In 2022, Formula 1 embarks on a new ground effect era amid a sweeping new set of rules changes. In this article first published in August 2018, Mark Hughes and Giorgio Piola look at the technological tour de force that was the Lotus 79 – the car that famously took Mario Andretti to the 1978 drivers’ title, the first to be claimed in a Formula 1 car featuring ground effect technology…

2022年，伴隨著一系列新規(guī)改變，F1迎來了全新的地效世代。在本文中，Mark Hughes和Giorgio Piola將帶您領略一輛工程學杰作——蓮花79。作為F1史上首輛運用地效技術的神車，她將安德雷蒂抬上了1978賽季的總冠軍王座。

The idea of using the underside of a racing car to generate negative pressure and effectively suck the car towards the track had first been exploited in the Can-Am sports cars series in the 1960s. But they were cars with wide, wheel-enclosing, bodywork.

早在1960年代，利用賽車底部產生負壓，進而將車牢牢吸在賽道上的想法就已經出現(xiàn)并被使用在了Can-Am系列賽中。不過與F1不同，Can-Am賽車都有著寬寬的車身，并且也是閉輪式的。

Getting the principle to work on a skinny-bodied, open-wheel single seater initially seemed unfeasible. The car which made that breakthrough was the Lotus 78 of 1977, which ushered F1 into the era of ground effect. Forty years ago, the 78’s successor, the Lotus 79, became the first ground effect car to win the world championship, with Mario Andretti at the wheel.

想要讓這種原理在窄車身的單座開輪賽車上奏效，最初看起來并不可行。1977年，蓮花78成為了第一輛吃螃蟹的賽車。也正是她，引領F1走向了地面效應的時代。40年前（譯者注：本文寫于2018年），蓮花78的繼任者蓮花79橫空出世。她成為了首輛地效冠軍車，而馬里奧·安德雷蒂也成為了首位開著地效車贏下世界冠軍的車手。

The proportions of the 78&79?were very different to those of its contemporaries, and therein lay the clue to the radically different way its aerodynamics worked.

蓮花78/79的車身比例和同時代的競爭對手大相徑庭，而這其中蘊含著賽車在氣動工作方式上的本質不同。

The central tub was unusually narrow and the sidepods took up a far bigger proportion of the car’s width, while running along the bottom of those sidepods were skirts – brushes initially, later solid nylon.

從寬度上來看，賽車中間的盆狀結構異常狹窄，而兩邊的側箱相比之下占比要大得多。沿著側箱底部的是側裙結構：它們最早只是一排毛刷，后來改成了實心尼龍材質。

Those skirts were to make a seal between the underbody and the road, a crucial part in propagating negative pressure beneath the car. That negative pressure was created by the internal shaping of the sidepods, which had an opening at the front, close up behind the front suspension, ostensibly to feed the radiators that were placed there.

側裙能在車底和賽道間形成密封區(qū)，這塊密封區(qū)對在車底傳播負壓至關重要。負壓由側箱內部構型產生：它前部有一開口，在前懸架后閉合。表面上，這種設計是為了給那兒的散熱器送氣。

However, it was the placement and angle of those radiators, and the shaping of the auxiliary fuel tanks also housed within the sidepods, that created the internal venturi shape so crucial in exploiting the airflow.

然而事實上，正是這些散熱器的擺放位置和角度，與同在側箱內的備用油箱的形狀一道，為底板文丘里管式的形狀創(chuàng)造了空間。這對充分利用氣流至關重要。

The channel the air passed through changed in section as it went back, with a narrow inlet opening into a central ‘throat’ and then a further sudden expansion into a diffuser at the sidepod exit just ahead of the rear wheel and suspension.

空氣向后流動時，地效通道的形狀也隨之改變：氣流通過狹窄的進氣口流入中間的“喉道”。隨后通道突然擴大，使氣流流入位于側箱出口，后輪和懸掛前的擴散器內。

Airflow follows the Bernoulli principle whereby the pressure reduces as its speed increases – the venturi shape manipulating the airflow to accelerate and thereby reduce the pressure. But further than that, the close proximity to the ground of the sidepod’s entry massively magnified the effect by accelerating the air as it was sucked through the small gap between track surface and the bottom of the radiator.

氣流遵循伯努利原理，即流速越快，壓力越小——上文中文丘里管式的形狀正是通過加快氣體流速減小壓力的。而不僅如此，空氣被吸入散熱器底部與地面的狹小間隙中后，流速進一步加快。這大大加強了側箱入口緊貼地面帶來的效果。

The increase in air speed as the gap between the road surface and opening is narrowed is vastly more than proportional – i.e. it speeds up very suddenly indeed as the gap closes to almost nothing (hence ‘ground effect’).

隨著地面與地效通道的間隙逐漸縮小，氣流流速的增加遠超比例。也就是說，間隙縮小到近乎為零時，空氣會突然加速（因此這種現(xiàn)象被稱為“地面效應”）。

With the skirts then preventing the air from escaping out of the sides, the acceleration of the air through the channel – and therefore its pressure reduction – was spectacular. This lower pressure applied across the full width of the floor.

側裙能防止氣流從兩側流出，因而空氣流經通道的加速，以及進而帶來的降壓效果令人咂舌。這些產生的低壓最終作用于整個底板。

The difference between the underfloor’s air pressure and that of the much higher-pressure freestream airflow above meant the car was effectively being sucked to the ground. Furthermore, that downforce created hardly any drag, unlike that created by the upper body wings pressing down upon the car.

車底和車身之間巨大的氣壓差意味著賽車可以牢牢貼地飛行。此外，不同于在車身上安裝翼片，通過地面效應產生的下壓力幾乎不會帶來任何額外阻力。

未完待續(xù)……

摘自F1官網

翻譯：mrysdy