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Old 09-08-2020, 06:27 PM   #28 (permalink)
JulianEdgar
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Here is the first part of the answer:



The line with red boxes shows overall lift coefficient (CL). It's at around 0.05 (low lift) until about 100 km/h, whereupon it starts to rise, reaching about 0.16 at 140 km/h. That's a fair bit of lift.

The line with yellow diamonds show front lift coefficient (CLf). It is about 0.13 (a fair amount of lift) until 100 km/h, and then rises to 0.25 at 140 km/h. That is a lot of lift.

The line with the black diamonds shows the rear coefficient of lift (CLr) having small/medium downforce (about -0.09) at all speeds.

The amount of aero lift the car experienced in zero yaw was enough to increase the height of the front of the car, causing the further worsening of the front lift values. Note: this was not desired by Honda - they said: "Future research and development will be required to refine the suspension and/or front lift coefficient in order to further increase the cruising speed."

So overall, this most streamlined of cars has, at zero yaw, quite a lot of lift. As Honda said: "The overall body shape was designed like the cross section of an airplane wing, resulting in a large CLf (front lift coefficient). The front part of the body would therefore receive more upward force at a higher speed."

Interesting, and the story actually gets considerably worse in crosswinds (next post).

Last edited by JulianEdgar; 09-08-2020 at 06:49 PM..
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