Twin Keel design

Can someone get a picture illustrating twin keel/single keel?

 

I believe you are talking about the Twin Keel front ends. Twin keel is now being used by BMW Williams.

I think they are the only ones using them, however with the 250000 hours it took them to hone in the aerodynamics, I am not seeing any great results from it.

Its considerably Radical, however it think it might be more show and less go then it appears to be.

The "gist" of formula one these days, as far as engineering goes, is to design something that goes around the rules. The governing body for F1 does not want f1 to go faster, but instead have them "catch up" after larger restrictions are placed on them.

And mostly due to ferrari, bmw, mclaren, there are new designs each year that many people might not know about, but they help them overcome the new restrictions.

F1 cars are beyond complex, with teams of upto 100 people working on them, its no wonder they are more complex then most spaceships, haha.

Anyways, as for the specific Aerodynamic engineering reasons they used them, it's probably tracable to some simple concepts, however just pushed to the extreme.

"The FW26 features a distinctively short nose cone with the front wing main plane and associated assemblies mounted on extended “tusks”. The interpretation of the front profile has been conceived in tandem with a twin-keel monocoque design, aiding air flow both under and over the front geometries of the car, and improving global aerodynamics right through to the rear wing of the FW26. "

If you would like to really learn about Aerodynamics in Motorsports, its fairly complex, and a bit hard to understand. I'm a mechanical engineer and I can't even understand some of the complex formulas used to determine some of the effects attempted.

I would suggest looking into the following books for further info:

http://www.sae.org/servlets/productDetail?PROD_TYP=BOOK&PROD_CD=B-821

http://www.sae.org/servlets/productDetail?PROD_TYP=BOOK&PROD_CD=B-629

http://www.sae.org/servlets/productDetail?PROD_TYP=PAPER&PROD_CD=890600&REQUEST_FROM=MOTORSPORTS


Oh yea, heres a picture of thier front end,

 

Okay, the twin keel design is what they term the front lower wishbone mounting points when they are separated to allow air to travel cleanly between.

I have attached a picture of the Williams nose below, but it does not show the suspension mounts very well ... but you can see how the front wing supports are wide and simply imagine that the front lower wishbone supports will be inline with these. This means that the air has a very clean path to under the car.

With a traditional car, like the Ferrari the front lower wishbone pivot points sort of meet together in the centre of the car. This means that the chassis needs to have a rib in the middle (to hold on to the wishbones) this also means that the air has to pass around this rib. The twin keel design attempts to clean up the path of the air.

Thus theoretical advantages:
- Cleaner air path to under the car.

Disadvantages:
- Suspension mounting point rigidity. As you can imagine the central rib was very strong and simple ... the twin keel design requires a lot of clever work to ensure the suspension points do NOT move/flex at all.

History of the twin keel:
- I think Sauber were the first, but they have returned to the traditional concept now.
- Arrows designed a great implementation of the idea ... but we will never know if that car was quick or not because it was their last year of racing, and many other things hid the performance.
- McLaren with their MP4/18 (or whatever it was called) was the first big team, and I personally think they struggled that year because of lack of rigidity with the suspension mounting points.
- Williams now have joined the ranks, but also changed the nose dramatically.

Thus nobody really knows yet whether it is worth the effort, as Ferrari keep winning and they don't use it, and say they find more aero advantages elsewhere.

Pete

picture from www.f1-live.com

 

Thanks for posting the above information!

I, too, was wondering the same thing, and this post describes it very well.


*Performing the rain dance for tomorrow's GP*
Pino

 

Hehe, in F1 new technology is never well explained nore proved to work, its the ultimate prototype of prototypes

However, you can usually trace it to basic concepts and see WHY they did it. You will never find out the exact results, but with some researching you can see what it is intended to do.