Can you drive an F1 car on the ceiling?

Yes an F1 car can drive on a roof so long as the car is moving fast enough that the force of air pushing on the aerodynamics is stronger than the force of gravity.


In the image the car on the ground and on the roof are both moving at 150MPH from right to left .

The car on the Roof will be stuck to the roof at 1G less than the car on the ground is stuck to the floor.

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you actually mean 2G I suppose

Not only is the car pulled 1g Less to the ground, it is pulled 1g More of the ceiling, and 1 + 1 = ???? not 1

 

Yeah man that really is

Few months ago I started reading Race car aerodynamics - Designing for speed by Joseph Katz.. I thought What the hell, this can't be that hard to understand, its just cars going faster in a corner, nothing like rocket science. Actually it IS like rocket science lol.

If nothing else, it already made me understand that F1 engineers must be totally crazy to find all those little places where to effectively generate downforce. Those guys could design pretty much anything that moves.

Edit: and btw that book is from late 90s. Think about that how much has aerodynamics understanding changed in last 10-15 years. And for someone like me with poor college math knowledge its next to impossible to imagine 1980s aerodynamics

 

F1 has more similarities with jet aircrafts then it does with a standard road car, a jet can take off at speeds slower then an f1 can reach and the same jet can fly in any orientation it wants. The f1's biggest limitation is the fact it needs contact with a surface for both traction and cornering where the jet only requires this for landing and taking off.

Having the confidence in maintaining enough propulsion from the drive wheels whilst losing 2g of downward force being inverted needing to stay above a certain speed to avoid a massive accident is going to stop any person ever trying this in reality I think. The closer you get to the minimum speed needed to stay on the roof the less traction you will have which will more likely cause you to fall off the roof and probably die. Unlike a test aircraft there
is no ejection seat and the test can only be done at speed, the faster the better so any issue would be disastrous.

Luckily we have a sim that hopefully at some point will allow us to atleast do a virtual test of this, maybe topgear could get the stig to try the real test just after he leaks who he is. They do tend to kill the stig rather then let him peacefully retire going by past stigs lol.

 

Still makes me think, lol - thousands of people HAD to think about this before me - why don't they just test it humanless? I still hear the main argument against this experiment being that no driver/pilot wants to risk that but how is he any necessary today?

I mean Google has its own AI controlled car that can legally drive in public traffic in some state of USA.

They sure could control the car via radio, "just" find some decent and smooth tunnel where the car could safely reach inverted position...?

 

Well, most of aerodynamics stuff were know at 30's, when some car makers produced aerodynamic models, for example Tatra has many early aerodynamic models that have lower drag than modern cars. Nowdays it just have been refined what was known.

You can see some early milestones of aerodynamics here:
http://www.scientistsandfriends.com/aerodynamics.html

This is book that was recommended for me, just haven't found enough to buy this one yet.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Aerodynamics-Road-Vehicles-Wolf-Heinrich-Hucho/dp/0768000297

At time of 60's most of stuff were already found almost on every area, after that most we have found are smaller details and some things have been refined, but all pioneering was so long ago, it is quite mind blowing to realize how before computers people could lay down foundations of aerodynamics so well.

Even though, computers were used quite early too, for example 1969 Camaro has several aspect where computer was used, that was still 60's !

We often are told how modern are so much more advanced than old, but when one looks history, one starts to doubt that

 

On tv here they have had lots of specials lately on racing from the 60s to 70s and those early f1 wings were far from refined aerospace engineering lol, more like they saw a photo of a plane and bolted a big wing onto the end of a few broom handles and hoped for the best.

But the military and airplane industry in general has been a long way ahead of where motorsport was and still is, its probably only been the last 10-15 years that they got the top aerospace guys into F1 and the aerodynamics of the cars has got to that same high standard as aircraft engineering, as they got much better the rules have been tightened to avoid the cars getting too fast.

Im sure if all rules were scrapped and they allowed any aero bits onto the cars they would barely need to slow down for anything but tightest hairpins. Imagine all the possibilities in just diffusers and flexible wings which could give very high DF in slow corners and be designed in a way to bend back and reduce drag for maximum top speeds where the wings are hurting more then they help. The cars could run max downforce on every single track as it would pretty much be able to give an ideal level of DF thoughout all speeds without needing to balance the fine line between high DF for slow corners and low drag for long straights.

Then with all the work on diffusers over the last year which can create even more down-force with practically no drag, or even take them to the next level and use suction to keep the car planted with no need for wings at all and they'd be cornering at 15g lol. They could drive up walls and roofs with no problem either, or at least that is until the suction stops and they completely lose all control in an instant and there would be very little to help crashes at those sorts of speeds.

F1 is always a big battle between the ruling body trying to keep speeds in check and keep it safe whilst the engineers try hard to get the absolute most performance within these set rules. Each year the rules change in order to slow down the cars but in the end the engineers find a way to make the cars get back all they lost and a bit more.

 

There was ground effect cars somewhere 70-80's in F1 I believe, but then those were banned by rules. Then later that wooden plank was introduced so that cars would not be so low to reduce effect again as they learned than they don't need 'skirts' on their cars to have some effect.

I think that there should be series without other restrictions than that crash at car's maximum velocity to concrete wall should not make injuries for driver. That would lead into huge advancements in car safety while still allowing truly best performance from vehicle that humans can create.

Appropriate test of course would be required to make so that crash safety could be proofed without human tests, but it would not require much more of rules, that requirement would limit speeds, inspire creativity and maybe later would allow more speed as they figure out new ways to prevent injuries in crash.

Maybe some prototype series without FIA would be one to go by that kind of rule, I doubt FIA would ever have such flexibility.

 

Well maybe that's just some uneducated talk, but I think that if they really wanted to do some experiments with their cars outside of direct F1 usage, they are allowed to take their cars whenever they wanted... after all I remember some team in somewhere like 2006 tested absolute maximum speed of their car providing it would be set for minimal aero drag and they reached WELL over 420km/h - with "just" ~750hp.

Such setup would be useless for a racetrack because the car had very little downforce, but it served enough to show what a ingenious compromise a typical F1 setup is. They reach over 300km/h and still have so much downforce and can brake to complete halt from such speed in few seconds.
Unlike madmans in 1930 who, if they managed to reach 300km/h, could only start to pray so their drum brakes will stop them in like half a minute and that they won't crash in nearest concrete obstacle.

Sometimes I think if my hydraulic disc brakes on a mountain bike that weighs 105kg including me aren't actually better than what they had on those 800kg machines lol.

 

Actually drum brakes are not weak, they are stronger for size than disc brakes, but problem is that they tend to fade really quick. With asbestos brakes it was not that bad than what they replaced asbestos with, but they have created materials that are now again at same level as before.

However impression that drum brakes would be weak is not reality, this is what I have found as I have researched how to create drum brakes for rF2. with drum brakes you get leverage and some self assisting effect too, so there is lot of strength, only issue indeed is that fading which is what creates myth of weak drum brakes, which in reality is fading drum brakes.

 

Wow thats actually very interesting, you see my knowledge is so limited, then again drum brakes are automatically viewed as useless by people who buy newer cars today.. when in fact their main problem is just fading, they can serve perfectly well in public road driving, is that right? Because when you drive calm you only use very very little brakes, often you can get away with engine braking..

Also everything is about materalis used I guess, I remember how once I had to brake hard from 160km/h to complete halt on a highway with 10 yr old seat toledo and the brakes were almost completely burnt lol..

 

Lol me and a friend a while back had a bit of a race down a mountain road full of hairpins, back then I had a holden commodore which was know to have some crappy stock brake pads. Well 2 hairpins from the bottom I smelt burning pads and then hardly had a pedal left on the last hairpin which I just pulled up in time to make. If there was one more I think I would have got down the last bit pretty quick via the scenic route as it was an auto and once you run out of breaks in that thing there is not a lot that can be done to stop it, so its not only drums that fade but crappy undersized pads arent great on a fairly heavy sedan when you stomp on the pedal about 10 times in a row

I remember at that time the police were using souped up Ford Falcons that had the same issues and a few of them ended up pretty deap into the scenery, before they recalled the entire fleet.

 

It was surprise for me too to find out that, but drum brakes have some other aspects that make them also bad for daily driven vehicles, if they get wet, they loose lot from that stopping power, also they are quite sensitive to adjustments, also heat expands drum which reduces available brake torque, also at least I prefer to service disc brakes over drum brakes with them springs etc.

But for given diameter there is quite bit of brake torque, which sadly fades away and there really is not much that can be done for it, you can't put holes on surfaces as then any small bit of water will cause issues, so they are in many ways inferior technology.

Maybe some genius could hook up peltier elements for drum brakes and get them cooled while collecting electricity for electric motors, kind of KERS, but I don't really know how successful such might be.

I managed to burn all four brakes on my Volvo when I went on track first time with it, that was 1.5laps at motopark, almost completely faded brakes and smoke coming out from them, new pads made whole lot of difference.
Thing has no vented discs and brake disc is such way installed that heat can't escape to wheel too well either, so brakes run hot. With new brake pads and maybe around 15 laps all rubber parts were well done and I needed to do whole brake job again.

Sizing of brakes is much better with new cars, you can actually use them.

Anyway to more towards original subject.

How about driving F1 car on two wheels? I think that should be at least possible now without tweaking with odd tracks?

 

You mean 2 wheels as in a wheelie or stunt driving lol.

 

Now you gave me a problem, can I have both?

I could not make it to drive on two wheels, but it might be because my lacking abilities.

However I might got it close to world record speed in reverse, 277km/h, at that speed I get:
Front downforce -152kg
Rear downforce -1327kg
Drag -644.1kg

Tyre load (it turned a little here and there)
Front 1186, 1409
Rear 726, 661
These should be Newtons

Engine oil temp was 165.1C and water temp 159.7C at that moment, still it did not blow as I made rather not elegant 180 turn and let it cool down for rest of the hill, quite strong motor

Anyway something works funny way here, car weights only 600kg and it still did not lift off rear, I guess diffusor generates downforce there going backwards too but I can't see that one logged anywhere, not sure if that should be so?

If I drive typical direction near similar speed up to a hill, when hill ends front launches up to air very quickly and then rest of the car follows. I wonder if front wing stops working at height? Really interesting and I don't understand anything about it as aerodynamics are black art unless one understands formulas and all that.

 

So, is this thread moving in doing wheelies in a tunnel upside down?

btw, drum brakes are stronger when they are bigger and compaired to similar braking power discs, the difference in weight is terribly against them imho.

 

I dont think an F1 would get airborne in reverse as the wings still wont be generating lift, if they did then everytime a F1 car would have a high speed spin it would be getting airborne. I have seen many F1 cars do a 180 at very high speed and end up going off track in reverse but never seen them tend to get airborne like Nascar cars without roof flaps. Or the original COT rear wing that made everyone fly in reverse until they went back to the more traditional rear spoiler design.

What you would need to do is actually turn the wings upside down and drive forwards then in theory it should fly. Well its not really a theory as wings do create lift and we know planes fly so it would take off for sure. But it wouldn't be a long or stable flight and end up in a pretty nasty landing.

I assume there is some type of reverse Airfoil design http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airfoil Im not an Aerospace engineer but I dont think a traditional wing with wind coming from the opposite direction would give an efficient amount of lift, they only work well in one direction.

The wind must hit the thick part and this creates lift depending on the angle of attack, I dont think hitting the thin part or back of the wing should create a huge amount of lift but it will still create some, it just wont be as efficient and much more like just having a flat piece of wood rather then an Airfoil.

An F1 wing creates downforce by being setup in the reverse direction to an aircrafts wing. So instead of having the wing on the F1 at say 15 degrees up looking from the wind direction but instead pointed it 15 degrees down you would create a lot of lift and it would probably take off at around 100kmh. You would probably just need a wing at around 1 degree of lift to make the F1 get airborne, the higher the angle the steeper the takeoff would be but also the lower the speed this would happen at so I wonder which would cause the most destruction lol.

 

Front wing was set to maximum angle and rear wing minimum angle, there is little area at bottom at front, I thought that it would not result quite as violent effect. Could it be that angle of attack is defined by road angle instead of angle car travels trough air? Again I don't understand much, but I find it interesting anyway.

I posted drum brakes formulas and information to modding section brake topic I started, those should explain them quite well.

 

All this talk about not being able to test in a real F1 car.

Let me explain the easiest and safest way to test in a real F1 car. You take the car to a large wind tunnel with a rotating platform. You set the wind speed to equal half of what the car is capable of doing. You then roll the platform upside down slowly and see if the car holds onto the platform.

Obviously you would want the car safety chained to the platform, but would want enough slack to allow the tires to lose contact from the platform. You would also want load cells under each wheel to see how much pressure is being applied to each so you can calculate absolute down force. If the car doesn't stick, you increase wind speed until such time as it does so with sufficient force to be able to control the car.

End result, you would then know what speed and wing angle is required to be able to drive on the roof of a tunnel in real life. Just hope you never have to hit your brakes while inverted