Ferrari's W Duct explained

Nice!!!

 

Ferrari are running nothing of the sort. The above video was simply made by a fan of the design idea.

 

The W duct makes sense on paper, but according to fluid dynamics models it would make the car terribly unbalanced in corners. The Mercedes f-duct works in a very simple fashion by stalling the wing above a certain speed thus allowing for greater top speed. The trick is in tuning the pressure which allows the wing to stall. I suspect the speed is in the neighborhood of 120-130mph.

 

The system described uses an amplified lateral incidence to increase the downforce on one side or the other. It would likely work as described in the wind tunnel or on a perfectly calm day. When you put it in the real world with cross wind effects the results would be horrible. The amplification needed to sense turning would be totally fooled by any cross wind. Only when the car was going directly up wind and downwind would it work right. Under all other conditions the system is going to be dumping or increasing lift on one side or the other. It would be impossible to be consistent from one lap to the next and a gust could take away or drastically increase the downforce on one side or the other.

Great execution of a seriously flawed concept...

 

Pretty amazing stuff.

 

I'm not so sure. I think the turbulence from other cars could have more of an effect than a 25 MPH wind from the side. I think it would work. What I would be concerned about is the sharp transition from one mode to the next, or, as I said, turbulence or the draft from the car you're trying to pass.

 

hmmmmmm.........lots of mention......that the ferrari is very complex this year...............

 

I don't doubt that in traffic the car would be horribe, but even on an empty track it isn't going to work.

They are trying to sense a 5 or 6 degree incidence swing, according to their video... at 100 mph a 20 mph cross wind swings the incidence 11.5 degrees. A 10 mph cross wind in at 100 mph gives a 5.7 degree incidence swing. This amount of cross wind is very common. That same cross wind in a corner would wipe out the incidence an dump the lift on the nose.. I woudn't want to be driving when that happened... As the car is changing direction and the cross wind component is changing, the downforce on the nose is going to be changing all over the palce, from positive to negative and back. There is no consistency, from one corner to the next, the aero downforce will change from nothing to huge and the driver has no way of knowing what he will have at any point in time... In control theory you could describe what they are trying to sense is buried in the background noise. No way it could work.

 

Added to all the other issues with this idea of how the W-duct supposedly works, one piece of stray rubber (or other debris), in the nose intake and you instantly have a very unpredictable, unbalanced front end!