Description
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WingLogic offers their DIY WL250 racing wings with a span of 60, 65, 70, or 72 inches and a chord of 250mm. The wing profile was optimized using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) by ex-F1 Mercedes-Benz aerodynamics engineer Kyle Forster, from JKF Aero, to offer the optimal tradeoff between downforce and drag.
Each WingLogic WL250 racing wing integrates a 1/4″ Gurney flap into the extruded airfoil shape for maximum performance for its size and is constructed from lightweight and durable extruded 6063 aluminum.
The wing kits are designed with a do-it-yourself philosophy to keep costs low and the flexibility to install on a variety of vehicle platforms. All kits include 6061 aluminum mounting DIY weld-on brackets and anodized end plates.
CFD Analysis
WingLogic has gone out of their way to work with one of the best in the business to optimize with wing, while providing all of the data to create transparency that can help make choosing the best option for your application as simple as possible.
Free Stream Data
Let’s start with the free stream data of the wing. This data is what most wing manufacturers supply and is a great way to compare WingLogic’s offerings to their competitors. One thing to keep in mind is that this is the what the wing can produce in a perfect, free stream situation. WingLogic also provides performance data as if the wing was installed on a vehicle and that’s down below! Don’t forget that this data was produced by JKF Aero, providing the best quality one can expect in the industry!
First up is a comparison of downforce and drag of the different width options at 0° angle of attack.
Next, we have the 65″ wing’s angle of attack vs downforce and drag.
On-Vehicle Data
Next, we have CFD data of the 70″ wing tested on a 2015 Ford Mustang. This can help with understanding how the wing will work in a real world application. It should be noted, the data will be different for every application due to different vehicle shapes and installation heights, as well as forward and aft locations. All these interactions will change how the wing will perform, but as long as the wing installation isn’t in an extreme location, the data will be in the ballpark.
The first piece of data is the WingLogic WL250 70″ Wing Downforce vs. Speed vs. Angle of Attack on a 2015 Ford Mustang. The data may have you scratching your head a bit, so I will jump in to be of some assistance. The first confusing thing is 0° angle of attack creates much more downforce than 0° listed in the free stream data. The reason behind this is because the shape of the vehicle changes the angle of the airflow as it hits the rear wing. Effectively, the wing is already at a more aggressive angle setting, just by the nature of being installed on a car.
This leads into the second bit of confusion, why the jump from 5° to 10° shows minimal gains. This is because of the exact the same reason as listed in the previous paragraph. The wing is working at an effective angle far beyond the 5° and 10° angles listed. The wing at 10° is seeing severe separation and the lack of performance increase indicates that. The visualization section below will help our understanding of what’s happening. The wing is now out of it’s optimal working range and creating excessive drag for minimal downforce gains!
It’s important to realize because of the way the vehicle’s body impacts the angle of air when it hits the wing, there are times you may have to run a “nose-up” attitude (or negative angle-of-attack) and that’s totally ok. The wing is most efficient with the least amount of angle required to meet your downforce goals and balance desired by the driver. Keep that in mind!
With the Horsepower Required to Overcome Drag graph, we can see what we suspected from the downforce graph. A lot of additional drag for minimal performance gains. Also, this helps us understand how downforce and drag increases exponentially with airspeed and it’s pretty cool to see how much engine power it takes to move a wing through the air.
CFD Visualizations
Last, but not least, we have some CFD visualizations and we’ll do our best to help make sense of them!
On this image, the individual lines represent single air molecules on their path from the front to the rear of the car. The images go from no wing, to 0° angle of attack, to 5° and finally 10°. We can use these images to look for separation on the bottom of the wing.
What is separation? It’s the air molecules not sticking to the wing’s surface, with the bottom of the air foil most likely to have separation. Too much of this creates excess drag and reduced downforce. This is also known as stall. Also, the bottom of the wing is most important surface for performance, which is why we are looking at this angle of the car.
In the second image, the lines look pretty straight across the air foil, except by the wing mounts. This is why some people go with swan-neck mounts to eek out every last bit of performance of the wing. The next image shows the wing working pretty well, but with a lot more drama around the wing mounts. That means this part of the wing is starting to not work properly and create inefficient downforce (basically, too much drag for the amount of downforce created). Finally, with the 10° wing setting, a very large section of the wing shows separation and unless one was absolutely desperate for more rear downforce, the wing shouldn’t be run in this condition.
With this visualization, individual molecules are gone and now the colors represent velocity of the air. Darker is slower. Lighter is faster. The wings are shown in the same condition as the previous image, no wing, 0° angle of attack, 5° and 10°. The dark color trailing the wing can help us understand what drag is. If the air following the wing is slower than the air surrounding it, than the wing is literally dragging the air behind it forward!
WingLogic provides more information here and here if you really want to delve deep into understanding their WL250 wing. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions as well!
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