Crimson Racing Wiki

Left Upwash Element

Subteam: AerodynamicsSubsystem: Side AeroAssembly: Nose and Body PanelsCars: CR26E

Purpose

Lift the front wing's wake clear of downstream components, primarily the rear wing.

Function

An airfoil in lift-producing configuration mounted alongside the car. CR26E's single CFD run showed rear wing downforce rising from 109.84 N to 120.64 N while floor and body downforce fell from 52.39 N to 37.39 N, for a net efficiency change from 2.245 to 2.138 and a center of pressure shift from 50.86% to 56.72% rear loading. Promising but not yet a proven gain.

Design Process

No part-specific design process is documented. The Side Aero subsystem design process applies: 1. 2D sweeps to find airfoil placement within a stack. 2. 3D placement of the stack itself, judged on whole-car downforce, drag, efficiency and center of pressure. 3. Compare against the current combined-run baseline rather than against an isolated case. 4. Accept only where the gain is outside the CFD margin of error.

Manufacturing Process

Infused in a tooling board mold milled on the 5-axis gantry, or laid up on a 3D printed mold for smaller parts. Endcaps, spars and skins are made independently and bonded in 3D printed jigs with glass alignment beads controlling bond gap.

Full Material List

CFRP.

Reoccuring issues

None recorded. This part has no entry in Knowledge_Transfer/Issue Logging/Fault Vault.xlsx, in either Issue Log.xlsx, in CR22/Issue Tracking/Shakedown 7-15-23.xlsx, or in any design review issue list found in CrimsonStorage or Box.

Still to document

Nothing in CrimsonStorage covers these yet.