High speed cars often have rear wings to create downforce in the corners.
Inevitably these generate huge amounts of speed-limiting drag in the straights.
One way to deal with this is to fit a flip up wing, which may go from closed to open at a given speed, but is otherwise not very ‘smart’.
Today’s invention aims to offer a high level of downforce, whilst limiting the amount of associated drag.
The wing shown would consist of two main pieces, so closely spaced that almost no air flows between them. The air flowing over the outside is kept attached, thus shedding minimal vortices and lessening drag, by having the surfaces move (backwards on both because they are actually two, independently-driven tracks).
The speed relative to the car might occasionally have to be 200mph, but that is do-able with eg carbon fibre mats.
As well as having the overall wing angle automatically determined, from moment to moment, the speeds of the two surfaces would be chosen so as to give the optimal combination of drag and downforce anywhere on the track.
