Quote:
Originally Posted by 230iZTR
I doubt the SlipLo has much effect in the real world. Its like 3/16" thick and tapers down to near-flush. It might be worth a few percentage points of additional downforce to run a splitter thats totally flat and sharp as a knife on its leading edge...but this isnt F1. The car's turbulent and non-flat underdercarriage - and my finite budget! - means I'm never going to be able to implement the theoretically optimal CFD solution.
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The leading edge is one of the most important part of the aero surface, because it influences how the air behaves over the entire aero surface right after it. So I would suspect the slip low being so close to the leading edge - especially with it's serated trailing edge, to have alot of turbulent vortices shed off the end, this will horrificily effect down force generation, and with the limited surface area we have to work with on these cars, every bit counts.
Second you wouldn't want a razor sharp leading edges (trailing edge is ok), because that makes the front splitter extremely susceptible to flow separation because a sharp leading edge causes a massive adverse pressure gradient. That's why you'll notice all leading edges on f1 wings are rounded and are never sharp. It's why your splitter also has that tape on it to make it rounded.
Here's a video by Kyle (former Mercedes F1 aerodynamic ist explaining it, Kyle also has a PhD in this field and worked for Merc in their glory days - i.e. the w11 which is the fastest F1 car in history):