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[vaptin]

I thought of that earlier, but even for elastic behaviour, its not always linear - take rubber for example. And with carbon fibre, the resulting strain behaviour will be very sensitive to the direction of loading - and if the FIA's method is simply to put weights on it - I don't think that'll be the same as being hit and channelling air.

That's why the fia has the max flex limits.... rubber and such will deform much more than the allowed under the fia loads. And if they're non-linear then they'd fail the linear deformation test. Unless it changed from linear within the fia range, then non-linear during operation conditions, without some sort of mechanism...... highly unlikely.

I don't know how well the forces in the test correspond to real downforce, its possible for the test it appears to be linear, under the higher loads, it reaches a point where it acts not linearly.

More likely I think, the redbull just creates more downforce then the rest of them, so more deflection. Carbon fibre being a composite, its unlikely it behaves completely linearly.

[texasmr2]

I don't know how well the forces in the test correspond to real downforce, its possible for the test it appears to be linear, under the higher loads, it reaches a point where it acts not linearly.

Exactly my perception and reason for questioning it's true results.

[Jensonb]

I don't know how well the forces in the test correspond to real downforce, its possible for the test it appears to be linear, under the higher loads, it reaches a point where it acts not linearly.

Exactly my perception and reason for questioning it's true results.

It all comes back to this:

It makes no sense to define a rule in terms of its test. That creates a feedback loop. Once you accept the obvious, that defining a rule in terms of its test is INVITING exploitation, you have to go back to the point of the rule. If someone is using the loophole to subvert the intended purpose of the rule, either the rule needs to be changed to close the loophole or the subversion is already illegal. There is no third way.

[nish2280]

I think at the end of this year the FIA will draw up a rule change to stop this flexible wing business. The same way they did with the F-duct and Double diffuser. But that is only assuming they know how to close this loophole.

And as a result the rule change might unveil Redbull's secrets.

[bud]

The same way they did with the F-duct

I thought FOTA agreed to not use the F-ducts? In the eyes of the FIA its not illegal never was, unless you count the driver as a piece of aero.

[nish2280]

The same way they did with the F-duct

I thought FOTA agreed to not use the F-ducts? In the eyes of the FIA its not illegal never was, unless you count the driver as a piece of aero.

You are correct.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8670795.stm

[texasmr2]

I don't know how well the forces in the test correspond to real downforce, its possible for the test it appears to be linear, under the higher loads, it reaches a point where it acts not linearly.

Exactly my perception and reason for questioning it's true results.

It all comes back to this:

It makes no sense to define a rule in terms of its test. That creates a feedback loop. Once you accept the obvious, that defining a rule in terms of its test is INVITING exploitation, you have to go back to the point of the rule. If someone is using the loophole to subvert the intended purpose of the rule, either the rule needs to be changed to close the loophole or the subversion is already illegal. There is no third way.

We are lacking rule clarity as I see it.

[spankyham]

I know f1ea has put down some good points as to how this would be difficult because of the nature of the individual materials and their desired characteristics, but, I would suggest that the construction won't be a single material. Think of this like reinforced concrete. Concrete itself has great compressive capacity but almost no tensile capacity. However, by adding steel reinforcement at the correct depth in a concrete beam or slab, you can give the total unit both compressive and tensile strength way beyond the ability of concrete alone. I think RB have a nose that is a construction of layered materials that, under both lateral and vertical pressures bend, but under lateral pressure alone remains rigid.

Even if they were using a composite material (a blend or any mix) the resulting material will have only one behaviour. The mix would change the values in the graph but not the shape of it. Also, there is no point in considering any load other than downforce, these guys are maximing down force, its all about downforce.

I don't think we are necessarily at odds here, more like talking about different aspects of related things. I've got a simple little diags which might help explain my point.

tensilecompress.png

[spankyham]

I know f1ea has put down some good points as to how this would be difficult because of the nature of the individual materials and their desired characteristics, but, I would suggest that the construction won't be a single material. Think of this like reinforced concrete. Concrete itself has great compressive capacity but almost no tensile capacity. However, by adding steel reinforcement at the correct depth in a concrete beam or slab, you can give the total unit both compressive and tensile strength way beyond the ability of concrete alone. I think RB have a nose that is a construction of layered materials that, under both lateral and vertical pressures bend, but under lateral pressure alone remains rigid.

Even if they were using a composite material (a blend or any mix) the resulting material will have only one behaviour. The mix would change the values in the graph but not the shape of it. Also, there is no point in considering any load other than downforce, these guys are maximing down force, its all about downforce.

Just on the downforce issue, perhaps the diag below might help me explaining my point. It is my speculation about how the RB nose might be able to pass the downforce test applied by the FiA and yet still be able flex a lot

The red line is a pivot point if you would. If you apply a large force at point A the structure wont flex - easy to see. You only need a small force at point B to get get it to swing backward. This logic applied to the RB means when the current test is done, there is no lateral force applied to the wing (point B). On the track, there is force applied at point B to the wing. This makes the nose flex and drop the wing into an illegal position. "No part having an aerodynamic influence and no part of the bodywork, with the exception of the skid block in 3.13 above, may under any circumstances be located below the reference plane."

testproblem.png

[Gaz]

Yeh i believe spanky is correct.

Air Flows mainly horizontally towards the wing yet the test may put pressure vertically so the wings will be able to pass.

The FIA need to either revise the test, or ask Red Bull to explain the photo's.

[f1ea]

The diagram Spanky is suggesting is not representative of how a front wing is mounted/loaded. A front wing is more something like the drawing here.

I've schematised the loads as shown, and in the end, the final deformation will be the sum of: Deformation because of DF + Deformation because of LF + Deformation because of M. All of these will cause a similar deformation pattern (ie compress the lower fibres and tension the upper fibres) so..... even adding the effect of this lateral load the material should behave in the same way (not the same value of deflection, but the same behaviour and resistance to deflection).

You can see the FIA doesnt care about ultimate load..... they care about the tendency/behaviour of the materials in question. So even though adding Lat force would yield more total deflection, the material should exhibit the same properties.

Furthermore...... if the wing is well designed, this lat force should be VERY very small in relation to Downforce that's why the fia tosses the lat force.

The forces acting on the wings should be similar from car to car (not exactly the same value, but wings should all have similar load pattern); so the two remaining factors to affect deformation are: 1. the boundary condition (ie no degree of freedom) and 2. Material properties (ie Young's modulus or something equivalent).

I still think RB are playing with the boundary condition........ because the rule say the wing should be mounted with no degree of freedom (pretty much hand tied there) but it also should remain immobile in relation to the sprung part of the car (there's some freedom to work with on this last one).

is it the suspension? the wing mounts? floor hinges? or something else.... i dont know.

[spankyham]

@f1ea I guess I'd just be in a slight disagreement with you in terms of the amount and effect of the lateral forces working on the wing. But, as I said, it is just speculation on my part as to how Red Bull are moving the wing.

The real question I guess is why haven't the FiA done anything yet. Some observations and thoughts on that.

We don't have to go very far back to find a similar controversy, and we can look at how the FiA handled that. In 2006 we had the Ferrari flexing/moving rear wing saga. This dragged on basically through the whole season. Ferrari started the year with a rear wing that passed the FiA test. But it was clear from photo's and video that it was moving while the car was in motion. However, the FiA didn't move until a few teams started making disgruntled noises about it and until some other teams had made some similar changes. I think they looked at the Ferrari as well as the BMW and McLaren. Again no car failed any test, but the FiA asked for bodywork changes. The FiA made changes to the test (hanging weight from slot gap on rear wing. I think there were still some question marks on the BMW, but they eventually got it sorted.

A key thing I noticed is the FiA seems reluctant to move against one team, they decided to act when more teams were exploiting the testing weakness (similar situation with the mass-damper).

I think the reluctance to move stems from the fear of how the potential controversy might effect F1. Right or wrong, the "Team Orders" issue last year reflected very badly in most English language media. If the FiA finds the Red Bull (and only Red Bull) is in breach of the rules it could be very damaging for F1, simply because there would be a lot of media that would portray this as nothing more that cheating, our own "Hand-of-Henry" or "Hand-of-God" with Red Bull becoming F1's Chicago-Black-Sox.

By waiting until a few teams have copied the moving front wing it becomes a little easier to at least pretend that other teams weren't disadvantaged, a collective culprit argument so to speak.

If the FiA move against only Red Bull, and they make the rule breach official where does it end? You can bet there will be people who will call for the RB6 to tested as well.......

In short I think the FiA would like other teams to copy ASAP, after that we will get a ruling declaring all these front wings illegal.

[bud]

I've had my own theory which may be way off as I'm no engineer but could the shape of the RedBull nose be playing a major part. It's shaped like a bulb so the front nose is wider then it shallows in before going wider again before the nose join to the chassis. Could this shape create a weak spot forcing the nose lower than normal? The carbon fibre wouldn't need to be made too differently.

[acosmichippo]

has anyone besides Lewis Hamilton mentioned the RB wings publicly?

[f1ea]

has anyone besides Lewis Hamilton mentioned the RB wings publicly?

last yr everyone did. this yr, i think teams are still scratching their heads or waiting for their own version.... or waiting for the fia to close the loophole.

I've had my own theory which may be way off as I'm no engineer but could the shape of the RedBull nose be playing a major part. It's shaped like a bulb so the front nose is wider then it shallows in before going wider again before the nose join to the chassis. Could this shape create a weak spot forcing the nose lower than normal? The carbon fibre wouldn't need to be made too differently.

yeah, the RB wing has a shape that looks weak on the mounts, so i've always thought some good flexing going on there; but the test should pick this up as its pretty much within the scope. This should make the RB wing able to flex a bit more, but right now its flexing/moving a lot more than the others.

Maybe Ferrari's wing went this way, together with the fiber alignment etc; that's why it flexed, but not as much. RB must have something completely different......

Teams did complain about them having some active suspension because they saw the RB very close to the ground... that's why i think maybe the whole active suspension and wing saga is all related.