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:
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:
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.
