Angle of Attack
The simulation uses all the physics explained in this section and provides a visualisation of the principles that have been discussed.
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From the simulation (below) we can see the trade off between top speed and acceleration. We see that for small angles of attack, the top speed is greater due the correspondingly lower lift induced drag force. However, the trade off is that both the acceleration and maximum cornering speeds are lower for smaller angles of attack. We can also see that the maximum g-force which the driver is exposed to increases with increasing angle of attack, this is due to the greater frictional force which allows for more rapid acceleration and breaking as well as faster cornering.
In conclusion, for these parameters we see that an optimal angle of attack is between 8 or 10 degrees in order to produce the best all important lap time.
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The model assumes that the car has just one wing. This is a simplification since in reality there are many components which generate downforce. To model separate wings would use the same physics but require many more variable inputs, since the model is primarily to demonstrate the trade-off between downforce and induced drag, this added complexity to the user is unnecessary.
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Below we can see the effect of changing the drag coefficient. It has the greatest effect on the top speed of the cars because the effect of drag is proportional to the speed squared. Increasing the coefficient of drag also increases the 0-60 time since it is a force which apposes motion. However, due to the relatively low speeds, the effect is too small to be noticeable given this set of parameters. To conclude, we can see that reducing the coefficient of drag has a large effect on lap time and therefore designing the most aerodynamically shaped car is of significant importance to F1 teams.
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