A Coanda Quickie

At the  beginning of the year  we had identified for you "Coanda Effect" as one of the buzzwords of this 2012 season.

It's in the news again because both Mercedes and, in Korea, Lotus have deployed "Coanda Effect" exhausts and during the SpeedTV (The now ex-US racing channel) broadcast of Friday practice, Steve Matchett mentioned the famous video with the spoon and the faucet....



Of course since the Coanda effect has been used in aircraft wing design for the last hundred years or so, it is nothing new to Formula 1 but the reason it's "in the news" this year is because it is being used to cheat  get around regulations put in place to limit the effectiveness of  "blown" diffusers.

There were put in place for 2012, strict parameters for the shape, dimension and orientation of exhausts, all aimed at diverting the hot gas flow from the rear bottom of the car.   Teams have all followed the letter of the law with the pipe but  negated the intention of the rule with the bodywork which is used, exploiting the Coanda Effect, to bend hot exhaust flow to where it can energize the diffuser.

Now if there only was a good video illustrating how they are using air curtains to crate diffuser skirts...