wings research

[Amos]

Banning and i have been discussin' a bit of a different idea in the downforce ideas.
after the fluid lecture in spinning cylinders, if you refer to a handout with 6 pictures of flow around a cylinder, you will notice how much influence it has on the flow.

Now imagine a cylinder as a wing which is driven by the motor (remembering that engine power doesn't seem like a problem, wheelspin is always happenin)
This cylinder can spin at high revs and cause a (apparently wicked) down.

Weve spoken to Kelso about it, he says someone did this with a car.... some time ago.
And also didnt dismiss the idea....
He says a flat bar spinning is much more effective than the cylinder, BUT creates a shitload of drag.

Sooooooo...... the crux of the story is we can do such a down idea, But lots of drag will occur. Once again a trade off!!!!!! Just remember power doesn't seem to be a problem. If we can keep the straight line speed in the corners with a crap load of down, then all will be good as the tracks are so tight.

[gug]

wonder if this is considered an active ground effect? would that only be if it was the front wing or both wings? the rules ban active ground effects.
i think the sponsors would like it, attraction of a more novel car and if we can back it up with serious research then no1 should dismiss it as novel.
shit, we have bucketloads of spare power going around a corner, when that downforce is really needed. maybe some sort of active control hooked into the steering position and brake pedal? although it would take time to spin up, so maybe some sort of button that we could hit before a twisty section to get it spinning up.

"I come from a land down under,
Where beer does flow and men chunder"

[Amos]

Theres also a safety factor incorporated in this as well i guess, we dont want someone gettin their hand stuck in the thing either
But what do they define as active?? this could just be a direct drive from the drive shaft, and possibly non controllable.

Dunno, just thought id stick the idea down.... Cant take credit but, Bannings idea too!!!!

[ape_team]

Its Banning

I'd only considered this for the rear wing but i spose some sort of down will need at the front or there will be some balance problems. If we had the bar on the front as well the wash (drag) from it could act as a slip stream for the rest of the car.... but.... going off of the amount of down that Kelso was talking the wash maybe thrown a bit to high for the rest of the car...dunno... i will see what i can dig up / work out.

banning

[mike240z]

The rules ban 'active ground effects'. If the spinning cylinder/plate is on top of the car ie. front or rear wings, it is hardly a 'ground' effect. The rules are talking about things like reverse hover crafts with fans sucking out the air from underneath the car. I think we should look into the possibility of altering our wing angle of attack, or changing the speed of the spinning cylinder/plate, to giving us high downforce in corners and low drag on the straights.

[mike240z]

Just to let people know... the down force on the car has to be balanced. The rear wing as it sits above the car, can pretty much be as big as possible. The front wing however, is strictly governed by an envelope defined in the rules. This means in designing an aero package we should make the front wing as big as possible, and then calculate how big the rear wing needs to be to balance this.

[Jimbob]

If we make the cylinder really light, like out of carbon ( ie Marcus' Dad's cylinders) we could boost up the altenator and run a high speed electric motor to turn the thing, this would mean fluctuating engine revs aren't a problem. Also, the amount of drag that it would create should easily be traded off by a few more horses. At the speeds we are running I think we will have adequate HP to overcome any drag from the device. Safety could be an issue though?

[gug]

i would love to see the rotating wing just from a philosophical point of view. braking and entering a corner, the engine is doing nothing. we have 70hp or whatever on tap, and the engine is just a big dead weight.
wonder how much force we could generate by driving a mother of a fan on the side of the car to push it through the turns?
anyway, im not really serious here. shit, wouldnt we get laughed at if that fucked up and we were left with a giant fan doing nothing on the side of the car?

"I come from a land down under,
Where beer does flow and men chunder"

[Amos]

Yeah if we can justify using these rotating cylinders, id love to see the look on all the faces...... it'd be sweet!!!