Feasibility of Aerdynamics

[Aaquib]

Is it sensible to add aerodynamic wings or spoilers to the car?
How would it affect the car's performance? A few posts have said it slows the vehicle down, so I want to know if it will be worth it.

[theTTshark]

Originally posted by Aaquib:
Is it sensible to add aerodynamic wings or spoilers to the car?
How would it affect the car's performance? A few posts have said it slows the vehicle down, so I want to know if it will be worth it.

Does it? What does aerodynamics tell you it should do? What do your tires want you to do? How will your suspension be affected and/or effect the aerodynamics? There are literally tens of thousands of pages of literature on this. Basically every vehicle dynamics book has a section about aerodynamics. Get the Carroll Smith books, Joseph Katz does race car aerodynamics specifically, Simon McBeath does as well. Those will all explain the very basics about what you need to know. Aerodynamics is a closely guarded secret in basically every form of motorsport, you can find the answer to your questions in literature, but you'll have to develop the specifics.

[JT A.]

The answer is yes. Let me get to work figuring out profiles, number of elements, gaps, endplate sizes, etc for you to use. Check back in a week and I will have CAD models and CFD results for you.

How is the rest of your car coming? Anything else I can design for you? If you want I can choose an engine for you as well.

Keep it up, you're on the right track. Delegating major design decisions to random strangers on the internet is a major part of team leadership, and it is how all the top teams accomplish their goals.

[Lorenzo Pessa]

“Aub! How much is nine times seven?”
Aub hesitated a moment. His pale eyes glimmered with a feeble anxiety. “Sixty-three,” he said.
Congressman Brant lifted his eyebrows. “Is that right?”
“Check it for yourself, Congressman.”

[Adambomb]

I'll cut you a bit of slack since you did use the magic words "a few posts have said," which indicates that you did at least look into previous discussion (which there has been a ton).

Beyond that you can expect to get sarcastic replies, because it is perhaps the largest question for the entire field of FSAE. There are absolutely pros and cons. If you look at trends there are a whole lot more top-level teams with wings now than there were 5 years ago, for varying reasons (some of which are not even related to the official FSAE competition...).

The short answer though, if you have to ask, then probably no.

[Lorenzo Pessa]

Aero-cause now has spam-bots on his side.
The age of no-aero car is coming to end (spam-bots cannot be defeated).

Ok. Now seriosly.
Aerodynamics for cooling is really important in FSAE.
Aerodynamics for downforce can improve your performance on lap (and total point) but it is really expensive in term of manufacturing, design, manpower.

If your team is at his first experience, focus only on cooling.


Originally posted by Suzan Marvel:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">s it sensible to add aerodynamic wings or spoilers to the car
According to me adding aerodynamic wings or spoilers to the car is sensible.The wings can improve the performance of our car by somehow offsetting or eliminating lift or offsetting drag.In the same way spoilers are also useful for our cars as they manage the airflow either by simply extending the rear of the car a few inches or by presenting itself to the airflow slightly above the trunk lid. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

[typeh]

In my opinion that you have the key for your car design can make it as you want but at end you need see how much you spend and how much that affect you as you may spend long time to modify part lead to an increase performance slightly and may spend few time to modify part totally change your performance. So for our cars you will get profit but limited and as i read results found acceleration times increase and skid-pad time decrease

Alexandria university motorsports

[JT A.]

Originally posted by alisonwarel:
If wings are attached to car, then the design of wings are like birds wing which are move 360 degree.

Excellent point. I think I will present this idea to the design judges this year.

[PatClarke]

Excellent point. I think I will present this idea to the design judges this year.

Good idea JTA, I need some cabinets =]

Pat

[BMEP]

Alright, I don't understand much about computers/spambots so bare with me. Where do these Spambot widgets get there information to reply? These latest posts are rather entertaining

[Thrainer]

Originally posted by rustyfelix:
In the designing of the wings, wing span (length and breadth) will be dependent on weight of the car, if the car is lighter made up of light metal then the size of the wings can also be reduced.

The new Monash car must weigh a ton, according to this theory.

[AxelRipper]

Originally posted by BMEP:
Alright, I don't understand much about computers/spambots so bare with me. Where do these Spambot widgets get there information to reply? These latest posts are rather entertaining

Seems like they pick up some random works in a post, google them, take the first bit of info from the first link, and then post them.

Why they troll this forum so much, out of all of the forums on the interwebs, is beyond me. Don't they know that we don't even have enough money to even attempt to buy anything on their websites? Man would they be disappointed if they got a hold of an FSAE member's bank account.