Ariel's 'fan car' explained
Simon Saunders talks PH round Ariel's curious suction-generated downforce system
This is the genius solution - revive the ground-effect 'fan-car' technology that got Gordon Murray's 1978 Brabham banned from the F1 grid. "This is kind of like the holy grail - downforce when you're stationary," Saunders says.
We ran across Saunders and the so-called Aero-P at the Low Carbon Vehicle Show at Millbrook, Bedfordshire, of all places, and were instantly drawn to it. To look at it you'd think Ariel had attempted a road-going Atom hovercraft, which actually doesn't sound quite so barmy now the Nomad has taken the brand off-road. In this instance a lightweight underfloor, complete with flexible rubbery skirts, protrudes from the car and contains two fans, one at the front, one at the rear. Aircraft-style 'No Step' signs remind you this ain't structural.
We ask Saunders how big these fans are, expecting something in the order of a couple of adapted ceiling fans under there. 100mm, he says. We must've looked sceptical, because he offers to activate the launch sequence. "Stand back," he says. We wonder why for the fraction of second it takes for the fans to spin up, before howling like an industrial Dyson Airblade and blasting air sucked from below through a Y-shaped duct just behind the seats. The force is such the Atom physically hunkers to the floor. It's phenomenal to see.
"We do an aerofoil package that increases drag by 15 per cent, so in performance terms it slows you down. And they don't work until you're doing 60-70mph. By removing them you've got a faster, more efficient car," he says. Even with these generic, electric-powered 100mm fans, Saunders estimates he gets three times the downforce his current aero package offers. That not only helps in corners, but also under braking. "You hit the brakes and it deploys the skirts and the fans, and suddenly your stopping distance has markedly improved," he says.
Deploy is a key word here because you don't want the skirts scraping the ground all the time. The head-scratcher for Saunders is how to fold away the ground-effect technology in normal use and then activate it quickly, for example under hard braking, or when the G-sensors say so. Or when you're about to utilize whatever crazy power Saunders has managed to extract above the 310hp of the supercharged version of the Honda-powered Atom.
Such tech is only any good if it consistently delivers when you need it to under all circumstances.
I wouldn't want my stopping distance to double because I'd just driven over a massive pothole...
adapt your driving to the car you're in. easy really
adapt your driving to the car you're in. easy really
According to Murray (not certain this is true). The 2nd version of the Brabham fan car had two fans, blades could be feathered at speed and the calcs stated it could allow the car to corner with 6G.
Amazing what men in sheds can achieve. Well done Ariel.
t on the ground? Nice idea, but not practical.
On another note, I'm kind of not into this, I like the thought of finding grip "naturally", for want of a better word, rather than physically being sucked to the ground... Am I the only one?!
On another note, I'm kind of not into this, I like the thought of finding grip "naturally", for want of a better word, rather than physically being sucked to the ground... Am I the only one?!
You could find out in a rather dramatic way how much mechanical grip you don't have.
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