Spoilers & Wings

A spoiler is an automotive aerodynamic device whose intended design function is to 'spoil' unfavorable air movement across a body of a vehicle of some kind in motion. This can result in improved vehicle stability by decreasing lift that may cause unpredictable handling in a car at speed. more...

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Spoilers are often fitted to race and high-performance sports cars, although they have become common on passenger vehicles, as well. Some spoilers are added to cars primarily for styling purposes and have either little aerodynamic benefit or even make the aerodynamics worse.

Spoilers for automobiles are often incorrectly confused with, or even used interchangeably with, wings. Automotive wings are devices whose intended design is to lessen the effect of drag by generating lift, or to generate downforce as air passes around them, not simply disrupt existing airflow patterns.

Operation

Spoilers generally work by disrupting or diffusing the airflow passing over and around a moving vehicle. This disruption's primary purpose is to reduce the amount of lift or instability naturally generated by the shape of the vehicle while it is moving. This is accomplished by increasing the amount of turbulence flowing over the shape, "spoiling" the laminar flow and providing a cushion for the laminar boundary layer. Applications are varied, including using body panels, or most typically by adding an extruding attachment.

In cars, the result is increasing the contact between the tire and the road surface, thereby increasing traction. This increase in traction allows a vehicle in motion to brake, turn, and accelerate with more stability. Additionally, this is accompanied by an increase in aerodynamic drag.

In nearly all cases, drag increases as the speed of the vehicle increases. Thus, some spoilers that are effective at very low speeds often generate excessive drag at high speeds, and spoilers that work well at high speeds are often ineffective while moving more slowly.

Racing

Performance spoilers are almost always ignored in racing applications in favor of wings. Wings create a directed and deliberate effect on handling and downforce, and typically by design can be adjusted to suit the needs of the vehicle. A notable exception is in NASCAR where the vehicles have a roof safety spoiler that deploys in the event of air flowing backwards across the car. This was added in recent years as a safety component to keep the vehicle from leaving the surface of the track if it spun out at high speed. This was likely to happen because the body of a stock car is designed to generate downforce, but if air flows in the opposite direction across something that generates downforce normally, it instead creates lift. Spinouts would typically result in the car facing backwards for a brief moment before lift took the car off the ground & sent it flying or rolling. A similar device is also adopted for drag racing funny cars.

Read more at Wikipedia.org