Closer racing is something Formula 1 is always striving for. Today the sport unveiled the concept of the 2022 car: the next in bringing the field closer together. Let’s take a look at what the 2022 cars will look like and the way closer racing can be achieved with old F1 engineering concepts. Warning: this is a technical one!
The comeback of ground effect
Ground effect was introduced in 1974. In 1977 Lotus added skirts to this design theory, which was later banned in 1983 on account of dangerous cornering speeds and skirt failures, which caused massive downforce loss. The modern ground effect cars will not have sliding-skirts due to safety concerns, but their role will be taken over by turning vanes.
The ground & venturi effects. Venturi tunnels
F1 ground effect is the phenomenon which occurs when the sidepods of the car are shaped like inverted wings which use the venturi effect to produce downforce. The creation of a low pressure area under the car with help of higher pressure, pushes the car into the ground resulting in downforce.
As the car moves over the ground, the track can be imagined as the floor of a venturi duct. When running air through a duct, the same amount of air particles that enters the duct must also exit it.
However, if you restrict the duct by adding an inverted wing to a portion of the top of the duct, the air particles will have to travel faster through this area: the throat. If Bernoulli’s principle and Newton’s second law are applied to this case, higher air velocity implies pressure loss: if the pressure increases in the direction the air particles are travelling, their velocity decreases.
Venturi tunnels are sculpted into the underside of the car. They start raking up towards the rear, letting the air flow at the normal streamline speed and pressure. The airflow is directed by turning vanes which begin from the front of the tunnels and continue all the way to the back, where they will be used like sliding-skirts for not letting the air travelling towards the diffuser, leak and create loss of downforce.
These rear turning vanes are going to be mounted on the brake duct system, not on the chassis, so they are independent of chassis movement, avoiding problems like rubbing against the track.
Wheels & Tyres
18-inch tyres
Because the tyres will change from 13-inch to 18-inch rims, they will be more rigid as there is going to be less rubber which can deform under load. This involves less of a challenge in engineering the suspension geometry. Suspension geometry is the way the angles and lengths of the parts of the suspension system are set up: camber angle, roll centers and caster are a few examples. However, more rigid tyres need different suspension settings because they don’t absorb energy from track bumps as efficiently, making the suspension more sensitive and leading to even more complex set-up changes.
Because of the absence of strong deflections, the aero impact will be significantly less. The tyres will demand higher pressures in comparison to the 13-inch rim versions. This means that there is going to be less grip available, as the contact patch of the tyres will not be as effective in producing grip.
The front wheels are going to be reduced in width, going from 305 mm to 270 mm while the rear wheels will remain at 405 mm (only their diameter will be increased, not their width). This translates to the fact that not only is grip minimized by aero impact, but also by the smaller contact patch of the tyres, however, less rubber width means quicker tyre warm up which is beneficial because of the ban of tyre blankets. On top of that, their weight will also increase, adding to the already heavier cars. The brake discs will have a diameter of 330 mm, upgrading from the current 278 mm ones, introducing greater braking powers.
The primary objective of the introduction of 18-inch tyres is to achieve less performance. This change alone is expected to make the cars slower by 1-2 seconds/ lap.
Front wheel deflectors & wheel covers
Wheel covers will be brought back after they were banned in 2010, after their debut in 2007. Their shape will be strictly regulated so teams can’t find ways around the rules and gain an advantage through clever designs. Even so, the front wheel deflectors can be designed however the teams want to disperse the air flow around the car, benefiting each team’s aerodynamic concept. If front wheel deflectors and wheel covers would not be used, disruption of airflow and performance loss would be generated and the venturi tunnels would lose their effectiveness and stall. They smooth out and direct the air to the underbody of the car while managing front tyre wake.
Tyre wake is created when the airflow separates at the top and bottom of the wheel, producing low pressure behind it which results in drag. Separated air forms turbulence near the contact patch. Counter rotating vortices are created by the separated airflow and other vortices are turbulent and have low velocities. The front wheel deflectors restrain the air in order for it to accelerate with the pressure dropping. This low pressure is carried over to the rear of the wheel while decreasing the turbulence in the tyre wake area.
At the rear, the trail of dirty air is reduced, not affecting the downforce levels of the following car as much. Decreasing the dirty air trail is also beneficial for stopping the tyres of the car behind from overheating.
Blown diffusers
Blown diffusers are used to cut back tyre squish which is very hard to control, especially at higher rear ride-heights. Tyre squish occurs as the tyre is pushed into the ground: air gets trapped here and gets rotated by the wheel, having no other solution but to escape sideways. The concept behind them is that high-energy exhaust gas is blown into the area with rear tyre squish, a low-energy area.
High-energy exhaust gas is the product of high loads and speeds as the engine has to work harder to produce the necessary force to push the monopost when heavily loaded and when driving very quickly. Low pressure air at the trailing edge of the diffuser is also turned into higher pressure air in order to produce more downforce. Blown diffusers are especially useful during the low-speed corner exit, because that is when it blows very heavy, creating downforce.
Wings
Simpler front wings
Front wings will be simplified and their design will be similar to the front wing concepts before 2009 when the current front wings were introduced: the wing will be joined with the nose cone. Because of this, the wing will only consist of 3 airfoils on each side of the wing, not 5 anymore.
The current front wings create a Y-250 vortex: the pressure level difference between the center plane of the wing and the inner tips of the airfoils (the ones that taper towards the inside) is what creates this vortex. The solution for the Y-250 vortex is the nose cape located on the underside of the nose cone which generates a counter rotating vortex to the Y-250. These two vortices travel further and transform into smaller vortices which result in downforce. This however won’t happen with the new front wings.
No more raised endplates on rear wings
Strict endplates will be banned from the 2022 design concepts because of their role in managing rear wing vortices, increasing the performance of the car while increasing the dirty air trail created behind the car. The wing generates downforce by having high pressure on top of itself and low pressure below. The tendency of the high pressure air is to balance energy levels out and travel over to the low pressure area, creating vortices. Raised endplates are currently used in order to lengthen the distance that the vortices have to travel between the high and low pressure sides, lessening their force and maintaining the pressure levels on both sides of the wing.
The return of the beam wing
This is the lower of the 2 rear wings, generating downforce. Low pressure above the trailing edge of the diffuser is created by the beam wing which means that air flow is drawn into it. This happens because low air pressure translates to less air particle oscillations and therefore low energy. As higher energy levels (which are related to higher air pressure) have the tendency to travel to the lower energy levels, higher pressure air gets sucked in by the latter.
So there you go: all the expected updates of the 2022 Formula 1 car. You might need to give this a couple of reads over to get your head round the concept. This was a technical one!
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