Way to spam the winglets, Honda

[EzinX]

Apparently, Winglet spam works just fine in real life. Only difference between IRL and Kerbal is that winglets don't work if they are behind other winglets.

[Bill Phil]

Downforce???

[EzinX]

Downforce???

Yup. Moar downforce.

[Tommygun]

Yup. Moar downforce.

Down force and sucking, don't forget the sucking.

[Kerbart]

Is that a joke or are they serious?

[zxczxczbfg]

This brings to mind Danny2462's "spy car".

[magnemoe]

Is that a joke or are they serious?

Think its a joke or concept. As I understand they uses variable spoilers so they can get max downforce in curves while minimize air resistance on straight runs.

However sucking is illegal in razing if I'm not mistaken, if variable spoilers was also outlawed spoiler spam might be the best solution.

Also looks like its easy to exchange spoilers so you might want to use different on different tracks.

[B787_300]

No this is a very serious design. The benefit of having is split is that more laminar flow occurs and you get an effect similar to the Fowler Flap (Which has a gap in it)

[Jovus]

Damn. How do they keep down the parasitic drag? Or do they just not worry about that because downforce around curves is more strongly coupled to race-times?

[AngelLestat]

However sucking is illegal in razing if I'm not mistaken, if variable spoilers was also outlawed spoiler spam might be the best solution.

Also looks like its easy to exchange spoilers so you might want to use different on different tracks.

I am not a F1 follower and not sure if I understand the rules, but I guess sucking is referred to the cars which creates a vacuum down the chassis, this may done with aerodynamic shape or using the engine to suck air beneath.

The first cars banned in use this effect was because they not let it pass any air under the car with a kind of moveable skirts.

The danger with this system is that if the car jump a little or some wheel is in the air at certain moment, all the suction force is loss, so the car will crash very hard.

But if you gain downforce even if the car is flying, I guess there should not be any problem.. But not sure.

[ElWanderer]

The image in the OP seems to be an IndyCar design for this year. If I weren't on a phone I'd link to an article. From the front it looks fairly similar to an F1 car from this year or last, though other views of the design show it to be very different at the back (and so weird to my eyes - I know very little about IndyCar). Note that Honda don't have an F1 team, though they are supplying engines to McLaren this season.

There seems to be a law of diminishing returns with the wing elements - losing a whole wing makes a race car very hard to control, but drivers have lost small parts in collisions (especially the end plates) without much of a noticeable effect on their lap times.

[pincushionman]

…Only difference between IRL and Kerbal is that winglets don't work if they are behind other winglets.

They sure as heck do. You just need to know what you're doing. As noted above by B787_300, Fowler flaps and leading-edge slats are a very real thing, and that's a quick-and dirty description of what they are.

[EzinX]

They sure as heck do. You just need to know what you're doing. As noted above by B787_300, Fowler flaps and leading-edge slats are a very real thing, and that's a quick-and dirty description of what they are.

You're saying they will work even if the winglet in front completely occludes the one behind?

[pincushionman]

You're saying they will work even if the winglet in front completely occludes the one behind?

A properly-fuctioning aerodynamic surface doesn't really "occlude" anything. It creates a wake, yes, but that isn't like a shadow; the air flows around the object and ideally can interact with objects behind.

Now, "occlusions" DO occur in certain circumstances: see stall. but that usually means a failure of one of your features. Also, the pressure fields of a number of features can interact in such a way as to make the contribution of some if the features meaningless. A prime example is the "interior scoop" - these historically failed to work before someone developed the NACA scoop design.

Was that the kind of thing you were talking about? It's not quite as simple as being "behind" or not, especially because what constitutes being "behind" is very specific. That's why you need to know what you're doing.

[magnemoe]

A properly-fuctioning aerodynamic surface doesn't really "occlude" anything. It creates a wake, yes, but that isn't like a shadow; the air flows around the object and ideally can interact with objects behind.

Now, "occlusions" DO occur in certain circumstances: see stall. but that usually means a failure of one of your features. Also, the pressure fields of a number of features can interact in such a way as to make the contribution of some if the features meaningless. A prime example is the "interior scoop" - these historically failed to work before someone developed the NACA scoop design.

Was that the kind of thing you were talking about? It's not quite as simple as being "behind" or not, especially because what constitutes being "behind" is very specific. That's why you need to know what you're doing.

Yes, aerodynamic is complicated, the main issue of putting multiple winglets behind each other is why not use an larger one? If you use moveable winglets the airflow will get hairy as they will interact different at different angles. This is only done in KSP as we lack larger wings and control surfaces.

The NACA scoop don't work well for jet engines but works very well for other uses, especially cars who moves much slower, they have other benefits on cars like nothing who stand out and can be damaged or damage others and have low drag in moderate speeds where they are not needed.

[EzinX]

Ok. If I put a brick wall in an air stream, such that the normal from the wall surface is aligned with the incident air direction and then stick my winglets behind that brick wall, the amount of air that reaches the winglets is negligible.

Mentally, I see winglets as really small occluding walls that block air to things behind them.

[Jovus]

Ok. If I put a brick wall in an air stream, such that the normal from the wall surface is aligned with the incident air direction and then stick my winglets behind that brick wall, the amount of air that reaches the winglets is negligible.

Mentally, I see winglets as really small occluding walls that block air to things behind them.

Sure. But that's because your brick wall is stalling pretty hard. If you instead put your wall at an angle of, say, 10 degrees, and then put your wings in the 'shadow' of the wall - by which I mean, if you shine a light straight along the horizontal, then put those wings in the shadowed portion - then they'll have some real aerodynamic effect. Though I can't tell you just from that description what it would be, because it depends on a lot of factors.

Also, can we please stop using the term 'winglets' to mean 'small, possibly movable wings'? A winglet is a near-perpendicular wingtip extension designed to increase tip lift and decrease tip drag.

[DarkOwl57]

On 3/12/2015 at 7:32 AM, AngelLestat said:

I am not a F1 follower and not sure if I understand the rules, but I guess sucking is referred to the cars which creates a vacuum down the chassis, this may done with aerodynamic shape or using the engine to suck air beneath.

The first cars banned in use this effect was because they not let it pass any air under the car with a kind of moveable skirts.

The danger with this system is that if the car jump a little or some wheel is in the air at certain moment, all the suction force is loss, so the car will crash very hard.

But if you gain downforce even if the car is flying, I guess there should not be any problem.. But not sure.

The 'all the suction force loss' is what led NASCAR to create the roof flaps. The flaps basically keep the car from doing a "Blowover," Which is where the rear of the car fly's up and the car lands on it's roof. Sometimes, though, the flaps don't work. (Search 'All crashes from Talladega (Spring 2016)' on YouTube)

Edited October 26, 2016 by DarkOwl57

[mikegarrison]

The thing to understand is that they are limited by rules about where they can put wings and how big the wings can be. These designs are the results of the design constraints of the rules, not some kind of optimal ideal aerodynamics.

Also, these are "multi-element airfoils", not "winglets".

3 hours ago, DarkOwl57 said:

The 'all the suction force loss' is what led NASCAR to create the roof flaps. The flaps basically keep the car from doing a "Blowover," Which is where the rear of the car fly's up and the car lands on it's roof. Sometimes, though, the flaps don't work. (Search 'All crashes from Talladega (Spring 2016)' on YouTube)

The problem with the NASCAR cars if that if they are going forward they have downforce. But if the car spins around, it is actually shaped like a lifting airfoil. So in a crash the cars would spin backward, then lift up. After that, all sorts of bad things happen. By putting those roof flaps on there, when the car spins around backward the flaps open, acting as spoilers. That breaks up the airflow over the car so it doesn't develop lift.

[DarkOwl57]

1 hour ago, mikegarrison said:

The thing to understand is that they are limited by rules about where they can put wings and how big the wings can be. These designs are the results of the design constraints of the rules, not some kind of optimal ideal aerodynamics.

Also, these are "multi-element airfoils", not "winglets".

The problem with the NASCAR cars if that if they are going forward they have downforce. But if the car spins around, it is actually shaped like a lifting airfoil. So in a crash the cars would spin backward, then lift up. After that, all sorts of bad things happen. By putting those roof flaps on there, when the car spins around backward the flaps open, acting as spoilers. That breaks up the airflow over the car so it doesn't develop lift.

Yeah, I couldn't find a better way to describe it

Edited October 26, 2016 by DarkOwl57

[RCgothic]

Yes, that looks like a normal F1 concept to me?

[Cuky]

7 hours ago, RCgothic said:

Yes, that looks like a normal F1 concept to me?

That isn't F1 concept, it was Honda's aero kit in 2015 for IndyCar teams that were supplied by them

 

It was simplified for later stages of 2015 due to those little winglets on front wing falling off evene when there was no contact with other car or the wall. In 2016 it was simplified even more

http://img.theepochtimes.com/n3/eet-content/uploads/2016/03/15/7810-StPete16-Race-5Hinchcliffe.jpg