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Wind Tunnel

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Wizzo:

In Formula 1, losing a tenth of a second is a real drag. It is no surprise, then, that improving the aerodynamic performance is such an important factor for the race cars. Only those teams that have their own wind tunnel can keep up with the extremely fast development.

Time is money in Formula 1 – and time costs money: according to estimates by experts, the costs of improving aerodynamics now account for approximately 15 percent of the teams’ annual budgets. Only the engines are still more expensive. The new construction of a modern wind tunnel costs about 45 million euros. In spite of that, most of the teams have built their own wind tunnel in the past few years. At WilliamsF1’s headquarters in Grove, England, a super-modern centre for aero-dynamics, unique in Formula 1, has developed around the existing wind tunnel; an investment in the future.

“Despite all the changes to the regulations,” says Patrick Head, Director of Engineering at WilliamsF1, “aerodynamics will always be one of the most important elements in Formula 1."
 

 
The heart of any modern wind tunnel is the test section. The vehicle model is placed on a steel conveyor belt that simulates the road. Using fully synchronised multi-axle model management, the technicians are able to examine virtually all the factors that might affect a race car on the track. Dr Antonia Terzi, WilliamsF1's Chief Aerodynamics Technician, believes that this results in “an increase in precision by 30 percent”. Another very impressive feature is the giant fan with its carbon rotor blades, which achieve speeds of approximately 600 revolutions per minute.

Powered by a 60-ton, 3-megawatt (4,000HP) engine, it generates tornado-like wind speeds that blow a calm air mass of nine tons into the test section, at up to 300 kilometres per hour, in the space of only 30 seconds. The conveyor belt simulates driving the car because the asphalt also creates eddies that influence the aerodynamics.

During the tests in the wind tunnel, the aerodynamics technicians are interested in three values: downforce, drag and pitch sensitivity. Greater downforce increases the vehicle’s cornering speed but should ideally be achieved without increasing drag, which in turn reduces the top speed. Pitch sensitivity defines how strongly the car is affected by aerodynamic changes such as those created by uneven surfaces that continuously alter the distance of the wings and underbody to the surface of the track.

Newer wind tunnels, like WilliamsF1’s, have the advantage of facilitating tests on one-to-one scale vehicles. Many wind tunnels allow testing only with 50- or 60-percent sized models that are unsuitable for the exact simulation of the airflow through certain vehicle components such as wheel carriers or rims. Another method of testing is to use two smaller models, one behind the other, thus measuring the airflow created in the slipstream. The height and position of the models can be altered at any time from outside via remote control – with a precision of 0.01 millimetres. The wheels, accounting for roughly one-third of the entire vehicle’s air resistance, are tightly fitted into the test installation on struts.

To stay ahead in the tough competition on the global market, all the major car manufacturers run their own wind tunnels. “Although it is becoming possible, with the increasing realism of numeric flow mechanics, to calculate more and more characteristics by computer, the experimental examination and refinement in the wind tunnel will remain indispensable in the foreseeable future,” says Dr. Christoph Lauterwasser of the Allianz Centre for Technology. “The main issue with passenger cars is the optimisation of air resistance and thus fuel consumption, but beyond that many other questions, such as the minimisation of wind noises, for instance, are also researched.”

 

raindancer:
Great one GPWizard. The Pentagon and some science labs have giant parallel processing Super Computers which can actually simulate Nuclear Explosions through modeling.
I don't think we are very away from utilizing or harnessing the power of these machines in the Commercial world for simulating Wind Tunnel studies.

Chameleon:
I would take all computer simulations with a large pinch of salt.  They can only ever be as good as the data that is fed into them and aerodynamics is such an arcane science that there are bound to be some false assumptions in the data.

To a lesser extent, the same applies to wind tunnels.  They are a step away from reality and cannot be relied upon to give correct answers every time (just ask Honda about that).  If they did, you would see all the cars performing exactly alike - they are close to identical in their use of aerodynamics already but will never be quite the same since the variable of what data you feed into the test remains.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating - nobody knows how good a new car will be until it puts rubber to test track.  And there have been some dreadful surprises for most teams at that moment.  The theory doesn't always work.

I am not against the use of aerodynamics in F1; in fact, I have been interested in the subject from the sixties (and have my own theories on ground effect that are at variance with currently-accepted wisdom).  But the whole thing has gone too far.  When 80% of a car's performance is a result of aerodynamically-generated downforce and it becomes impossible for cars to run as effectively behind each other, something has to be done to limit the importance of aerodynamics.  I believe that the FIA's proposals in this area are too complex and not radical enough to achieve the desired aim of more overtaking.

When the aerodynamicists' toys are spoiling the sport, the most effective way of limiting their influence is to take the toys away.  The flat bottom should be extended to the nose, thereby getting rid of the raised nose that is essential to so much of the car's downforce, and wings should be thrown out (is that radical enough?).

To fix a big problem, you need big answers.

Steven Roy:
I like Gilles Villeneuve's view on aero.  Take the wings and throw them in the bin.  Of course now it would be take the wings, diffusers, flip ups, winglets, barge boards, turning vanes, etc etc.

Someone published an article around the time Honda introduced their paint job on the facets of F1 which are least environmentally friendly.  All the fuel used to fly cars round the world and to run them in every test and race would power all the F1 wind tunnels for something like two days per year.  So apart from ruinging racing they have a more negative environmental effect than everything else in F1 combined.  Running energy re-generation on the cars is a joke in terms of reducing F1's carbon footprint.

Chameleon,
I would love to hear your theory on ground effect.  The first season of F1 covered on TV in the UK was 1978 and that was the season I started reading the racing magazines so ground effect was covered constantly and although I think aero is a huge problem in F1 I can't help being interested in it.

Chameleon:
That would be a long one, Steven - and I'll try to get to it at some stage.  It will probably require diagrams to explain what I mean and that could take a bit of time...  ;)  At the moment, however, I should be working on a new post for the blog (still no idea what to write about and it's getting late!).  Watch this space...

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