Hi Elon,
There is no web site or link to a Formula 1 downforce information.
The information is coming from two sources - one is own investigation
in my homebuild windtunnel and the other from friends of mine who was
engineer in the Williams Formula 1 team on the end of the 70's,
beginning of the 80's - they was involed in the very succesful racer
which gave Alan Jones his title.
1979 I developed a 1:8 scale RC controlled Formula 1 racer in a
homebuild tunnel - the running car was the first ever ground effect RC
model Formula 1 in the world, 10 years before they was available on
the commercial saling market. I offered my model as a kit to other
people, but they was not interest to pay the prize - which was to the
today kits price very cheap. So the kit went never in
production. Unfortunatly the only one which I finished to test my
creation was destroyed by a road accident when a lady buck (beetle)
went in the open carburator and blocked the engine by a speed from
around 85 mph......no joke. He crashed from the road into the steel
bend on the side, smashed in hundred pieces. The car weight was around
2.8 pounds, the engine I used with 6.5 cc produced between 1.8 and 1.9
hp by around 17 000 rpm - by this hp it worked for 1 hour (once I done
2.4 on the dyno....for just 4 minutes, than the engine was
gone......my first big blow up). With the ground effect by full speed
the car weight about 7 pounds, every 3/4 hours I had to replace the
closing side panels, out of aluminium.
When I checked later my body shape with the Williams design I was
extremely close to the big surprise of my friends.
To the 10 percent - hope there was no misunderstanding - the
percentage means the lenghth of the vehicle - if the car is 18 feet
long, the last 1.8 feet (minimum) has to be designed with a LOW
increase of the cross section. This is cleaning the going out airflow
of the "downforce" before he "escape" from the tunnel. This is
necessary, otherwise the hard rip off of this airflow, when you keep a
constant increase to the far end, will create a hard collapsing
turbulence which will move the rear end of the car around, so you will
loose a part of the controlled downforce you create before. This loose
is more than the theoretically increase of the downforce on the last
10 %. Not only this, the rear end will feel a little bit unstable.
Yes, the whole idea based only on venturi effect - this was it, what
Colin Chapman found out.
Hope this clarify my note.
See ya
Pork Pie
Ps. Somewhere I got the profile shape of the Williams Formula 1 in my
archive, can try to find them.
|