I tried to search this but was unsuccessful so please forgive my novice approach and perhaps elementary question. I don't follow racing, but on few occasion have heard some modern track type (F1, Indy, NASCAR, ???) race cars featuring aerodynamic designs capable of generating enough down force that such car could be driven upside down on the ceiling of a tunnel. If true, has this actually been physically done/tested or is it just a mathematical theory ? Just curious.
True. Easily proven in wind tunnels but CG movie scenes aside I doubt its ever been done. The transition would be difficult. Unlike an airplane, turning a car 90 degrees is hard on the paint job. Joie Chitwood did do a 360 roll airborne and land on the wheels and drive away in a Bond movie though. But, like an airplane he had sufficient altitude to pull it off.
A few years ago Mercedes Benz did a commercial where I believe it was SLS did a 360 in a tunnel. The video floated around the internet for a while.
Although the aerodynamic forces would be oriented upward, keeping the car 'glued' to the surface, the inertia forces on everything would still be acting downward. Thus the driver and all the car systems (e.g. fuel and oil) would be feeling a negative 1g loading. No different than an airplane flying inverted. Probably would require some design changes if you wanted to stay upside down for very long.
Current F1 cars easily have 3x it's weight in downforce at 300kph. Find a tunnel where you can drive upside down in, that's long enough and a complete and utter nutcase, and the ''theory'' will be proven.
Not sure the engines would function correctly though. For sure I wouldn't want to try it in a mclaren Honda
Also in the Porsche Museum in Strugart, there is a Porsche which is suspended upside down to the ceiling indicating that it could theorically at least that it has enough down force to drive upside down according to our guide.
that mercedes stunt is based on simple centrifugal acceleration and has nothing to do with aerodynamics. I think the average road car in fact has negative down force. I would think a high performance car has some sort of positive down force to enhance control at high speed. +1 The driver would hang in his seat belts and the oil sump would run dry immediately...
Check it out above, looks real enough to me but then again these days it seams you can do anything with film. MS does wink at the end - does that indicate it is a fake?
I did. It has so much wrong it is laughable. He is driving through a tunnel with enough curve to create over 1 g force but when he reaches the roof he just turns to the inner diameter of the circle? On the roof??? With little or no traction? If that is not enough the ramp is just big enough for the car yet on a blind turn he hits it perfectly and with no rehearsal and all the unknowns hits a just big enough off ramp? Do you still believe in the Easter Bunny? And that is still not enough they fill the tunnel with concrete barriers, people and at the exit ramp area some very large equipment to possibly hit if anything goes wrong????? Are you Fing kidding??? Get real. Don't answer any emails from Ethiopia. It might be a guy that wants your bank account number.
Not sure you can make that determination without being there. Admittedly photography can make you believe pretty much anything - even that we really landed on the moon years ago. Gosh no rehearsal missions everything went off just right. I wasn't there either and just went with the photography on that one but that was probably a fake too.
for crying out loud....really????? Is the Mercedes SLS tunnel video real? https://www.quora.com/Is-the-Mercedes-SLS-tunnel-video-real
Need to be there? Look at it. The tunnel is littered with people, concrete barriers and big solid equipment. If all the rest doesn't bother you can you imagine anyone doing something like this with all that stuff in the way should something go wrong? Come on.
Look at the link above and read the rest of the comments about the stunt. General consensus is that it is a fake but some say it is theoretically possible. Few of the commenters just looked at the stunt and disregarded it out of hand. And by the way what's this thing about the Easter Bunny being a fraud? LOL
That is not down force but centripetal force. Jeremy Clarkson did do this tunnel thing on Top Gear. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TbpgZ2Dt0A Wasn't pretty.
