Wing Construction

[Broderick]

For those who run aero on your car, how do you go about constructing your wings.

[Bill Kunst]

Seriously? You really want to know? Excellent, cause that is what seperates good teams from bad ones, is knowing. It would be my guess that the good ones research, and the bad teams ask good teams.

[Parker]

Well wouldn't asking the good teams be a form of research? http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif I have found that most teams are willing to help, or at least plant an idea in the mind of the person asking the question.

And sorry Broderick, I cannot answer your question very well, but here is a link I have found that may or may not get you on your way.

http://info-central.org/construction_hotwire.shtml

[Marshall Grice]

trial and error.

[Fil]

drink a red bull

[Fil]

The best way we have found to make wings is to wire cut foam profiles and lay up one piece carbon fibre skins in aluminium moulds then stick the skins onto the foam. You will also need to make some internal structure to pick up your mounts.

[Superfast Matt McCoy]

Originally posted by Bill Kunst:
Seriously? You really want to know? Excellent, cause that is what seperates good teams from bad ones, is knowing. It would be my guess that the good ones research, and the bad teams ask good teams.

Judging by last years results (Bill Kunst team - 58th, Broderick's team - 16th) I think the good teams ask questions on the forums, and the bad teams use the forum for pompous jackassery.

One of the easiest ways to make wings is to CNC short aluminum profiles and use as teplates for wire cutting, just like the link in Parker's post. The best way to do it is to CNC aluminum templates that have the trailing edge seperated an inch or so, use them as templates for wire cutting, and then lay up a mold on the foam. once you pull off the mold you will have a wing element mold that you can lay your carbon into like a taco. once the part is ready, just pull it out and glue the trailing edge of the element with some high strength bonding glue. That leaves you with a one-piece element that has a smooth outer surface. you can also add spars to the inside before you glue for extra strength or for mounting endplates.

[Bill Kunst]

yeah, ok, so a team I wasn't on last year took 58th. Improving from the 110th place finish the year before (also only its third comp). So, I have no beef with a team that is trying to make improvements. But as Parker showed, he knew nothing but could use yahoo, google, or dogpile to search for some answers regarding the building or construction of wings. I don't think that doing so is too much to ask.

He didn't even state, "I found that you can build wings.... has anyone tried this and what were your results?"

See the difference?
Bill

[Bill Kunst]

Oh yeah, check out Kenny T Cornett's post on jig tables, if you don't understand what a question post should look like.
Bill

[Tony K]

In place of a mold, I've also seen a company use a super-thin piece of aluminum as an outer surface. Same as mentioned previously with a foam core, aluminum spar ribs placed every so often, and some sort of hard point for your mounting, but all laid up in a single shot with the aluminum wrapped around the wing all inside a vacuum bag.

[Broderick]

thanks for the reply guys. I have done research via google on how to construct wings and have researched all the methods you have suggested. I am in the process of contacting UTA and UMR and hopefully recieve some insight on how they construct their compoenents.

[Chace]

Before you start building wings, have you done the aero analysis to determine if they will benefit your car? Is the down force that you generate at race speeds worth the weight and drag of adding wings to your car? Very few top 10 teams run wings because their effects at 30-40 mph is very limited.

[Superfast Matt McCoy]

You could always buy a sprint car wing and attatch it to your car....

http://sae.ou.edu/images/05wang.jpg

[B Hise]

thats awesome

anyone for a dirt track event... Theres no way we would wad em up out there.

Bryan

[the fat LION]

Yea like what chace said you really have to consider if its worth it...needless to say WE are a little weight concious so i doubt we would use them even if we did have the facilities to test them and judges arent too keen on using stuff we dont have much data on

[rtrey]

Yeah, but how many FSAE events do you go to in a year... one maybe two? Compare that to running on a true (SCCA) autocross ten to fifteen times a year. Who are the truely competitive teams at Nationals? UTA, Rolla (no offense Kansas, you'll learn to love the wing too), and finally OK. Take the damn things off at FSAE if your going to act like a supermodel about her weight and scared of the judges shooting you down. All I'm saying is that their track record is proven in a real autocross.

[Steve Yao]

I'll concede rtrey's point that in full scale autocross courses, aero elements are a definate plus....and emphasize his other point about taking them off for competition.

To my knowledge, no car with significant aero package has won any FSAE overall event to-date. UTA and UMR, (or Monash?) have come close but have not delivered in one respect or another. Not to say the cars were not capable of taking #1, just that aero is in no way necessary to win.

[Chris Allbee]

This kind of tracks back to another conversation in the thread about the use of slipper clutches, Wings can make the car easier to drive if done properly. Yes, there is more than one way to make a car "superfast" but a big ass wing is an easy crutch. And the faster driver usually wins, not just the fastest car. So I say make a crappy wing, put it on the car and check the lap times. If they show in favor of the wing the use it and screw the design event (dynamic events are worth more points). Thats just one way to go if your only concern is WINNING. If you want to learn and at that crap then its probably not the best way to go. But you have options. Make the driver fast in the car first, then think about eeking out every last point out of the competition. Driver confidence has a lot to do with how fast they are in the car and if a big wing works as a placebo no matter what the equations say...which way is faster?

[fade]

gheyest car ever?

[the fat LION]

def a good point by chris...generally whoever wins enduro has the best shot at winning it all

[Dave M]

"To my knowledge, no car with significant aero package has won any FSAE overall event to-date"

not to brag but CalPoly Pomona was 3rd in detroit and 1st in Fstudent in 2000.

[Marshall Grice]

not to brag but CalPoly Pomona was 2nd in detroit and 1st in Fstudent in 2000.

That would be 3rd in detroit, Dave.

having driven winged and non-winged cars, i still think it's sort of a toss up performance wise and a definite win for driver confidence. All of our drivers are faster with wings then they are with out, even though an experienced driver in the car with out wings can still put down better times then a less experience driver with wings (same car). From my experience the amount of performace the wings add is still pretty small when you compare it to the driver skill level. Obviously if you put a good driver in a car with wings (UTA) they completely kick ass.

[andyman61]

Ah the aero debate again...

First off, to answer the original post, look at small light aircraft. A lot of the methods they use can be used for FSAE wings. I'm not saying it's what we do, but it's a start. If you'd like to get in contact with our composites people, let me know.

As for the wings vs. no wings debate, we've done this a few times on here. It comes down to whether or not you can justify it, both on track and do the design judges. Set up a typical FSAE course and if the car is faster, you've done something right. The development of a GOOD aero package will take several years and at least two or three dedicated members for design and construction. You can't half ass it (not that you can on any part of a car, of course). Luckily we have a large enough team with a few people willing to put the time in that we've been able to justify it.

And in my opinion, the aero cars haven't won in recent years because there are 139 other good cars at Detroit every year, not because they have wings.