Technical Red Bull's Front Wing (Revisited)

[snowy]

I don't really understand what you are referring to snowy, is it the tracing in your post that's not an accurate reflection of the profile?

Chad posted links to these photos, they are originally from F1Technical.net and posted by Hollus http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=9629&start=45
He put forward or supported the idea that the nose of the Red Bull is flexing drawing round the profile of the car. He adds the caveat that he didn't do a precise job of tracing the nose and I have to say I agree with him.

They are also here:
http://cliptheapex.com/threads/red-bulls-front-wing-revisited.2332/page-3#post-40343

 

[Brogan]

Although the nose doesn't appear to be flexing down on those shots, the angle of the front wing clearly does change.

 

[snowy]

I expect what will happen is as soon as a few of the teams manage to replicate what Red Bull are doing, the rules will be revised and flexible front wings/noses will be banned.

And not a moment to late, I mean soon, I mean not soon enough, I mean what do I mean? Should I get a job with the FIA? I mean I can faff about like this all day long! Excellent credentials, don't you think?

 

[snowy]

Although the nose doesn't appear to be flexing down on those shots, the angle of the front wing clearly does change.

Yes, though it is more a case of the wing twisting down towards the front than the nose drooping.

 

[Brogan]

Wasn't it last season when Red Bull had the hinged floor which did allow the nose to droop?

The FIA subsequently banned hinged floors if I remember correctly, once a few other teams had cottoned on and implemented their own versions of it.

 

[Pyrope]

Thanks for pointing us to the F1Tech stuff snowy. I have to say I agree with your point about the bendy nose tracings. The fact that the red outlined photo was clearly taken from a higher elevation means that tiny differences like that (exacerbated by a very thick trace line!) are likely an artifact of the viewing angle. However, the wing changes are very obviously not!

 

[Pyrope]

Wasn't it last season when Red Bull had the hinged floor which did allow the nose to droop?

No, the hinged floor allowed the front of the splitter to lift a little and allow more air under the car, improving the performance of the diffuser.

 

[KekeTheKing]

I wonder if this flex nose/wing is what all the internal fuss was about at Silverstone last year. The nosecone failure that Seb had in practice was very strange, and Mark was obviously displeased with the fact that he had to give his nose/wing to Vettel.

Did Webber know of the extraordinary powers of the droopy-flex wing! And that's why he made a big deal of it!

 

[no-FIAt-please]

I wonder if this flex nose/wing is what all the internal fuss was about at Silverstone last year. The nosecone failure that Seb had in practice was very strange, and Mark was obviously displeased with the fact that he had to give his nose/wing to Vettel.

Did Webber know of the extraordinary powers of the droopy-flex wing! And that's why he made a big deal of it!

You'd have to say that almost certainly it was about this, because the only thing that the press could see different in the wings was a small endplate difference (I think) which would have only accounted for a tenth, but then again maybe it was the principle, the moving of the wing showed MW who Red Bull preferred to win the WDC and it was that which rattled him.

 

[snowy]

My reservations about the accuracy of the tracing:



And the angle of deflection misrepresented by the red line around the endplate is just pure invention!



You will notice that the green parallel lines are a more realistic indication of the angle of deflection.

 

[Brogan]

Does this help?

 

[snowy]

That illustrates the front wing endplate deflecting and there is no doubt about that. But the contention that the nose is drooping is not supported by the badly traced red and green lines.

I need the original photos or some better ones to put this nose out of its misery.

 

[Chad Stewarthill]

I don't know if anyone is actually claiming that the nose droops. I'm certainly not, as the red and green traces seem to show that the nose cone itself remains pretty constant; it's just the wing that tilts forward, as borne out by Brogan's white lines through the 'TOTAL' logo.
It seems to me that this forward tilt, rather than just a wholesale downward flex, is the really clever part, as it increases the angle of attack of the wing vanes, resulting in even more downforce in higher speed corners.
wasn't it through the high speed corners where the Red Bulls were so good last season?

 

[Pyrope]

So... their front wing is, in effect, a carefully constructed carbon torsion bar and the axis of rotatio of the torsion bar is very close to the FIA load test point.

The FIA load test is only applied in the vertical plane, and only places a torque of ~50 Nm on the torsion bar at most. If the axis of rotation and FIA load point are coincident then the FIA are never going to be able to replicate this deformation, no matter how much load they apply. Torque will drop to zero and then you are waiting for the font of the car to fall off before they see deflection. The centre of aerodynamic pressure must be well forward of this, which is why we've been seeing a lot of development on the little leading-edge winglets known as cascades cropping up in recent weeks...

Solved!

(Ha... as if.)

My, my, but this is clever.

 

[F1Yorkshire]

Does this help?

View attachment 1203

I'm a little confused about these pictures. Are they supposed to be showing how the Red Bull's nose is deflecting during the course of a lap?

To start with they are both different cars, one is Vettels, the other Webbers as shown by the different numbers on the side, also the graphics to the rear of the car are different in both pictures and they are both at different tracks.

Could it be that in the second and I'm assuming earlier picture as it is clearly Abu Dhabi during testing, that the wing was showing more of a tilted angle which they have since addressed to comply with the regulations.

We really need to see images from the most recent race of the car at rest and during racing to see if there is any significant movement in the wings.

 

[snowy]

I don't know if anyone is actually claiming that the nose droops. I'm certainly not,

There are people on F1Technical.net and elsewhere who are convinced that the nose of the Red Bull is flexing and contributing to the angle we see on the endplates. The images are from F1Technicals forum and were posted to graphically show this connection. F1Arab used them and you linked to them. Was the text in Arabic?

It is also proposed that the video of Sebastian Vettel's pole lap also shows this flex.

In both cases there is more evidence of over-active flexible imaginations at work than actual photographic evidence of flexible bodywork.

 

[Brogan]

I'm a little confused about these pictures. Are they supposed to be showing how the Red Bull's nose is deflecting during the course of a lap?

No.
They're just intended to show the angle of deflection/rotation of the front wing.

 

[MCLS]

It seems to me that this forward tilt, rather than just a wholesale downward flex, is the really clever part, as it increases the angle of attack of the wing vanes, resulting in even more downforce in higher speed corners.

Maybe that is how they can get past the FIA tests

 

[Chad Stewarthill]

Could it be that in the second and I'm assuming earlier picture as it is clearly Abu Dhabi during testing, that the wing was showing more of a tilted angle which they have since addressed to comply with the regulations.

If you mean was the earlier wing designed with a forward tilt of the end plates while the car was stationary, then no, I don't think so. I don't think that any designer would design a wing like that; therefore the wing, in my view, must have been twisting under load while at speed. This is what the two pictures show, even though they are of different cars; Vettel's car (green trace) is clearly stationary as can be seen from the wheels and the background, while Webber's (red trace) is at speed.

 

[no-FIAt-please]

One thing that worries me is if Red Bull have nearly perfected this technology where else can they use it on the car? The floor and rear wing for example, or woud that not work?