Canards VS Front splitters...
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Originally Posted by mikegarrison,Sep 9 2007, 08:57 PM
You are making a false distiction. You can look at aerodymanic forces as the pressures on the body, or you can look at it as the momentum change of the flow. Both are exactly equivalent, though. The one causes the other.
what i did say and what i dont think you commented on was that a splitter can function simply by affecting the air that would be hitting that part of the car anyway. you made it sound as if the splitter was mostly effective as a means of redirecting air over the top of the car. im simply saying that's not necessarily the case. let's use a crappy little example here: assume your cars chin is three inches off of the ground. also assume that there is no dive or sqaut so this height doesnt change. also, because i dont want to do any math lets look at this in 2d terms from the side view. let's also imagine that this car has a completely flat underbody that is flush with the chin, in other words the front fascia doesnt hang down any lower than the rest of the bottom of the car.
so looking at in from the side we see how there is a specific amount of air that goes under the car through the 3 inch high opening. if you were to extend a splitter from the front of the chin that is still completely flush with the underbody you have not restricted the airflow that was going to the underbody at all but you are still making downforce because of what you are doing with the airflow that was natrually hitting the part that the splitter now occupies. in other words, the splitter does not necessarily have to force more air over the top of the car in order to make downforce and saying that that is "how a splitter works" isnt exactly accurate.
also, i completely agree with your comments about air sucking things. very well put.
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From: Covington WA, USA
Originally Posted by Mr.E.G.,Sep 10 2007, 10:57 AM
so looking at in from the side we see how there is a specific amount of air that goes under the car through the 3 inch high opening. if you were to extend a splitter from the front of the chin that is still completely flush with the underbody you have not restricted the airflow that was going to the underbody at all
If you draw the streamlines for the case with and without the splitter, you will find more of them go over the top with the splitter than do so otherwise. It's what the splitter does (and thus even gives it its name).
Keep in mind that without the splitter, the stagnation streamline is not the one that starts out three inches off the ground. It's actually probably about three inches above that (rough guess). Some of the air that hits the nose of the car curls over the top, some of it slides around the sides, and some of it squeezes down under the car.
The splitter makes it harder for the air to squeeze down under the car. With the splitter, the stagnation streamline might be five inches off the ground rather than six. Some of the air above the splitter is still going to end up sliding around it and going under the car, but not quite as much as before.
The longer the splitter, the less air is going to get pushed under it.
These are all just different ways to visualize the same thing.
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From: Covington WA, USA
Originally Posted by cthree,Sep 10 2007, 12:02 AM
When the splitter touches the ground the suction stops and all the downforce created by the splitter goes away.
It's not because the downforce on the car suddenly disappears. It's just that it suddenly no longer goes through the wheels.
(Things are a little more complicated than this in a "tunnel car" like Senna's F1 car. But the S2000 is not a tunnel car.)
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From: Kingston, WA
Originally Posted by jsp872,Sep 10 2007, 10:30 AM
those are some ugly splitters!
Now it's a big fight that in the end will still leave everyone with some ugly splitters.
