume dirty air will always be there (it could be a bit higher or lower depending on the car´s aero, but there will always be dirty air), so instead of trying to reduce something wich will always cause problems, try to solve those problems (drop in DF)

That´s the reason for my proposal, instead of reducing dirty air, try to increase DF when in dirty air with active aero. I´m far from an aeronautycal engineer, but I think there must be some solution to increase DF only when in the slipstream, and that would make posible what now seems imposible, aero dependant cars (fast cars) wich can provide close battles

I never claimed you were proposing it . I merely took a general example to show how little we know about this and how many assumptions we have on the subject.

Dropping downforce has to be done a lot better if you want to get positive results out of it. As Bhall showed, they reduced downforce from 2013 to 2014, yet overtaking dropped significantly. My take on this is that in the current situation, it is equally possible to drop downforce the wrong way as increasing downforce the correct way. Yes, I firmly believe you can increase downforce while also increase overtaking, if done right.

[FW17]

The floor of the F1 car is most efficient at creating down-force with least drag. While current cars have a lift to drag ratio of 2.5 cars of the past were a lot more efficient with 7.5

This is all the more reason as to why the down force from the floor needs to be increased and moved closer to the center of the car while reducing the reliance on wings to make cars less dirty air sensitive.

[bhall II]

PS: so the OWG did a similar proposal but you keep repeating that´s absurd, I don´t understand aero, etc.????

Yeah, and the Overtaking Working Group did such a bang-up job with the 2009 rules.

I've made it clear from the beginning that standardization is a different ball of wax, and the proposal in question called for virtually everything but the sidepods and front/rear wings to be proscribed by the regulations. Given identical floors (supplied by a third party), de facto standard suspensions, and incredibly strict bodywork rules that sought to limit wing elements and prohibit overlap, the grid would have been rapidly homogenized by convergence. In other words, the proposal would have turned F1 into IndyCar.

That might work for some folks, but it would have been a travesty in my eyes.

[turbof1]

http://www.formula1-dictionary.net/Imag ... _small.png

The floor of the F1 car is most efficient at creating down-force with least drag. While current cars have a lift to drag ratio of 2.5 cars of the past were a lot more efficient with 7.5

This is all the more reason as to why the down force from the floor needs to be increased and moved closer to the center of the car while reducing the reliance on wings to make cars less dirty air sensitive.

You are merely looking at the aero efficiency, which is not an indicator for turbulent wake. As Bhall explained and showed with animated cfd images, the diffusers produced the most turbulent airflow. By just reducing wings and increasing the floor/diffuser, the problem gets worse. This is why I am hammering on the fact that most people misinterpret the success of the ground effect cars: not the increased diffuser and floor df is the key, but the fact these cars lack a front wing and have a big yet low cambered rear wing. The latter is vital in upwashing the massive amounts of turbulent airflow.

[Big Mangalhit]

Sorry to keep on going with the same idea but I just saw that the Chinese GP had the most overtakes in history of F1 and with that it brought the overtake average of this year close to 100 per GP.
The 3 tyre rule, hybrid engines and the convergence of technology are working well and apparently solving this problem. Although it is just a very short three races tendency I think it will continue and if so maybe things should be kept the same for 2017. I also wonder how many overtakes we would have in china without DRS and how many battles.

[FW17]

You are merely looking at the aero efficiency, which is not an indicator for turbulent wake. As Bhall explained and showed with animated cfd images, the diffusers produced the most turbulent airflow. By just reducing wings and increasing the floor/diffuser, the problem gets worse. This is why I am hammering on the fact that most people misinterpret the success of the ground effect cars: not the increased diffuser and floor df is the key, but the fact these cars lack a front wing and have a big yet low cambered rear wing. The latter is vital in upwashing the massive amounts of turbulent airflow.

While it is established that the diffuser produces the most turbulence are there enough data to support the claim that the diffuser gets affected by running in turbulent air?


The fact is you are not going to get a GE car for political reasons