Fantastic achievement, well done! Even if you do think it's time to move on, you've achieved some pretty momentous things in the time. You've certainly made an impression on me, as I started taking part in the 'junior' version of the series last year and I have a
lot of respect for what you've managed to do. I know how hard it is!
I have a question though:
greenpower dude reloaded wrote:Is it better to direct air over and under the car in a cambered aerofoil (60mm ground clearance) or is it better to direct it round the sides? (29th December, 2005)
So, 7 years on, what do you think?
You seem to have converged on something that's a little bit of both, except with a really low ground clearance, which I think is interesting... before we started I'd have gone 'over and under' in a heartbeat - instinct told me that the car could be lower than it was wide, and that over-under meant moving the air less. In theory, everything seems to point to this being better, apart from ground effects, which appear more significant than I thought they would.
I'm interested to know what people think, but I reckon the really low and 'tidy' splitter area and floor was the key to your car - among many other things obviously - but for me that stands out. It's not just the low ground clearance, but the fact that no air is encouraged into the floor to disturb the boundary layer probably helps too - other cars with higher gc but too much air going into the underfloor (like ours
![Confused :?](./images/smilies/icon_e_confused.gif)
) don't seem as efficient... which leads me to conclude that some combination of flat low floor and 'round the sides' is best - but that's tricky to package up (with wheels in the way etc). For that reason I think some of the air should be directed over the top of the car, with the majority going around - possibly a 2:1 split would be best. It's then about managing the flows by creating as few disturbances along the top and sides as possible, and joining them all together again at the back, IMHO. (I made that sound so much simpler than it is
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_e_biggrin.gif)
).
In short - do you think you have the best 'concept' in terms of splitting the air different ways, or what would you do differently?
P.S. it's probably an old discussion now, but we've just had a belt drive quoted at 98% efficient from
here.
Best of luck with whatever you decide to do with the project Luke!
"A wise man speaks because he has something to say; a fool speaks because he has to say something."