Quote:
Originally Posted by 2000mc
So I’m thinking if I had a giant double wing, if one wing was angled to make 100lbs of down force, and the other was angled to make 100lbs of lift, I feel like it would cause more drag than if only one was set flat to make no lift, or if both were set flat to make no lift.
Do you think one wing flat and one angled would be the highest drag option of the 3 mentioned?
Or have I created a totally different scenario? |
I think you're making a very weird hypothetical situation. The actual mechanism by which lift-induced drag is created in cars is not particularly simple, as far as I can tell. (In fact Barnard in his book states that specifically, as he said to me more than a few times.)
If we stick to cars developing lift through their normal body shape, if the upper surface's lift are completely offset by the lower surface's downforce, then there will be less drag than if the situation were different.
When I was researching my book, I ended up using
The Leading Edge (Goro Tamai), which is a very good book on solar racing car aerodynamics. It's one of the very few references where I used 'race car' books, but solar race cars are the vehicles in the world chasing lowest drag at (basically) any cost. He states that no vertical force (ie no lift/downforce) is best for lowest drag, which of course makes sense in terms of induced drag.