Chord Length
Viewers of Free Practice 1 in Melbourne this morning may have heard David Croft and Maurice Hamilton talking about chord lengths in the rear wing. Here’s an explanation of what it actually means!
Here is our flap on the rear wing. It’s like an aeroplane wing, only upside down. The curved lower surface creates low pressure by speeding up the air around it, effectively making the air above the wing a high pressure area, pushing it down.
So, here’s our wing again. The red line is the chord line of the shape. This is the straight line distance between the leading edge, the first point on the wing that hits the air, to the trailing edge at the back. This will vary with the shape of the wing. A generally longer wing will produce a longer chord length. Camber, how much the wing bends, will also affect the chord. If the wing has more camber, it will have a shorter chord, like so:
Now, they were discussing about the merits of a smaller chord to reduce more drag. This is probably because a smaller chord, while creating lots of downforce, creates a lot of drag with it. So, having the ability to remove this drag while getting the downforce back for the corners may be advantage. This is my interpretation, however, the real reason may be different.
