The F1 Technical Developments Thread

^ My eyes fail me. Please enlighten ? :(
 
Front wing is more Red Bull style, with triangle-ish main flaps instead of square ones.
 
Maybe not directly on topic, but I have a question.

Why F1 (and other formulas also) cars have this small windscreens? Do it must be there or it really helps somehow? Is it that small and at 90 degrees to the cockpit because of limitation in regulations? Could someone explain this for me because I always was wondering about this element of car on which they make aero with care of every detail.
 
Kiskaloo said:
It helps reduce helmet buffeting from the airstream.
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Yes, but why this size and shape? Why not something like windscreens in bikes? Is it because of safety or just to limit the advantage of drag reduction?
 
settler said:
Yes, but why this size and shape? Why not something like windscreens in bikes? Is it because of safety or just to limit the advantage of drag reduction?
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Safety. You can't have a canopy over the cockpit, you have to design the cockpit opening to fit, as far as I can tell from the rules, two templates in certain places, and to enable the driver to escape from the cockpit in less than the mandatory 5 seconds.
 
I know that, but they could put the screen further ahead so there wouldn't be any difference in ability of exiting the cockpit.

I understand there is maximum height of this windscreen, yes? And with that height putting it at lower angle wouldn't make any difference in time in which driver has to escape the car.

edit:

I found last year when F1 cars had aerodynamic windscreens.

Ferrari from 1993:
https://pic.armedcats.net/s/se/settler/2009/12/02/93_F93_A_558x372.jpg

And then in 1994 they didn't have it at all (only shape of body helped with airflow).
 
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settler said:
I know that, but they could put the screen further ahead so there wouldn't be any difference in ability of exiting the cockpit.
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It might be defined by the F1 Technical Regulations.

Steve Matchett has noted on SPEED Channel's coverage that the windscreen height is not fixed to a specific height, as it does vary across the cars.

During one practice session at a race, BMW forgot to remove the LCD stand from Robert Kubica's car before they sent him out and it caused some confusion for a time as the SPEED announcers tried to figure out why BMW would put such a blocky structure on the nose of the car until Peter Windsor stopped by and asked. :)
 
SchumacherM said:
Maybe RBR will consider Ferrari muscle? The Ferrari enignes are performing very well under the 18k rpm restriction. I think that not even on of their engines broke this year..
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The jackass who negrepped me for this really needs to get a life..a post 2 months old..:blink:
 
It is being suggested that Mclaren have come up with some special aero device where Bernoulli's principle are not in effect. Something called Dead Zone.
 
Topgearfanatic said:
It is being suggested that Mclaren have come up with some special aero device where Bernoulli's principle are not in effect. Something called Dead Zone.
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Is that even possible theoretically?
 
^ Interesting.

Here's something to speculate about:

Search for Bernoulli "Dead Zone"
First result: An article called "Problem of the flow around a jet source"
This article links "dead zones" - whatever they are - to the interaction of an airflow around a "jet source" - a source of an airflow with different properties than the ambient airflow (different temperature, pressure, velocity).

Now searching again for the article title only yields a second article, titled "Design of a subsonic airfoil with upstream blowing"
This article references the first one as related literature. The preview doesn't tell anything about the connection between these two articles though.

So here goes the speculative bit:

As a jet source the first thing that springs to my mind is the exhaust. So what we could be looking at is a wing which is blown on by the exhaust. This would basically be a different revamp of the fan-car.

Another way a jet can be created is by channelling an airflow through a nozzle of some sort. So it could also be a wing with holes drilled into it to channel air from the high pressure side of the wing to the low pressure side. (Pure speculation and probably technically complete nonsense, albeit an idea)

Please share your thoughts and correct me, if I'm wrong.
 
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McLaren: "Fuck you dynamics! You're my bitch!"
 
The "wing blown on by the exhaust" is probably a bit of a bollocks idea, since the winglets on the body of the cars are banned. However, they do put a bit of extra gas and pressure on the lower flaps of the rear wing.
 
I guess you're right.

I mean even if you'd be able to manipulate the effectiveness of the rear wing under throttle that would mean that you loose effectiveness under braking. Say you decrease the wing's effect with increased throttle, you'd loose efficiency on hard acceleration out of the corners (full engine load + grip required). If you increase the wing's effect with increased throttle, you will have a problem under braking (no engine load + grip required). So that can't be it.
 
From what I gained from the 19 pages of that forum thread (yes I read all of them, I'm very dull sometimes) was that the aerodynamics would be maximised in the corners by using areas of the wings which would no normally provide downforce etc.

Either that or the guy was making it up
 
Dan9-1 said:
From what I gained from the 19 pages of that forum thread (yes I read all of them, I'm very dull sometimes) was that the aerodynamics would be maximised in the corners by using areas of the wings which would no normally provide downforce etc.

Either that or the guy was making it up
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Well that's certainly what I would interpret as "using a deadzone", so... let's see when the MP4-25, and indeed all the other cars, are rolled out.
 
A dead zone is an area behind an aerodynamic surface where Bernoulli's principle doesn't apply, like when you put your hand behind you wing mirror while driving. So the idea as it applies to F1 cars is that you have two aerosurfaces one in front of the other and while in a low speed conditions the two surfaces work the air to create downforce, under high speed conditions the dead zone behind the first surface would grow so that it covers the second surface meaning the second surface would no longer be working the air creating downforce and drag. Boom your car goes faster in a straight line and you win races.

From what I understand the story and photos have been called BS, though I'm sure they've played with this idea before in F1, it's nothing revolutionary.
 
I think it's bull shit to muster the other teams into overdeveloping their cars. However, I support McLaren and hope they do well in 2010.
 
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