Front Wing

● CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics)

● Main principles for the flow of any fluid:
○ Conservation of mass
■ For any system closed to all transfers of matter and energy, the mass of
the system must remain constant over time, as system's mass cannot
change, so quantity cannot be added or removed. Hence, the quantity of
mass is conserved over time.
○ Newton’s second law of motion
■ The acceleration of an object as produced by a net force is directly
proportional to the magnitude of the net force, in the same direction as
the net force, and inversely proportional to the mass of the object.
○ Energy conservation
■ The total energy of an isolated system remains constant, it is said to be
conserved over time. This law means that energy can neither be created
nor destroyed; rather, it can only be transformed from one form to
another.
● Venture Theory
○ The venture theory shows that by reducing the height of the plate to the ground,
the velocity of air flowing through is increased and low air pressure is created
which results in further down force.
● The key for having a good aerodynamic balance at any component of a car is to have a
proper lift to drag ratio.
● The front wing down force has to balance the rear wing downforce for optimal results.
● It is required to have neutral section and it cannot induce any amount of downforce,
hence it is called neutral central section.
● Stability of the car increases, while slipstreaming, when the wings are flexible.
● The closer the wings are to the ground, the more downforce it produces, since it makes
use of the ground effect of the car.
● Ground Effect
○ When a wing travels in close proximity to the ground, it experiences an increase
in lift, and decrease in induced drag.
● Lift, downforce is generated particular to the direction of travel of any object. On the
other hand drag is unavoidable and is generated parallel and in opposition to the
direction of travel.
● Drag force
○ Pressure drag
■ Dependent on the shape of any object moving through a fluid
○ Friction drag
■ The result of the friction of the solid molecules against air molecules in
their neighborhood. Depends on the fluid and solid properties. A smooth
surface of the solid will produce less skin friction compared to a rough
one. For the fluid the friction varies along with its viscosity and the
magnitude of the viscous forces to the motion of the flow, expressed as
the Reynolds number.
● Lift and Drag force
○ Depend on the density of the fluid, upstream velocity, the size, shape and
orientation of the body
● The following equations are for the lift coefficient and drag coefficient.
○

● Drag coefficient
○ A drag coefficient of 1 means that all air flowing onto the object will be stopped,
while a theoretical 0 is a perfectly clean air stream.
○
● Two wings will produce less than twice the downforce produced by a single wing
● The lift coefficient and the ratio of Lift to Drag (L/D) decreases with increasing number of
airfoils.

● End Plate
○ Its function is to redirect the airflow around front tires. By directing the oncoming
airflow around the front tires, minimizes the amount of drag resistance produced
and allows the airflow to continue back to the side pods and cars floor.
○ They separate the negative pressure on the bottom of the wing flowing and the
positive pressure on the top of the wing which eliminates induced drag.
○ The other function is to increase the aerodynamic efficiency while designing we
cannot neglect the fact that when the end plate area is increase overall lift
coefficient increases while there is significant reduction in drag coefficient.
● Induced drag
○ The result of vortices that are generated behind the solid object. Due to the
change of direction of air around the wing, a vortex is created where the airflow
meets unchanged, straight flow. The size of the vortex, and therefore it's drag
strength increases with an increasing angle of attack of the aerofoil. F1 teams try
to counteract that drag by adding end plates to wings.
● Effects of high angles of attack of the front wing
○ As the angle of attack is increased, the lift produced by the wing will also initially
increase and the wing-tip vortex strength will also increase proportionally to the
lift produced.
■ Vortexes:
● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlBVQoRGiIw
● Wing tip vortices are formed because of the pressure difference
between the top and bottom of the wing. For a wing generating
lift, there’s high pressure at the bottom, low pressure at the top. So
at the wing tip, the high pressure air below the wing tends to roll
up to the low pressure region above the wing, forming two tip
vortices running off trailing edge.
● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zIAdrPlBTs
○
References

● http://www.ijmerr.com/uploadfile/2015/0409/20150409111802547.pdf
● https://researchbank.rmit.edu.au/eserv/rmit:6319/Walter.pdf