In high speed auto racing where speeds are into the triple digits, the car wants to slide to the outside of a curve or turn. Centrifugal force. This friction results in tire wear.
On the underside of the body is a large flat funnel that pivots such that the rear portion can swing as the car corners. On the straight sections of the track the funnel remains amidships, gathering air from the front of the car and venting it straight back. In, say, a fast left turn the aft portion of the funnel slides to the right, exhausting the collected air to the right to counter centrifugal force and help push the car back inline.-- whatrock, Feb 17 2021 Shark Fins. Passive Aero Version of This https://www.youtube...watch?v=JUyc98MvPug [bs0u0155, Feb 17 2021] Formula_201_20racin...ith_20big_20magnets [hippo, Feb 17 2021] The Nature of Technology: What it Is and How it Evolves, by W. Brian Arthur https://www.simonan...rthur/9781416544067Relevant general reading for [bs0u0155]'s rant [pocmloc, Feb 20 2021] The vectored air has to not mess up the all the good laminar flow of body and aerofoil work, that give the car down force.
Isn't the funnel going to be large drag component, trying to deflect air left or right inside the tube? I have often wondered if an opened suicide door or trying to push open a normal door would help cornering.-- wjt, Feb 17 2021 In corners where there are cars 3 wide on a track that isn't much bigger and frequently make a little contact, opening a door is probably not the best idea. Maybe roughen up the inside fender air flow with a slight air tripper edge like they do with the one along the top that keeps them from going airborne?-- RayfordSteele, Feb 17 2021 So, you're vectoring air with a movable aerodynamic device to produce a net force to counteract the centrifugal force/impart a component of the centripetal force required to make the turn. Well, you could make it work. You'd be better off doing it on the top, high pressure, side of the car. There, you have more room to work with and you're not dealing with a complex floor- road interface which is tricky at the best of times, even before you add in the finicky nature of the low pressure side of an aerofoil.
The thing to consider is, racing is nothing to do with making fast cars. It's an intersection of the legal & engineering professions, it's the rules and getting around them that counts. What you've thought of here, is a moveable aerodynamic device, they're against the rules in almost every form of racing, why? Well, they're a really good way of making a car go faster.
All the good ways of making a car go faster have been banned. What we're left with is WORSE ways of making cars go faster... then for some reason, those ways make it into road cars, largely for marketing reasons, and they make road cars worse, or at least over complex and mal- adapted to their actual role.
Let's have an example. Say the '94 F1 Ferrari V12. 3.5l displacement and a fairly astonishing 800+ BHP at an even more astonishing 16,000+ rpm. So that's 12 pistons thrashing around at enormous accelerations with 4 overhead camshafts and lots of complex electronics to keep it from exploding. The forces generated in an engine like that require very expensive materials and super fine tolerances, no cold starts here. Not to mention, it's junk at the end of the race. Is that actually a good engine? No. It's the most powerful engine they could make that satisfies the completely arbitrary 3.5l displacement rule. You can build a better 800 BHP engine in a lot of ways, but a good example is a NASCAR V8. They're about the same power, but half the revs, 2/3 the pistons, 1/2 the valves & 1/4 the camshafts. They can be made the same or better weight, and into a smaller package. They'll last 10x longer for probably 1/20th the cost and USE LESS FUEL DOING IT, mainly because they're not wasting all the extra energy needlessly accelerating pistons. So what lessons are taken from this and used on road cars? Small displacement, high revving 4+ valves/cylinder overhead cam engines that now, they strap turbines to... because turbines are the answer to low-cost robust consumer products. Why's that happening? Because politicians saw the racing rules and liked the general thrust. Cars all over Europe are taxed on displacement, not efficiency. They should have just taxed fuel and walked away, engineers would have been instructed to make efficient engines and that's what we would have got. Instead, they're told what to do, and HOW to do it by people who do not understand the subject. Consequently, the turbo on a 3 cylinder 1.6l fart box will be junk by 98,000 miles and a big block Chevy will be considering a rebuild at 2x that. Racing ruins everything and here endeth my rant.-- bs0u0155, Feb 17 2021 [bs0u0155]; preach, brother! Although the shift to electric everything is solving a lot of these issues. Much simpler system = fewer things that can be adjusted.-- neutrinos_shadow, Feb 17 2021 //the shift to electric everything is solving a lot of these issues.// And introducing what nightmares? What bugs me the most, is that the battery in my laptop is noticeably (and you can objectively check with things like HWmonitor) worse than when I got it ~12 months ago. From experience with all the other Li Ion powered devices I own, I know this trend would continue. I'd be properly ticked off if I had to buy a new car after 4 years because it can no longer make my commute in cold weather. Worse, it's degrading when you're not even using it, so there's not much relationship between battery health and use. Battery replacements are still staggeringly expensive, and I think the only way Tesla is getting figures of ~5% after a year is because they're fudging the new performance down slightly.
Maybe I'm becoming an old curmudgeon, but I think electric windows was a step too far. At the moment, I want a bench seat, a V8 and big clunky mechanical 4wd. If I wanted more sophistication, I'll take the technology that simplifies things: coil-on-plug shrinks the high voltage system down. I've seen aftermarket dashboard/gauge clusters for motorbikes that, because of the advances in power electronics, mean the components can be controlled directly.. ditch the whole relay box. I'd also quite like an electric oil pump, would be nice to get the oil moving about before the engine parts start moving.-- bs0u0155, Feb 17 2021 [bs0u0155] I am intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.-- Voice, Feb 18 2021 [bs0u0155] I can see the appeal, but with that attitude, humanity won't break the light speed barrier. If my idea about complexity is right, even the blind paths are needed.-- wjt, Feb 18 2021 // I am intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.//
It's just Peter Griffin's "You know what really grinds my gears" with absurd levels of research.
//but with that attitude, humanity won't break the light speed barrier.//
Carl Sagan used to drive around in a Corvair. Einstein seemed to do just fine even though he was forced to teach by making crude markings with a bit of white rock. Humanity doesn't discard old or even ancient technology, there's probably a million people poking something with a stick right now. We generally add to technology when we develop new and interesting problems. But, the human impulse to innovate can be misdirected into futile cycles.
Go & look at HP's website, specifically the driver download section, there's 1000's, maybe 10's of 1000's of printer models, yet our 2018 HP monochrome laser is just as crap as the 2002 HP monochrome printer... it's not actual innovation, its just working backwards from model number iteration, marketing and the need to drive cartridge sales.
It's possible to essentially perfect a product, and just leave it there, no further innovation necessary, maybe a 10 year review to see if any minor tweaks are needed.
The car, for all it's complexity, is just about there. Need a pickup truck? Well, all the innovation essentially took place between 1930-1955, then the designs were practically frozen for 30 years. They didn't need to unfreeze it, it was rule changes that forced it. True, a refresh in about 1993, (ABS, fuel injection) and 2016 (LED glovebox light) would have been welcome changes, but 5 iterations of woefully immature fuel injection and infotainment systems that are obsolete when fitted were a waste of everyone's time.
The Kitchen Aid mixer had it's 50th anniversary in 1960! They flirted with a slightly different design in the 50's then went back to the 30's design. That's the spirit chaps.
//even the blind paths are needed.//
Blind paths I'm fine with. How do you know it's a dead end until you get there? Futile cycles are what annoy me. Even my world of research, grant bodies have indicated they want MORE innovative "Moon Shots" in grant proposals, so we're not going to confirm anything anymore then? The incentives are now more skewed toward fraud/ignorance because that's what happens when pushed to take more risks and not accepting failure.
I'm thinking of emailing Kitchen Aid to ask them for a printer. Cast body, chrome trim, 1000 oversized fasteners, 700W motor, 2000 page capacity and a pasta attachment.-- bs0u0155, Feb 18 2021 You are right, people are subtly persuaded into futile company cycles for the overall 'keep the wheel turning' system. How does humanity change? The economy's pressure is on all companies. There's no one pinion point for a tire burning hand brake one-eighty. There's just an increasing pressure to pay an ever increasing bill for more and more people.
With that said, any action has thousands of facets. Who's to say that in the 674th* of the futile cycle of the dumbest product on the planet, a mistake is made that makes fertile ground to true change. Isn't that how evolution works?
* Not a prophetic number just thought generated. Or is it?-- wjt, Feb 20 2021 As a guy who took several classes in hybrid cars and batteries for them, I can tell you that the batteries are sized for the expected life of the car, and the performance shouldn't suffer much at all. They're oversized and plan for a performance target at end of life. They're restricted from using that full capacity so they don't load-cycle themselves and burn out faster.
Turbos are added as a good way to handle hotter- burning engines and meet fuel economy targets. Politicians don't care about the engineering details.
Engines are so complex by the requirements that few bother to rebuild them.
In a few years we'll all be riding around in self-driving buses and cars we don't own anyway.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 20 2021 ^ You had a private car, luxury, we hung from people hanging from the sides of the self driving, electric celled trams, in the middle of winter.-- wjt, Feb 21 2021 You managed to hang on! We considered ourselves lucky if we were able to crawl low enough that the vehicles didn't hit us as they drove by over our backs.-- pocmloc, Feb 21 2021 We at Camp Teacup were expecting (hoping for) an idea involving race cars modified for use as vent(ilators) in the local ICU. We are jailbreaking CPAP to make BiPAP; not enough oxygen cannulae or tanks. Definitely too few ventilators. Plus, flashy cars would add flair and a certain je ne sais quoi ambience; death by 'racecar' more glamorous than starved for oxygen on a regular vent.-- Sgt Teacup, Feb 21 2021 So, you have added a substantial drag component to the underside, low-pressure of a wheeled aerofoil?
Or did I miss something?-- UnaBubba, Feb 22 2021 Could be something which auto-engaged if the car senses catastrophic loss of traction.. but from what I've seen you'd want that air-scoop on the outside of the curve to counter rotation. If it's on the inside... you'd better have turned far before you get to the corner and be drifting around it.Which is cool, but not at F1 speeds.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Feb 22 2021 I'd later* thought of an interior Y-channel, perhaps ducting within the nice, flat aerodynamic underside of the chassis, and a flappy valve to select which of the Y legs the collected air would flow out of. During a hard left turn the valve would close off the left exit ducting and open the right portion, exhausting the collected air. And if the ducting were narrowed approaching the exit would the exiting air speed increase?
*after my engineering sins were pointed out.-- whatrock, Feb 22 2021 Ah, the power and cost that comes from a wall. yes, the air will go faster but it costs. The wall has to be bolted to something to hold it's ground.
Ultimately, the last thing you want to do is mess with the air/ down force under the car. A lot of race cars have been banned for being to good at down force (Brabham BT46B). Dirt Sprint cars vector air sideways.-- wjt, Feb 22 2021 //I can tell you that the batteries are sized for the expected life of the car, and the performance shouldn't suffer much at all. They're oversized and plan for a performance target at end of life.//
So they are fudging performance at the start to mitigate the unavoidable degradation. What is the expected life of the car? The last car I bought was 20 years old when I bought it (mx5) and is still going strong now, in fact it's value is rising. The next car I plan on buying is likely at least 20 years old. None of this will be possible with electric cars, and it must mean there are plenty of gen 1 Prius/Priuses/Prii?* driving around with the battery doing little more than slowing the car down.
//In a few years we'll all be riding around in self-driving buses and cars we don't own anyway.//
What a glorious utopia. We'll be moving to the subscription model of everything, and if the car is driving itself, you'll have more time to watch ads!
//the last thing you want to do is mess with the air/ down force under the car. A lot of race cars have been banned//
The last thing you want to do is mess with the air under the car MID CORNER. This is one of the better arguments for banning ground effects. By creating a partial vacuum between the car and the road you're very susceptible to suddenly braking the seal, by, for example mounting a curb mid corner. This means you suddenly loose downforce and you no longer have the grip to maintain the corner speed you're already doing and consequently fly off the track to your death.
*Toyota have a plural problem, Lexus too.-- bs0u0155, Feb 22 2021 A thought: you'd probably do better to just tilt the spoilers in the useful direction. Might need clever timing between the front & back to get rotation of the vehicle as well as the radial force for cornering.-- neutrinos_shadow, Feb 22 2021 //Prius/Priuses/Prii//
Fwiw, my experience had been as follows:
When you buy a Prius, the Li battery life is rated at ten years, so you're forewarned you'll be needing a new one at about that time, and then there's a dashboard prompt at the point when the battery has stopped being useful. Now, I made no attempt to track the maximum capacity in kWh over time, but one thing that is very easy to track in a Prius is fuel economy. If you allow that fuel economy is a reasonable proxy for battery effectiveness, then the battery in my Prius functioned virtually unimpaired for eleven years before raising its hand to say "please replace me", and then I had the pleasant surprise that the replacement cost only about half what I had been led to expect when I bought the car.
Of course, YMMV in a very literal sense.-- pertinax, Mar 07 2021 // If you allow that fuel economy is a reasonable proxy for battery effectiveness//
It isn't. Gas tank size and fuel line diameter are.-- Voice, Mar 07 2021 Yes, but those tend to be fairly constant over the life of a particular car.
Your point would be valid only if some sort of progressive sclerosis of the fuel line occurred over the ten- year period which exactly balanced any degradation of battery performance in its effect on fuel economy.-- pertinax, Mar 07 2021 //// If you allow that fuel economy is a reasonable proxy for battery effectiveness//
It isn't. Gas tank size and fuel line diameter are.//
I think what was meant here, was that if the battery became less effective, that the fuel economy would worsen because of the missing electric assist/regenerative braking. So that would be potentially at least, valid.
I wonder what a Prius fuel economy would be like with no battery weight? I'd guess at constant highway speeds a battery-less Prius would be noticeably better from lower weight-derived rolling resistance. It seems to me that what the Prius always needed was an undertray & possibly some rear wheel covers.-- bs0u0155, Mar 08 2021 //what the Prius always needed was an undertray//
You're thinking of a toaster?-- pertinax, Mar 08 2021 random, halfbakery