moveable aero (for better traction in the corners)

[samstre]

I was thinking about the regulations change next year (2009) and had an idea! As we all know, the apex turn speed is something crucial in modern formula 1 (especially since we've got the V8's). So what do you need to pass corner at maximum speed?

1.Downforce in order to have a better traction.
2.A low center of gravity

My idea focuses on the center of gravity. Because all masses are bound to the force of inertia we need a car with a center of gravity as low as possible.
If a car's center of gravity is to high, it will cant. And even if the cars center of gravity is low enough (like modern f1 cars) you loose some traction. ← The car is out of balance.



Picture 1.1 shows what its all about (I know it's not 100% physically correct, but it's only purpose is to give you a rough idea what I mean)


To balance the car again, we need more pressure on the inner side (inner wheels). One simple thing to achieve this, would be to increase the angle of all wings on the inner side. (if you dive a left corner, all the wings on the left side of the car). We could just split the wings into an A-wing and a B-Wing (like in picture 1.2). In picture 1.2 you see a front wing of a car. My idea is that you could adjust the wings angle separate (increase angle A without touching B's angle). It's quiet like the mechanism behind the aileron of a plane, with the difference that we just increase the angle of one side, instead of increasing one side and decreasing the other one. The wing angles must be controlled electronically, depending on the speed of the car and the angle of the steering wheel.



Picture 1.2 shows a front wing with wings A and B marked. (I just illustrated the front wing, in reality we would also use some winglets and maybe some parts of the back wing???) btw. I'm sorry for the bad paintings but I just got a piece of paper and my laptop (just touchpad)


That would give the car some advantages: A higher apex speed and better use the tires. The mechanism could also be used to avoid standing wheels (usually the inner front wheel) in the breaking zone.

I know that something like this is impossible (within the current regulations and also within next years regulations). But do you think this could give cars a real advantage? (more than 1/100 sec. per lap)

I'm really sorry about my bad technical english. English is (obviously) not my mother tongue.

[WhiteBlue]

welcome to the board!

I do not think the idea will get much favour. Movable aero is something that is seen with some scepticism and will only be allowed to achieve higher goals in my view.

Having better traction in corners can be achieved by better wheels , tyres and suspension rules.

I would propose an etirely different movable wing. In order to save energy and avoid drag wing angles should be automatically controlled by the ECU. All teams get the same control program. that way relatively high downforce can be achieved in slow corners , mid downforce in faster corners and in very fast corners and on the straiths no downforce or at least a minimum is applied. some turbulence and drag can be avoided, passing be improved and energy saved. the speed freaks would get higher speeds where it will not hurt safety and all will be happy.

The manual solution we are supposed to get in 2009 sounds a bit dogmatic to me. why should we give racing drivers aero controls to fiddle with. that has never been tradition in racing and quite unnecessary. let them use the clutch again if we want them to do more work (ironic).

[riff_raff]

samstre,

Any type of actively adjustable aero device is not allowed on the car. There are even rules that dictate how much body parts, like wings and undertrays, can "flex".

As you noted, aero downforce and side-to-side balance (center of pressure), are critical components of cornering speed. But they are only part of a larger overall picture.

The fastest driver thru a corner will always be the one who is able to go in fastest, brake latest, stay on the optimum line, and get the engine back on power the quickest. So the car needs to have a suspension and aero setup that maintains predictable and consistent balance both side-to-side and front-to-rear, under conditions of cornering roll, braking dive, and acceleration squat.

Back when active suspension was still legal in F1, it was always fascinating to watch the in-car cameras that were set up to look back along the wheelbase of the cars. I specifically remember a shot from Nigel Mansell's early '90s Williams-Renault. The distance between the undertray and the track never varied even 1mm as the suspension moved up and down while accelerating, braking and cornering. It was truly impressive.

[Jersey Tom]

If you're going to do movable wings (which you aren't allowed anyway).. why not make the entire wing angle down more? More grip on both tires rather than just the inside.

[Carbon]

A very interesting video of a movable aero device in action, in this case, an computer controlled rear wing....perhaps the future of F1?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73-3epSE ... in-action/

[modbaraban]

A very interesting video of a movable aero device in action, in this case, an computer controlled rear wing....perhaps the future of F1?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73-3epSE ... in-action/

Very impressive. However I don't see any point in allowing movable aero in F1. Especially for the rear wing. If the control software makes an error (or a driver controlling it) the consequence may be a crash the size of Kubica's in Montreal, i.e. massive! A split second of lacking rear downforce in a corner and you're a passenger! On the other hand the advantages for the sport are quite quiestionnable.

[timbo]

A very interesting video of a movable aero device in action, in this case, an computer controlled rear wing....perhaps the future of F1?

Looks interesting, however, I doubt that at the speeds that car reached in the video it made any difference.
For F1 this would be beneficial of course but "computer controlled" is a driver aid. And for next year you can only adjust aero 2 times per lap.

[timbo]

I wonder what are that wires going from the nosecone to the front wing - and there are wires for the rear wing too. I always thought it was for active aero, so can nyone tell was active aero used on that benetton (b189 I think)

[Ogami musashi]

Hello Samstre,

Your analysis on the principle of equilibrate things is good but is a bit far from the real racing cases.

Prior to entering physical details, the problem is that no, the fastest car is not the one with the best apex speed.
The V8 deficit of power is only really seen around 280km/h and even considering that, teams worked a lot on efficiency to allow cars cornering and accelerating as close as possible to the V10 area.

When you have cars with lot of grip you can use many different cornering technics, what is important is the time you spend turning (that includes braking and accelerating away) but drivers use many combined or decoupled technics.

See during races the apex speeds at some turns, this is rarely the fastest driver that have the highest apex speed.

The next thing is that by far the most transfer you have is not mass but load.
Usually mass transfer is on the order of 0,01% while load transfer can be as high as full numbers.

You'll tell me that it doesn't change nothing to the problem, the balance is defeated...That's right but the thing is that a load transfer may decrease the total grip on the car, it will however increase the grip on the tyre loaded.

Where i want to go is that in racing steady state is rarely there, especially in F1 you're always loading something; By definition as F1 cars spends less time into a corner than any other racing car so you have less time between transients.
As such, it can be advantageous to have some tyres loaded a bit more even if this is a the expense of the total grip.

For example many racing cars are, without taking downforce into account, a little forward CG biased.
If we were into a steady state, that forward CG bias bring understeer which is not good.
However before the actual mass*moment (which equals the load) overload the tyre the car will exhibit overtseer. The turning sequence starts with an overtseer. Basically turning is the parallel action of rotating your car and translation (which does the actual turning), so in the turn in phase you need a bit of oversteer.
Once the car has turned if the turn is long the car will tend to exhibit understeer. If you have set up your car like it should then this state is reached at the exit were you actually will benefit from understeer because the rear tyres will be less loaded and have good traction.

The same can happen in turn when a side less loaded will react faster and thus help changing direction.


However, you're talking about downforce, and downforce is a load (not inertial) so your point is totally valid as yaw effects tend to make the balance less equilibrated.
Idealy we'd like the aero balance to full equilibrated, but again some differential settings may affect that.


However something could help, is you actually regulate downforce side by side you can help the car turning by creating a sideforce. The limits are on the tyre side but that can eventually help to have faster changes of direction.

I think there's definitely some future for moveable aeros in F1 even in the simple case of straight line drag reduction (or downforce monitoring ) and of course for cooling purpose.

We could go very far by having better yaw distribution on the wings..let's hope 2011 rules come with something like that.

[rjsa]

I wonder what are that wires going from the nosecone to the front wing - and there are wires for the rear wing too. I always thought it was for active aero, so can nyone tell was active aero used on that benetton (b189 I think)

That seems to be a small scale radio controlled car and the nylon wires are there to keep the wings in one piece, me thinks.

EDIT: Silly me, the real thing also had the same wiring:


The purppose is the same, keep it in one piece.

[RacingManiac]

Oval openwheels do run different level of wings left to right, and to an extent on unevenly run road courses(more turn one way then the other) it's been done as well. Moveable aero would just be an extension to that. Its still being done in FSAE(UTA comes with mind with their 2 piece front and rear wing mounted on the roll bars), but thats obviously illegal in pretty much all series now....

[PNSD]

Ferrari ran a variable chord length rear wing at some point this season.

One end was smaller than the other... I think it was Canada.

[bar555]

PNSD wrote :
Ferrari ran a variable chord length rear wing at some point this season.

One end was smaller than the other... I think it was Canada.

Yes it was in Canada (if i get what you mean)

[Crystalix]

OK but that's not a moveable part of the car !

[PNSD]

bar - i think we have different understandings of what chord length is !

my point was in Monza or Canada ( i think ) Ferrari ran assyemtric chord lengths.

Like here, the bottom plain has a varying chord length - Chord is from leading edge to trailing edge !

http://www.imagesf1.com/2007/ferrari/55.jpg


Ferrari ran this type of wing but only one side had a varying length in chord.

edit - not movable, but it was in reference to the video, where one side of the rear wing was at a higher AoA than the other... in a way Ferrar did this with the variable chord.