So when you play games (say Forza Horizon) and you see the more high end sports cars have spoilers that move up and down when it comes to high speeds and breaking instead of being static. Why do some cars do this? What’s the benefit to the engineering behind it?
In: Engineering
At high speeds the car becomes like a wing of a plane. The fear is that the car lifts off the pavement enough to reduce the tyre friction and reduce transmission of power from the engine to the pavement. The spoiler ‘spoils’ the air flow over the car and pushes the back end down into the road, increasing friction and potentially increasing velocity.
It allows the car to go faster in a straight line by reducing drag when the downforce isn’t needed, enables the computer to control the car’s balance on the fly, and acts as an airbrake to make the car stop more quickly.
Spoilers don’t simply make a car better at all times. What they do is increase drag (slow you down), but increase traction(faster around corners). The angle of the spoiler dictates how much drag is created that then gets translated into traction.
The dynamic changing of the spoiler is an advantage because you don’t always need traction, like on a straight. So the spoiler changes its angle to reduce drag. That lets the car go faster.
Because they want it to look cool and sleek when it’s not moving, and then sporty when it’s moving.
Unfortunately most spoilers on cars are purely for looks, as the small wings on these cars won’t really do anything at all unless they are going above 160kph/100mph
Look at a how large the spoilers are on a F1, sprint, NASCAR, or a V8 supercar used in pro racing. Compare those to what’s on the sports cars.
Non-moving spoilers can screwup the aerodynamics (you want the surface as smooth as possible). So you want them deployed only when certain amount of downforce is necessary
Lots of explanations on here but none ELI5, so here it goes:
The job of the spoiler is to push the back of the car down against the pavement. The more the spoiler points up, and the more air going over it (at higher speeds); the more the spoiler pushes down. This has a side-effect called drag, where a pocket of low air pressure forms behind the car, pulling on it, and preventing the car from going faster.
Sometimes you really want to push those tires down, like braking and turning so you don’t slip. Sometimes you want to get rid of that pocket of low air pressure for higher speed. Sometimes you want it up a little at high speed to prepare for the turning and braking ahead. An onboard computer decides what angle is best for the spoiler to get the right balance of downforce/drag.
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