英語化企画：Research on MotoGP Winglets

英語科企画第 1 段は以下のブログを英語にします。

blog.yutokatagami.com

本来は英語でがっつりと書き直した方が楽なんですが、多くの人がまず日本語で書いてからそれを英語に訳すという流れになるはずなので、それに合わせます。日本語の記事と基本的な文脈は同じはずなので、見比べてみてください。

それではスタート！

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Hello this is Yuto.

I am not a big fan of sports but Ive been watching MotoGP for the past 3 years.

MotoGP is usually broadcasted at 2-3am on a weekday night so I usually have to record it to watch later. But last night was special. I was up to watch the whole race live.

sidenote:Andrea Dovizioso seems to be my new favorite after his recent tragic races. crashed in Argetina by his teammate, crashed again in the US, and his bike failing in Spain.

Lets get to the main topic of our article.

Watching the games at midnight, the winglets on the Yamaha came to my interest. I know Ducati have been equipped with these for a while but it seemed like the winglets on Yamaha had grown.

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I did a light research on these. Let me share what i found out.

History of Winglets

Not much to call it this the "history of winglets" but it seems winglets have been considered by many manufacturers for a while. Ducati was the first to actually implement them 2015, followed by Yamaha. Honda also started testing it in the Qutar race (March 2016).

The site below has good photos to compare the winglets on Ducati, Yamaha, and Honda. We can see that winglets are still in the "trial and error phase" from the fact that the size and positions of the winglets differ greatly on each manufactures.

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The actual effect of Winglets

Now that everybody is suited up with winglets, I assumed the manufactures had concluded that these are actually effective. But it seems a big part of it is still unexplained.

The primary purpose of the winglet is to improve acceleration by creating a downforce to push the frontend of the motorbike down. This explains why Ducati, famous for its acceleration down the straight line, was the first to be equipped with it.

It has been proven that winglets are effective on a car but this does not directly apply to motorbikes. Unlike cars, motorbikes tilt up to 60 degrees left and right on each corners. As you can expect, the windflow against a motorbike straight up and a motorbike on a corner is completely different.

Furthermore, the riders also become a huge factor when calculating the wind resistance. Each riders are different (height, weight, mass, positioning, etc) and these riders dont stay still throughout the race.

These factors make the calculation complex and almost impossible for the manufactures to conclude on paper. This is the reason why each manufactures had to test these through "trial and error," hoping to see positive results.

WrapUp

To summarize this article

Aero dynamics on a motorbike is too complex to be simulated.
Ducati, Yamaha, Honda are all testing the winglets through trial and error.
Each manufactures assume there are positive effects created by the winglets, but the result is not yet determined.

Although this may become the cutting edge style, winglets destory the beautiful figure of the racing bikes in my personal opinion