[WEC] Porsche Prototype Discussion

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Richard T

Mr. Webber posted this today



Also this was posted on Mulsannes Corner FB-page

I really like that livery.

[CyberMotor]

The Porsche 919 looks so long and skinny from those top perspectives.

[CTD]

The 2014 cars a narrower, so it makes sense.
But the perspective does a lot too!

[CyberMotor]

Originally Posted by CTD

The 2014 cars a narrower, so it makes sense.
But the perspective does a lot too!

Yes, I know the cars are narrower this year but that photo makes them look extremely narrow. Like you say, it is probably the perspective adding to it.

[FGE]

The holes in the front fender still look stupid to me - but, what do I know...

[deltawing]

Originally Posted by FGE

The holes in the front fender still look stupid to me - but, what do I know...

It helps them stick to the ground better, so consider it performance enhancement (or a safety feature). It may hurt the eye, but helps the driver, so why not.

[Breitling24]

Originally Posted by FGE

The holes in the front fender still look stupid to me - but, what do I know...

Since they've been around a year all ready, I don't even notice them any longer.

[GTfour]

Originally Posted by Breitling24

Since they've been around a year all ready, I don't even notice them any longer.

I do. I'll ever do. It's just earodynamically unsound.

[rich07]

Originally Posted by CTD

A very smooth unbroken surface on the Porsche, very contrary Audi.

Very much so. From that top down perspective it makes the car look very sleek, like a missile in my eyes.

Badger relax that's just their testing livery, the season livery will be probably revealed at the WEC test day-sorry WEC Prologue

[MyNameIsNigel]

Originally Posted by FGE

The holes in the front fender still look stupid to me - but, what do I know...

The new rules are to be blamed for this. Not that I disagree with the safety purpose of these cut-outs, but the square shape and position (forward of the front axle) thereof, mandated by the 2014 rules, do lead to this not very pleasant end result from an aesthetic point of view.

[MyNameIsNigel]

Originally Posted by Richard T

Mr. Webber posted this today



Also this was posted on Mulsannes Corner FB-page

A few changes can be spotted compared to the version that ran at Monza:

(source: Mulsanne's Corner)
The "awkward" cockpit extractors (4) on the doors have disappeared and a new inlet on top of the cockpit has made its appearance. Cockpit cooling ?

[deltawing]

Originally Posted by MyNameIsNigel

....The "awkward" cockpit extractors (4) on the doors have disappeared and a new inlet on top of the cockpit has made its appearance. Cockpit cooling ?

The "awkward" extractors never felt like a permanent solution. The way they put them and the shape/volume they gave them just looked draggy, adding so much to the cross section in that reagion. It felt (from looking at the execution) like an after thought. Perhaps the new integration was one of the tasks the new Head of Aero did?

[PascaLM]

Originally Posted by deltawing

It helps them stick to the ground better, so consider it performance enhancement (or a safety feature). It may hurt the eye, but helps the driver, so why not.

These holes are mandatory. They are supposed to evacuate the air pressure from the bottom to the top when the car spins, with the aim to avoid a lift-off. But, yes, engineers had certainly taken advantage of them to create more down-force.
The vertical rear fin has the same goal.

[carbon_titanium]

Originally Posted by PascaLM

These holes are mandatory. They are supposed to evacuate the air pressure from the bottom to the top when the car spins, with the aim to avoid a lift-off.

Yeah, tell this to Antony Davidson . Those holes can evacuate efficiently a reasonable volume of air from the bottom only to reasonable low speeds... in an impact or spin at high speeds aren't so usefull to avoid the lift. All the air in the bottom of the car will push up the car anyway. Actually I have never understood how the fin should help to prevent the car becoming airborne

[PascaLM]

Originally Posted by carbon_titanium

Yeah, tell this to Antony Davidson .

That's why I wrote "are supposed to".

[wdave0]

Certainly is nice to see a smooth, sleek car (relatively) for a change. I hope it doesn't grow too many aero appendages, holes, slots, flaps.

[deltawing]

Originally Posted by carbon_titanium

..... Actually I have never understood how the fin should help to prevent the car becoming airborne

Imagine the car lost control and is going at some very high speed side ways. At the point the air is flowing from side to side, very fast. An LMP with no fin would make the air flow over the car and it will look something like this:



You can see how this looks (and acts) like a wing as the air above the car (red arrows) is going to be much faster and will generate a lot lower pressure than the air going under the car.

Now we put the fin and what that does is act literally like the air brakes on the airplanes. If you sit next to the wing on a plane and the plane is about to land, the pilot uses a lot of air brakes to lose quickly altitude if necessary, by "spoiling" the flow above the wing. Here is quick schematics on what happens when you put the fin:



The flow above the car is interrupted and disrupted. The lift is gone and the car no longer airborne. Reading people's comments, this is one of the worst features when ti comes to how the car looks, but it is also one of the best features when it comes to safety. On top of that it is quite transparent when it comes to drag as when the car goes in a straight line, the fin is almost invisible.

Here is quick shot of the air brakes on a large plane, which in this case just landed and is deploying all it can to slow down the beast (red circles):



That is a full deployment of the air brakes and not only completely destroys the lift, but it also acts like a wall and slows down the plane even further.

.

[Bandicoot17]

20 and 14 make 2014 so that's why they went with that

[Rodger Davies]

Was literally just wondering that bandicoot, can't believe I hadn't noticed.... Ta

[Simmi]

It will be interesting to see what Porsche does with merch this year. Big opportunities for them.

[vincegail]

Originally Posted by Simmi

It will be interesting to see what Porsche does with merch this year. Big opportunities for them.

My wallet is already hurting

[GTfour]

Not only are the workings of these earodynamic monstrosities higly debatable, they, to me at least, are the result of rulemakers who want to make rules for the sake of rulemaking.

A real shame. It makes next to all cars look fugly, including this Porsche.

[Gingers4Justice]

Originally Posted by GTfour

Not only are the workings of these earodynamic monstrosities higly debatable, they, to me at least, are the result of rulemakers who want to make rules for the sake of rulemaking.

A real shame. It makes next to all cars look fugly, including this Porsche.

I too wish these "solutions" weren't on the cars but no one's come up with an alternative. Band-aid solutions they may be but they are the best that anyone's come up with.

I'm convinced they're doing their job, with airborne incidents only happening in high speed crashes in recent years. Nobody ever claimed the BHFs and BHHs would prevent all airborne.

But though it's a shame, I've just chosen to accept them. I personally think the 919 is a good-looking car, which would look better without the fin, but still looks good with it. If a car's ugly with a BHF then it probably wasn't much of a looker in the first place anyway.

[MyNameIsNigel]

Autosport report further details about the Porsche 919 Hybrid.

I note the following interesting pieces of information:

Porsche revealed that it is planning to run in the highest category of hybrid power discharge, eight megajoules per lap of Le Mans.

The exhaust-driven energy-retrieval system developed by Porsche is distinct from that used by Audi and in Formula 1.
Rather than running off the turbocharger, the motor-generator unit on the Porsche is driven by a separate turbine in the exhaust system.

This last bit is somewhat surprising as this would suggest that two turbines are located in the exhaust system, one for the turbocharger and a another one for the ERS-H.

[knighty]

thats interesting.......there is also a truck manufacturer doing the same at the moment, but the separate exhaust turbine is a purely mechanical system putting energy back directly into the transmission, apparently it saves about 5% of fuel economy, but this will be a truck trundling along steady state on a motorway.......but even for the porsche system, weather its mechanical or electrical, it will not generate anywhere near the energy harvested during braking events by the traction motor system coupled to the wheels, especially on such a transient application, the energy generated by exhaust driven generators is quite pitiful, but every few percent adds up I guess