Quote:
Originally Posted by M5Rick
You mentioned that in your previous post, it's pointless other teams copying and wasting their budget on something that would unlikely work, it all depends partly on what's hidden in between the floor and the outer body.
Naturally the front wing and splitter design is the entry force of the air that the floor and side pods have to react to together with the action of the rear diffuser and wing.
A team that can get it right will actually be making their car go quicker solely with the forced out air from the back pushing the car forward and more so with weight reduction.
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No I don't think that's actually possible, because the point of the diffuser is to Increase the exit volume of the floor to promote better "reintegration" of the air flow out from under the car. This means the air flow will smoothly transition from the high speed low pressure due to the venturi tunnels into a large volume high pressure surrounding air, and this is critical to maintain the smooth air flow under the car and prevent separation. It's job isn't to provide thrust, it's to condition exiting air and improve down force generation of the floor. Of course air flow manipulation around and over the diffuser can increase rear down force over the diffuser area but that's another complex topic.
So the main reasons why the diffuser air doesn't create thrust is because it expands the air, and this does the opposite of compressing it (like what the under floor does) - so air flow slows in speed and expands meaning it contains less energy and doesn't provide much thrust. Also it's not like a rocket engine where fuel ignition provides heat and massive expansion of gasses to create thrust. The air flow coming out of the diffuser is fed from the mouth of the venturi tunnels, and in an ideal world where all the air is sealed within the tunnels what comes out must be what comes in, so there's no additional air flow to make thrust. However we must account for the drag these fences and tunnels contribute, and in the end there is a net drag effect on the car rather than a net thrust effect.
So I don't think there will be any thrust gains, especially since priority number 1 is using it to manage underbody flow. But I could be wrong since I'm no aerodynamics expert. But if this were the case the F1 technical guys would be going nuts over it.