Neat! And technical - can you recommend a good book (or other reference) that discusses race car aero?
Matt Smith smooths out the vacuum bag to reduce wrinkling in the epoxy as it cures.
We set the two elements in the hot Florida sun for a post cure. Their surface temperatures reached nearly 180 degrees within a short time.
Lexan can make great templates for laying out the wing's end plates.
With our 12-inch main wing element finished, it was time to turn our attention to a secondary element that will be mounted at the trailing edge of the main wing. This will create even more downforce with only small penalties in drag. We ordered a 4.5-inch foam core in the same profile as our main wing and wrapped it in two layers of carbon. As with the first, we vacuum-bagged the finished piece as it cured in the Embry Riddle Aviation Maintenance Science Materials Lab.
We’re also going to be using a leading edge slat to create even more aerodynamic forces. This 3-inch element will be mounted just forward of the main wing to change how air flows around it.
To mock up the end plates that we’ll use to mount everything together, we used a few pieces of scrap Lexan polycarbonate to create templates. Since the Lexan is clear, we could easily see where the holes needed to be drilled for the mounting Nutserts.
Neat! And technical - can you recommend a good book (or other reference) that discusses race car aero?
Competition Car Aerodynamics by Simon McBeath is a good starting point.
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