Chris D'Agnolo wrote:
> Biggest surprise was the F1 car. That just does not jive with common
sense
> and logic. Seems to me that they have horribly tiny frontal areas and
> there's no flat / blunt surfaces. Maybe I just figured it out; the
ground
> effects intentionally abut a whole bunch of air, with the resulting
force of
> that air pushing the car downward in order to keep the car on the
ground.
> Hmmmmmmm, I could be right!?! In effect these cars need the huge HP to
> utilize the air to keep them stuck down! Can you imagine how fast these
> buggers would be with aero aids that allow them to slice thru the wind?
>
> Chris
> 99BBB
The aerodynamics on the F1 cars produce so much down force that the Indy
cars can theoretically be driven upside-down as long as you keep the
speed above 81 mph, since roughly 81 mph is when the down force equals
the weight of the car.
They produce roughly 2 times their weight in down force once they hit
118 mph.
From Wikipedia:
The cars' aerodynamics are designed to provide maximum downforce with a
minimum of drag; every part of the bodywork is designed with this aim in
mind. Like most open wheeler cars they feature large front and rear
aerofoils, but they are far more developed than American open wheel
racers, which depend more on suspension tuning; for instance, the nose
is raised above the centre of the front aerofoil, allowing its entire
width to provide downforce. The front and rear wings are highly sculpted
and extremely fine 'tuned', along with the rest of the body such as the
turning vanes beneath the nose, bargeboards, sidepods, underbody, and
the rear diffuser. They also feature aerodynamic appendages that direct
the airflow. Such an extreme level of aerodynamic development means that
an F1 car produces much more downforce than any other open-wheel
formula; for example the Indycars produce downforce equal to their
weight at 190 km/h (118 mph), while an F1 car achieves the same
downforce:weight ratio of 1:1 at 125 km/h (78 mph) to 130 km/h (81 mph),
and at 190 km/h (118 mph) the ratio is roughly 2:1. Therefore,
theoretically, F1 cars can drive upside down from 130 km/h (81 mph).
Keeping it on topic, can you imagine how the Miata would drive with that
kind of down force?
You would obviously need a lot more power to drive your car that starts
to "weigh" well over 4000 pounds at highway speed.
Cornering would be even more fun than ever! :-)
Pat
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