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Showing posts with label Williams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Williams. Show all posts
19 Feb 2013
Williams FW35 Launch Analysis

Williams took the FW34 to Jerez whilst the team continued to refine their 2013 design, they did however chose to run a vanity panel on the FW34 whilst putting the 2013 Pirelli's through their paces.
The first thing that becomes apparent to me is the similarity of the nose and pylon ethos that Williams have adopted, although they have fallen short of adding the juts at the tops of the pylons. The nose itself resembles the horseshoe shape that Red Bull have been using for some time now with a more bulbous frontal area accompanied by two longitudinal strakes along the side of the nosecone making the nose a singular section. The team are utilising a vanity panel in order to keep the height their arrangement requires for airflow under the nose.

The Front Wing is new for 2013 with this being an area the team paid particular attention to throughout 2012. Having run around 8-9 different variants in 2013 you'll understand if I'm skeptical this one will make it to Melbourne, however we can see it is a change in philosophy with the outer curvatures used on the mainplane to generate elongated vortices reduced to 1. The trend of separating the top flap at the inner section has been baulked by Williams in favour of splitting the lower flap, the idea behind this is vortex generation and so Williams are obviously looking to do this at a lower point. They continue using multi tiered cascades for higher efficiency with a smaller cascade on the inner side.

The Pylons are lengthy items that stretch back toward the L Shaped Turning Vanes, these turning vanes are set at an acute angle splaying outwards as they stretch back under the car.

Front suspension is taken care of by push rods whilst the team move away from scoopless front brake ducts and step into another controversial arena. The team are using the air captured by the brake ducts and letting it escape at the outer face of the axle, Red Bull were doing something similar last season but were told to remove it. This will have an effect on the wake produced by the front wheels but must be carefully managed as otherwise it's effect could be detrimental further downstream.


The Sidepod design and Inlets remain laregly unchanged from the FW34 whilst the team launched the car with a Semi-Coanda style exhaust and just like Mercedes have utilised the space between the channel and engine cover to place Shark Gills.  These Shark Gills not only dispense airflow from the radiator but will also like the exhaust alongside it help with attaching the downwash.  Their exhaust was to stir controversy straight away as the team, like Caterham have placed a blade at the tail end of the exhaust channel. The Williams Blade sits right on the top edge of the channel and is split into 2 unlike Caterham's that was inset into the channel. This has led to Charlie Whiting speaking out on the subject deeming such aerodynamic appendages illegal. I'm quite sure Williams and Caterham alike will be asking for clarification on the subject as, as I've already alluded to in the Caterham CT-03 analysis the Blade is within the rules as they are written in 5.8.4.  There was however a technical directive (unavailable in the public domain) issued to the teams back in 2011 in regard to re-ingestion of the exhaust plume and it's this that is believed to be the bone of contention with the other teams / FIA who see the channel blade(s) as illegal.


At the rear of the car the team continue to use their miniscule gearbox, whilst the team haven't enclosed their halfshafts inside the lower wishbone they have placed the lower wisbone directly in front of the halfshaft. Williams utilised a swan neck mounting from the top of the gearbox to their Monkey Seat for 2012 but during the first day at Barcelona today we can see they have reverted to a more conventional design mounted to the Beam Wing. The seat did feature a perforation making for a more efficient wing, whilst also making cutouts to it's endplates to reduce it's drag like we have seen teams do for years with endplate louvres. 


The team didn't present their car with these but during the test in Barcelona today they placed Leading Edge Slats above the Sidepod Inlet, these little appendages have adorned both Sauber and McLaren cars in the past and help to further enhance the downwash over the Sidepod toward the Exhaust.

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22 Sept 2012
Gurney Trims, Tabs or Flaps and why they're important for the Diffuser in 2012

A Gurney flap is so named after Dan Gurney who first applied such a device to the trailing edge of the rear wings of his car's in the 70's. This was not a new concept however and has been used in flight applications since the early 1900's in order to make a wing create more lift to the deficit of more drag.

The Gurney is quite a blunt method of producing lift/downforce but can also help to rectify deficiencies in the wings design. It helps to trim the angle of attack of a wing thus allowing a higher angle of attack before separation occurs. In terms of flight, had a designer miscalculated the design profile of his wing adding a gurney may help to rectify the flight pattern, as such the same can be done with an F1 wing. The advantage of this in terms of motorsport is that you can continue to leverage more downforce from a wing by increasing the wings angle of attack, however by default this will create a larger proportion of drag. This is caused by the airflow on the rear of the wing being unable to sustain the same AoA and so separation occurs as the boundary layer increases at the trailing edge.

The FIA regulations mandate the height of a Gurney Flap be no more than 20mm on the Rear Wing's Top Flap but don't specify any further on how the flap be angled and indeed it's chord or design profile.

As we have seen during 2012 the teams are using Gurney's more and more with Front Wings being treated with them in order to create downforce in specific regions. It is however the area above the diffuser that see the teams utilising Gurney's the most this season with an array of different approaches.

With Exhaust Blown Diffusers having been outlawed for 2012 the teams are constantly looking for ways to further enhance the performance of their diffuser in order to extract more downforce and so this season have set about constructing more and more complex Gurney's.

Ferrari & Red Bull have lead the way with fully perforated Gurney's whilst McLaren now sport a similar design, however Ferrari & Red Bull have now added a further tier to their designs.

The perforation allows for airflow to seep through from the high pressure side into the low pressure region helping to maintain the speed of airflow to the trailing edge so the flow doesn't separate. This creates a more  co-efficient balance of downforce vs drag creating a more stable flow structure from the diffuser.

Above: Ferrari F2012 at Monza - Gurney above the Diffuser now has 2 tiers in order that more AoA can be run on both tiers

McLaren's Diffuser design has altered since Monaco......

Above: McLaren's Monaco (and previous) specification Diffuser Gurney saw the perforation extend all the way around the periphery of the Diffuser

Above: For Silverstone and Hockenheim the team simply lopped off the edges of the Gurney stopping it a few inches short either end


Above: Since Hungary McLaren have run a very similar design to both Ferrari and Red Bull with a fluted end that joins the edges of the diffuser

Other Teams have combined the usage of perforated sections with the usual blunt Gurney Tab

Above: As we can see from these 3 images Lotus, Williams & Mercedes all choose to run with a perforated central section to their Gurney.  Their approach helps in not only extracting raw downforce from the Diffuser but managing the effects of lateral tyre squirt on the diffuser channels


Above: Caterham & Toro Rosso showing that their use of Diffuser Gurneys can still be used as a blunt instrument with large vertical tabs

As shown by the leading teams this area is crucial in extracting additional performance now EBD has been banned and as the teams find further ways in which to manipulate the exhaust plume toward this area these Gurney Tabs, Trims or Flaps may become even more complex.
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