Rick Brown wrote:
>
> Not true. Air would not flow straight back from the end plate so you still
> have some air flowing over the horizontal wing. The end plate is also a wing
> and air will flow around it just like a wing in the horizontal plane. A
> flat piece of material is just as much a wing as your typical curved
> section - having the upper surface "longer" is not what provides lift (or
> downforce), it's the angle of attack into the air. The end plate helps the
> car turn the corner by providing "lift" toward the inside of the turn. This
> all just an educated guess on my part having recently learned how a "wing"
> really works, but I think I'm right.
The primary source of lift or downforce is the Bernoulli effect of the
different path lengths along the wing. If it were angle of attack, we'd
still be using spinnaker type sails and we'd never able to go upwind. :)
The best thing is that the Bernoulli effect gives a fraction of the drag
that angle of attack does.
This isn't to say that a car isn't faster with a high-angle wing,
downforce is valuable enough to sacrifice a LOT of drag, obviously.
As for the original post, the end plates are indeed rudders, but there
is still PLENTY of air going over the wing. The car is not traveling
even close to the direction of the vehicle or the apparent "angle of
attack," as evidenced by the grotesque amounts of dirt being thrown to
the outside of the turn. :-)
--
---
'94 FZR-600R: Kills bugs fast!
'87 RX-7 TII: Kills more bugs, but not as fast.
'LXIX Sprite: Kills slow and dumb bugs.
'90 GS 500-E: Kills slow and dumb people.
'94 B-2200: Kills the lawn.
Road racing makes heroin addiction look like a vague wish for something
salty.
- Peter Egan
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