F1 Thread

[Khare]

No idea how cockpit pressure benefits, but it's something Scarbs suggested, as well as F-duct like device. The only thing I can think of is that under the car it's negative pressure thanks to diffuser, and so by applying positive pressure on the top, it pushes the car down further? I really don't know much about aerodynamics to be honest. And although F-duct is banned, it doesn't stop teams from inventing new ways of creating/removing downforce on demand.

" I really don't know much about aerodynamics to be honest."

NO WAI!



So....they design a diffuser to lift the car off the ground  (Really.. Why?.... )

... and then the design the cockpit to produce positive pressure to push the car down  (thereby negating the diffuser)   

No...

Since when does the diffuser lift the car off the ground?

Here is my awesome paint to show my thought.





The red area is the negative pressure area created by floor and diffuser.

The green area is positive. Because it's at higher pressure than surface pressure it pushes the car in the opposite direction. So you've got a negative area underneath, a positive on top, it's like having a magnet (positive area) repelling another magnet (air around the cockpit), thus pushing away (down, onto ground).

See what I mean? That's my idea of it anyway. As I said I don't know about aerodynamics so I don't know...

[Khare]

Oh and green is area is cockpit, blue is a possible F-Duct, air could be flowed through the body through an internal mini diffuser.

[JC]

  that is all . . . . .

[Khare]

Yes yes I know what you're thinking, armchair expert. It's why I put in first that I didn't know about aerodynamics. I'm merely just explaining what's on my mind.

[The Mighty Elvi]

Martin Brundle says

[scarr89]

Oh and green is area is cockpit, blue is a possible F-Duct, air could be flowed through the body through an internal mini diffuser.

I like your thinking. Great drawing too  

What A Newey about building the entire, the RB7 is it, around the exhaust last year something which he said RB may of been the only team to do, in comparison to this year without the blown diffusers he says himself RB may well have the greatest to lose.
Remember all those times everyone was saying RB were 'cheating' with their technology...Interesting I feel, as I doubt there isn't much that the top teams don't know about designing an F1 car that others don't

[The Mighty Elvi]

http://joesaward.wordpress.com/


Adrian Newey has been talking about the new Red Bull-Renault RB8.

“It’s the fourth evolution of the RB5 this year, so obviously the pressure is to try and stay there if we possibly can,” he said. “It’s a difficult task, we have lost the exhaust technology with the restriction exhaust outlet position that we were able to develop and perhaps be ahead of the pack on in the last couple of years, that led to a big re think over the winter. Whether that will affect us more than other people is difficult to know of course. We designed the RB7, last year’s car, around that exhaust position and were probably the only people to do so, so it may be that we’ve lost more than other people through that. Only time will tell, it will be good to get out to do some testing and to see where we get to.

“Regulation restrictions like the lost exhaust are a bit frustrating in truth, because they are exactly that, they are restrictions, they’re not giving new opportunities or revenues particularly, they’re just closing a door. Regulation changes I enjoy, regulation restrictions I rather lament.

“RB7 was designed around the exhaust, this year knowing that the exhaust position from last year would be taken away, we’ve had to go back and look at how we developed the car through the last one and two years with the side exit exhaust and try and, if you like, make sure that the routes we had taken that were only suitable for that exhaust position we now had to re-evaluate. Probably one of the key things there is the rear ride height. The exhaust allowed us to run a high rear ride height, it’s much more difficult without that to sustain a high rear height so we have to go back down and have to redevelop the car around that lower ride height.

“The restriction nose height which is a maximum height just in front of the front bulkhead hasn’t really changed the chassis shape very much. We’ve kept more or less the same chassis shape, but had to drop the nose just in front of the front bulkhead, which, in common with many other teams, has led us to I think I’d probably say a slightly ugly looking nose. We’ve tried to style it as best we can, but it’s not a feature you would choose to put in were it not for the regulation.

“I’d say RB8 is the fourth generation of what started with the 2009 car, the RB5. So I guess this is the great grandson of that car.”


END.

[Khare]

Martin Brundle says

Created a pressure drop, suction. aKa negative pressure.

Oh and green is area is cockpit, blue is a possible F-Duct, air could be flowed through the body through an internal mini diffuser.

I like your thinking. Great drawing too  

Cheers, glad someone did 

[DOA]

Khares thinking is correct and spot on, negative pressure under the car and high pressure above is exactly how downforce works (well, there are other theories emerging but lets not go there lol).
 
The diffuser doesnt actually create negative pressure though, the high speed air passing under the car creates that (high velocity flow = low pressure, low velocity flow = high pressure in accordance with bernouli's theorem). The low height of the floor relative to the ground basically forces the air to a high velocity creating the low pressure zone. The actual (low) pressure peak is found at the mouth of the diffuser (at the front of the diffuser) and the air below the car is generally below ambient pressure so the whole floor creates downforce. The diffuser serves to assist pressure recovery or the matching of the velocities of the flows where they meet at the back of the car.

Of course this is all a very broad based and basic view of the problems a racecar faces and the fact that the air has to travel further over the top of the car creates lift on the top of the vehicle too to some extent since the air has to travel faster to match velocity with the air flowing under the car due to the greater distance it must travel (wierd how fluid flows link and interact like this  ) so you rarely see pressure much above ambient on the top of any car (as Khare says, the high pressure in the cockpit is potentially a very usefull source of downforce due to the pressure difference between this area and that directly beneath it on the floor!) but the lower pressure below is what creates the real downforce from the body as even a slight pressure difference between the ambient pressure and that under the car can create considerable downforce due to the area over which this pressure difference acts since Force = Pressure x Area.

[Khare]

Nicely cleared up DOA. Glad my thinking makes sense 

that is all . . . . .

Sorry, what Chuff?