F1 Insider -- Flow-vis Paint... What is it?

01 Aug 2018

Many of you may have seen this wierd substance in F1 before. This is Flow-vis paint, known in the industry as Airflow-Visualisation.

This is used during testing sessions when teams are testing new aerodynamic parts for the cars. Flow-vis is a florescent water-based liquid that is sprayed onto parts, wings, brake ducts etc., and when the car is driven round the circuit, the airflow effectively pushes the paint around as if it were air.

The driver will do a short run around the circuit, and as mentioned before, the airflow pushes the flow-vis paint around the car, on the wings and other parts.

When the car returns to the garage, this will be photographed in detail and maticulously studied for data gathering. The car is usually cleaned and cleared for another run.

Typically, this data is corroborated with that of the CFD (Computer Fluid Dynamics) and small scale wind tunnel models to find the most efficient parts available.

This is a very simple technique to visualise airflow around the car, although it does create a lot of mess.

Williams have been testing 2019 aero parts on the FW41 with Robert Kubica today, and they have been using flow-vis to it’s full extent. Have a look for yourself.

Williams FW41

“Why the difference colours tho?” I hear you cry… There is a simple answer to that. I do not have a clue.

The only explaination I can think of is that the team are testing more than one part, so are required to spray more than one colour, in this case many colours, to not confuse the parts when they are photographed.

Most know that Martini are withdrawing their sponsorship with Williams at the end of the season, maybe the team are signing Skittles as next year’s title sponsor?

That’s all for today then folks. Wanna know more, as always, leave a comment below.

Thanks all for reading, drive safe,
675LT_ftw

Comments

“Why the difference colours tho?” I hear you cry… There is a simple answer to that. I do not have a clue.

I’d guess they use different colours to see how the air (or paint, in this case) is being swirled. So if they use a small stream of blue and a small stream of blue comes out at the end of the car, everything is fine; but if the entire rear of the car is blue, it means that the aerodynamics of the car generate too many turbolences. For example, in the sixth picture, they probably wanted to find out how the air is being channeled through the rear wing, so they used yellow for the left side and blue for the right side, to see how cleanly the air is being channeled.