Flexiwings 2024

Post here all non technical related topics about Formula One. This includes race results, discussions, testing analysis etc. TV coverage and other personal questions should be in Off topic chat.
AR3-GP
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Re: Flexiwings 2024

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Together:

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A lion must kill its prey.

dialtone
dialtone
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Re: Flexiwings 2024

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Some wings truly are flapping like those of birds, surprised they can keep it on the ground.

stewie325
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Re: Flexiwings 2024

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Are they using the wobble to create vortices towards the floor or something? What's the benefit downstream?

Or this wobble mid-corner at slow speed doesn't really matter, and they use the flex at high speed to reduce drag?

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Vanja #66
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Re: Flexiwings 2024

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Structural resonance is still a thing and it is best observable when a race car is going over a curb. Especially on the front wing
And they call it a stall. A STALL!

#DwarvesAreNaturalSprinters
#BlessYouLaddie

Farnborough
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Re: Flexiwings 2024

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The Merc is very specifically rotating (torsion from plain side view) backwards in the extreme to reduce angle of attack .

Watch the principal leading element and its not "drooping" which I believe gives conformance to FIA load test in resistance to plain force vertically applied downward with static testing regime.

The rotation though is wildly in excess of all others there..

f1isgood
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Re: Flexiwings 2024

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AR3-GP wrote:
28 Jul 2024, 02:50
f1isgood wrote:
28 Jul 2024, 02:08
Thank you! Is there a similar shot for McL and Red Bull?

If that Merc wing is not flexing, the earth isn't rotating, according to the FIA :lol: :lol:
I think there is a Red Bull replay, but I don't remember the session. While I was skimming the replay, I found one for Aston. Aston is somewhere in the middle. Not as rigid as Ferrari, but not as flexible as Mercedes either. The "mechanism" is similar to the Mercedes though. Flap adjuster is outside and the free inboard edge enables the motion of the outer section of the flap.

https://i.postimg.cc/wvMnnF3K/Aston-Spa-2024-FP2.gif .

Edit: found Mclaren
https://i.postimg.cc/kGFZbHpb/Mclaren-Spa-2024-FP2.gif


Red Bull has the flap adjuster mechanism on the inboard side so this kind of degree of freedom is not even possible. The two sections of the flap on the onboard side are rigid and bridged by the adjustment mechanism, otherwise you could not set the flap position.

https://i.postimg.cc/t4Xb23db/image.png
Thanks a lot!

f1isgood
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Re: Flexiwings 2024

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Red Bull is structurally constrained to not rotate the way the others do. Very interesting. Looking forward to what the FIA has to say (if at all anything). Ferrari seem the most compliant wing as far as regulations go to my totally untrained eye from these GIFs.

AR3-GP
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Re: Flexiwings 2024

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stewie325 wrote:
28 Jul 2024, 09:45
Are they using the wobble to create vortices towards the floor or something? What's the benefit downstream?

Or this wobble mid-corner at slow speed doesn't really matter, and they use the flex at high speed to reduce drag?
The wobble is probably not excessive in any other corner and I don't think it's the primary intention either. (although Mercedes said they had balance issues on Friday, so who knows...).

The purpose of the gifs was to show how bumps (a driving force) can expose the general rigidity, range of motion, and the mechanisms that allow the wing to flex.

As another example of what I mean, one of the most amusing aerodynamic rules exploits of modern times was the moveable rear wing of the Toyota TS040 at the 2014 24 hours of Le Mans. The wing was designed to invert itself on the straights at Le Mans, shedding drag. In sporting terms, moveable aero was not permitted at Le Mans. Toyota found a way to make it pass the load test. Toyota was the fastest car in the race, but neither car finished.

If you looked closely in the highlight reels, you could see the wing moving between its low and high angle positions when the car entered the brake zones (blue car, 2nd in frame). The Michelin logos on the rear wing "appear" at the very end, when the wing rotates back into the high angle position:
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The wing would flutter between its low and high angle positions when the car hit certain bumps on the straights, exposing the mechanism and range of motion:
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This is what I intended to show with the gifs of the front wings at the bus stop chicane. The flutter is a giveaway that some wings are more interesting than others.
A lion must kill its prey.

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ispano6
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Re: Flexiwings 2024

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To write off the wobble would be negligent. The best engineers in the world design secondary and tertiary functions to components. As I see it, the wobble is very much intentional, and if anyone here is not familiar with the concept of the banned "mass damper", look it up. They are banned even in scale RC Formula classes and they serve a most definite purpose. As I understand it, the F1 suspension regulations in recent years have forced teams to revert to using less sophisticated componentry.

Initially I questioned if the tea tray was the source of Red Bull's stability in previous RB18-RB19, yet the "flaw" I think RBR and RB currently exhibit are due to the fact their nose end extends all the way to the first wing element. Not only does that make the entire moment arm longer but it's travel time (rebound) longer. It means overall more front load, but on low speed corners and bumps the rebound would not be quick and for an F1 driver might be akin to a large sea vessel waiting to come down after reacing the crest of a wave.


The flexi-wing wobble characteristic is remininscent of the exercise body flex bar:

Hold it at the center horizontally in front of you and shake it laterally and the bar absorbs what would normally be you losing balance from tipping forward or backward from exerting the force.

With the RB20, it's like holding the bar out with your arms completely straight and elbows locked, where as with a shorter nose (bending at the wrists) ending at the 2nd element allows the entire first element to act as a leaf spring held together at front of the endplates.

The "moment" arm now includes the wrists, which now bears the brunt of the movement direction and rebound. Teams experiment with how "compliant" you make the endplate and first mainplane joinery distance and deformation is experimented with laying the carbon weave pattern at different angles to attain the desired flex and stiffness across the entire structure.

The oscillation and rebound rate would take time to work in harmony with the suspension geometry but once you nail it, you can have a platform that is wobbly in all the right ways to absorb the curbs. Merc seems to have realized this and took a step back from the line you want to cross where as Red Bull seem to have crossed the line to see if they could pull it off. Probably a mistake.

Tommy Cookers
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Re: Flexiwings 2024

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essentially the simplest successful people's car (the Citroen 2CV) was enabled by the tuned mass damper (well 4 actually)
so they only made about 20 million of them

kptaylor
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Re: Flexiwings 2024

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Apologize if I missed it, but does the FIA plan to publish any results of the testing or will it just result in a potential TD to be applied this year? Were they just testing at Spa or ??

bhall II
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Re: Flexiwings 2024

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Together:

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I think I'd want my flexi-mass damper to have a more calming effect on the front tires, sorta like this...

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RB8

AR3-GP
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Re: Flexiwings 2024

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That's a very interesting comparison.
A lion must kill its prey.

djones
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Re: Flexiwings 2024

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It’s interesting. But a poor comparison as the cars are not taking the curb in the same way.

The Merc very clearly hits more curb and surprise surprise, its wing bounces more.

Flexible wings are nothing new. Every team knows how to create them. It’s probably a safe bet that they are all flexing almost equally within the current testing procedures.

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bluechris
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Re: Flexiwings 2024

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Toto you?