AA_2019 wrote: ↑25 Feb 2023, 11:16
Unc1eM0nty wrote: ↑25 Feb 2023, 09:44
The Red bull is turning in and the Mercedes is running straight so I'm not sure this is a true comparison. Very interesting image though and speaks a thousand words.
The RB turning in makes it even more impressive !
By turning in you would expect more of the tyre smoke to move towards the beam wing & diffuser area !
Also note the impact of rear tyre drag.
It shows how much worse the w14 concept is at front tyre wake management and drag on the rear tyre.
You know.... I thought deeply about this effect when I saw the new Ferrari which I compared to cars with the canon exhaust... And then it occured to me that there are two trains of thought with side pod to rear wing flow....
Think in three dimensions....
The Ferrari is a general minor-upwashing and high in-washing side pod.... The inwash doesn't come from the front wheel wake though. The front wheel wakes goes to the side and up... Then there is a clean air flow inwash from in front of the rear wheels.. This clean inwash comes undenreath the front wheel wake.... Which is curled up and out as i said before..
So the Ferrari then links this general inward and upward wash with the rear wing.. It creates good "body downforce".
The RedBull sidepode to rear wing concept is a major downwashing concept that blockades all froms of inwash and the front wheel wake. It doesn't link an upward flow to the rear wing. It focuses on clean straight air to the rear wing. Which turns it upward after that to link with diffuser wake.
The Mercedes side pod concept is a half-way house. It uses downwash and clean inwash. Tricker to manage.
I haven't done CFD in a while because i don't have much time these days. (I manage near a hundred people at work)... But this is my hypothesis of the side pod concepts.
You will need to see a video of the smoke entering the Merces coke bottle to really say if it's bad air or not. Based on my hypothesis I highly doubt it would be bad front wheel wake. Which anyone who does CFD/windtunnel knows tends to go upwards. What he see is inwash air from the road..