294 replies to this topic

[Wingman]

@Downforce

Jel` ovo "aktivno" vesanje?

Edited by Wingman, 24 May 2015 - 16:14.

[Downforce]

Ma jok. Ni priblizno. Aktivno vesanje je potpuno drugacija prica. Ovo je izvedba oslanjanja koja omogucuje da se ponasanje bolida potpuno odvoji kod dva karakteristicna dogadjaja - kretanje tockova u vertikalnom pravcu (kocenje, ubrzanje) i kod naginjanja bolida ili kretanja tocka po ivicnjacima. Pri tom, to cini samo sa dve opruge koje sluze kao elasticni elementi i dva amortizera koji su tu za prigusenje. Neka standardna izvedba zahteva minimum tri opruge i amortizera, a i u toj izvedbi postoji blaga interakcija izmedju istih koja se ne moze izbeci zbog same konstrukcije. Ovako su ustedeli na masi i dobili na mogucnosti stelovanja oslanjanja bez da moraju da prave kompromis izmedju te dve karakteristicne situacije.

 

Kod aktivnog oslanjanja, prigusenje i visinu bolida u svakom trenutku kontrolise kompjuter preko elektroventila i to cini na osnovu podataka o vertikalnom i bocnom ubrzanju, polozaju pedale gasa, kocnice...i sto drugih djavola koji su ti vec interesantni. Ovde imas kako je to otprilike izgledalo nekada:

 

http://scarbsf1.com/...ION_SYSTEMS.htm

 

Kod aktivnog oslanjanja ti u svakom trenutku mozes da utices na ponasanje svakog tocka na bolidu.

 

Kod ove Porscheove varijante biras parametre pre starta trke i oni su konstantni tokom trke - krutost opruge se ne menja i stepen prigusenja amortizera takodje. Kod aktivnog oslanjanja oni se stalno menjaju u zavisnosti od toga sta se sa bolidom desava (ubrzanje iz krivine, naginjanje u krivini, kocenje, kretanje na pravcu...).

[Dzoni_m]

Svaka cast!

 

Mercedes still competed on the first engine

May 26, 2015   News   No comments

Mercedes-Benz cars in Formula 1, both not yet passed any engine change during the season 2015.

F1 Strategy Group recently rejected a proposal to return to a limit of five engines per season, which means that drivers are limited this year to only four copies engines.
With such a strict limit, no doubt many players will be shifted back to the start in the latter part of the season by reaching the motors outside the allowable pot. The most extreme cases, namely Daniel Ricciardo with Red Bull and Toro Rosso duo – Carlos Sainz Jr. and Max Verstappen, there is no longer any “legitimate” art unit Renault in store.

However, the Mercedes engine is so reliable that Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg not threaten punishment.

Only at next week’s Canadian Grand Prix drivers championship stables are to receive a copy of the second engine.

“It’s a great achievement for us.” – Enjoyed helping manage the team were three-fold champion Niki Lauda.

[alpiner]

Data v Common Sense

Relying on numbers rather than intuition can cause glaring strategic errors. Yet, as Mark Hughes explains, teams still insist it's the right way to go

“We have to follow the data, this is how the sport works,” said Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff after a strategic blunder lost Lewis Hamilton the Monaco Grand Prix. On the surface, it seems an odd position to take. But it’s rather more complex than that.
Although many viewers were reportedly screaming at their TVs when Mercedes chose to bring Hamilton in for that late safety car pit stop which lost him the race, so ‘obvious’ was the error, they may not have been had they been armed with the same data as the team. And in F1 data is king. Many have said had Ross Brawn still been in charge, he’d have not made that call – and quite possibly he wouldn’t have. But consider what Ross himself said in an interview I did with him last year: “In the early years of the refuelling era we [Ferrari] relied much more on intuition than our main rivals McLaren who were much more data-driven, and I’d say our calls were better than theirs about 60% of the time. But as it became more of a science and they began to have whole teams of people crunching numbers back at base, it gave them a wider view of all the possibilities – and they became better than us. We had to respond and ramp up our own strategic data analysis.”
Relying only on the data will sometimes cause you to miss the obvious. But if the data-driven approach gives better outcomes in the long run, then it’s not unnatural for a team to commit fully to that philosophy. And if you’re doing that, how do you know in real time when this is one of those times to ignore the data?
 
Mercedes messed up big time, of that there can be no doubt. But the error only looked obvious when applying just an intuitive common sense approach. On this occasion that common sense view would have kept Hamilton on course for victory regardless of what Ferrari did with Sebastian Vettel. We can see this 100% in hindsight. For those that say they could see it 100% at the time, that was only because they did not have the same depth of data regarding possible outcomes. Nonsense you say? Consider the following, then put yourself in the position of the guy whose call it was.

Sometimes the obvious is less so when you scratch beneath the surface. Reality is often multi-faceted. There were in fact several ways it could have played out – and that largely depended upon an unknown: how long Hamilton’s used prime tyres would take to reach working temperature after they had cooled behind the safety car. It turned out not to be an issue – but it might have done. If the tyres had behaved anything like they had the day before – when even new primes needed five laps to reach temperature – it was feasible that a set of used primes would never have regained their temperature. This is a phenomenon we’ve seen many times before; with so little rubber left on the tread, it often cannot bend and twist enough to generate the heat needed to initiate the chemical bonding process that’s one of the two mechanisms of a tyre’s grip. Without being able to generate good cornering loads, the core of the tyre remains brittle and inflexible too and cannot help the tread by bending under load, thereby making it yet more difficult for the tread etc in a vicious downwards spiral. It was quite feasible that such a tyre would have been disastrously gripless once the race restarted – possibly to the tune of five/six seconds per lap.
Even around Monaco, 6s per lap would be enough to get you overtaken on-track against a grippy new option-tyred Ferrari in the remaining eight laps. It would have vastly more traction out of Portier, would get a run going through the tunnel and would then be able to brake much later for the chicane – job done. It didn’t happen like that of course – as it turned out there was plenty of tread left on Hamilton’s old tyres and the hotter track temperatures of Sunday meant warm-up wasn’t anything like the issue it had been on Saturday. But it might have; there was no way of knowing in advance if the higher track temperature was enough to cancel that risk.       
The data-driven approach that the team relied upon was inappropriate for the moment, but to compound that was the fact that a crucial number in the calculation – how long it would take Hamilton to arrive in the pits - was wrong by two seconds. Normally GPS data would never have allowed such an error, as the speed is relayed to the team in real time. But on this occasion, with GPS reception notoriously poor at Monaco because of the surrounding mountains and density of the buildings, it cannot be relied upon. They were instead taking their speed information from the timing loops that are all around the circuit, from beams placed every couple of hundred metres or so. These can only give an update of the car’s position every time it passes a beam. Based on that, it looked to the team that Hamilton would arrive in the pits with enough time to change tyres and emerge still in the lead. They could thereby cover off the possibility of his tyres not coming up to temperature, Ferrari pitting Vettel for new super-softs and picking the Mercs off. There seemed to be no downside. So why not do it?

There was disagreement within the camp about what to do, and lots of confusing discussion in a time-pressured situation. Hamilton himself fed into this pressure. As he drove up the old pit straight he saw on the big spectator screens the Mercedes crew standing in the pitlane. He assumed this was for Rosberg. This belief was reinforced by the fact that he still couldn’t see Rosberg in his mirrors (because he was so far behind). He was concerned that Rosberg might therefore be able to come at him on fresh tyres while he floundered on old, cold rubber. So he relayed his concern about how gripless his tyres now were and whether they’d be in any shape to compete upon the restart. The team didn’t realise he thought Rosberg had pitted. To them, Hamilton’s concern gave support to those following the data.
Tyre warm up, wrong data, incorrect unvoiced assumptions from Hamilton, a team that operates on data is king philosophy (because overall, in the long run, that’s proven to work best). Given all those pieces of information, with a decision required right now, would you still take the intuitive approach? Maybe you would. But it was not as black and white as it looked from the outside.

 

http://www1.skysport.../12433/9867405?

[alpiner]

WHY F1 CARS FIND IT HARD TO FOLLOW EACH OTHER FOR AN OVERTAKE IN 2015

INNOVATION

 

POSTED BY: JAMES ALLEN  |  12 JUN 2015   |  5:22 PM GMT  |  16 COMMENTS

We heard this week that McLaren has had some challenges getting its new short nose configuration through crash testing, but what is behind this fashion for the short nose on F1 cars this season? And is there any connection with the mandatory low noses now in F1 with cars struggling to follow each other this season in preparation for an overtake?

Here, with the help of our F1 technical adviser Dominic Harlow, former chief race engineer for Force India and visual renderings from Giorgio Piola, we can try to explain.

Low noses became mandatory because of safety concerns; cars T-boning other cars could be very dangerous for the driver if the nose of another car hits his cockpit area.

But the noses we saw in 2014 were not only ugly, they also hurt the aerodynamics. This year they’ve made some regulation changes to improve the look, but the teams have also pushed hard to improve the aero, Mercedes are there, Red Bull got there too recently. So far there is no sign from Ferrari, but it’s probably just a matter of time.

What’s the issue here with the low noses?
The biggest effect of the low noses (above) is that on the neutral area in the middle of the front wing. F1 aerodynamics is all about generating a vortex in key areas. This one is crucial because it conditions the way the air passes under the front of the monocoque, where the drivers legs are, and channels down to the key downforce generating areas of the floor, diffuser and underbody.

The low nose gets in the way of that work and has a negative and disruptive effect on the vortices going to the floor and diffuser.

So by shortening the nose section (above), while still maintaining the regulation dimensions of the front of the car, you can see that a lot more air passes over that key transition in the neutral area at the centre of the front wing, managing the airflow better to the sensitive areas, which generate so much of an F1 car’s downforce.

Why are F1 cars finding it hard to follow each other closely to set up an overtake this year? 
There have been many complaints from drivers about not being able to follow other cars this season, that have been broadcast on the TV world feed. This is not a new complaint, but the transmission of the messages makes it front of mind for fans.

The 2014 regulations moved the front wing endplates inwards (above) in comparison with the previous generation of cars (below), so they have a narrower front wing.

The idea of the wider front wings, brought in for 2009, was that by washing air outwards around the front wheels the front wing would be less sensitive to the dirty air coming off the car in front, so you should be able to get close. Your car wouldn’t be so affected by what was coming off the diffuser of the car in front. This was one of the ideas of the Overtaking Working Group, which also reduced the rear wing size and ultimately produced the DRS system.

The front wing idea didn’t work from an overtaking perspective; it wasn’t very obvious because Pirelli tyre degradation and DRS contributed to a significant increase in overtaking anyway post 2011. It did make the cars faster though.

What makes it hard to follow another car is the net level of downforce. If the car in front has more downforce it creates a bigger hole in the air and more disruption for your car.

But that means with high downforce cars there will always be a problem following other cars. Looked at another way, it means that there is not really an answer to overtaking if you want the cars to be very fast through the corners. The only way to do it is to artificially increase the downforce on the car behind in corners (the moveable front flap idea of a few years ago), or reduce it significantly on the straights (which is what DRS is today). The problem with these systems is that there are a lot of fans who don’t like them and think that they take away from the driver’s skill.

This is something that the rule makers and teams are wrestling with now. The call is for cars that are 5-6 seconds per lap faster than now, but also for cars that can follow each other closely through the corners to initiate an overtake. To make a car that much faster it will have to come from downforce and from faster tyres.

To get that kind of lap time gain will need a much more powerful rear wing and a larger diffuser, both of which will create a larger hole in the air for the car behind. A wider car with a wider front wing and a significant reduction in weight will also be needed.

At a fan event on Saturday night in Montreal, there was widespread approval for the idea of cars whose downforce is mainly generated in the floor, with small wings that are only used for putting stickers on and much gripper tyres putting the emphasis on mechanical grip.

The biggest external factor is the track layout; there are some tracks that promote good overtaking very time and some that do not. Shanghai, for example, sees over 30 normal overtakes a race plus over 40 DRS overtakes. Austin is heavily slanted towards DRS overtakes, with 16 versus just two from normal overtakes in the 2013 event, for example.

Things which spread the field out, like slow chicanes, tend to disrupt overtaking.

The FIA, Bernie Ecclestone and the teams are currently aiming to have a sensible plan for re-imaginging F1 cars from 2017 onwards in place to put to the FIA World Motor Sport Council on 9th/10th July.

 

http://www.jamesalle...ertake-in-2015/

[/13/Ален Шмит/]

Objašnjenje funkcija volana by Zauber.

 

 

Klik za veću sliku.

[Downforce]

Sunce ti

 

Pa zamisli da sam moras ovde da kontas sta treba da podesis. Svi bi se slupali u prvoj krivini fazon

[alpiner]

Exclusive pictures of the Renault power unit

[alpiner]

Exclusive pictures of the Ferrari power unit

[Downforce]

Ko ima Linkedin nalog neka nadje Willem Toet-a i neka mu prati postove. Ljudi, ono je blago za citati.

[alpiner]

Simulation in F1

It is no secret that Formula 1 teams use advanced simulation technologies. Today, computational fluid dynamics, windtunnel development, transient dynos and seven-post rigs are all standard in F1. The goal of all of these expensive tools is to ensure that the racing cars are as competitive as possible – and as reliable.

Simulation techniques in Formula 1 go far beyond that. Computers crunch away to work out every conceivable race strategy and increasingly the teams are realising the value of driver-in-the-loop simulators. This means that rather than engineers playing with computers, as happens with other simulation, the F1 drivers sit in “virtual” F1 cars.

There may be a belief that the F1 simulators are simply glorified computer games, which have a value in teaching drivers circuits that they have never visited, but the story is much more complicated than that.

Simulator technologies came to Formula 1 first because teams recognised that they could make money by working with computer gaming companies in order to create entertainment for the public. The first racing computer game was Gran Trak 10, a single-player racing arcade game released by Atari in 1974. The first big success was Pole Position, a Namco game in which a player had to complete a lap in a certain amount of time in order to qualify for a race at the Fuji Speedway. If successful the car would race with other cars. As home computers developed in the 1980s the first true F1 game appeared, called Formula One Grand Prix (F1GP), which was released in 1992.

Nowadays you can sit at home and drive F1 cars, playing with many different parameters such as the fuel loads, tyre wear and so on.

Home computers can only do so much. One may have a steering wheel and pedals, but there are none of the real sensations of what it is really like to drive an F1 car.

In recent years Formula 1 engineers have begun to realise that advanced simulation can be a tool not just for driver training, but also to work on technical solutions and set-up conundrums. Simulation can improve lap times and at the same time save time and money by giving the team a way to test without needing to put the cars on the race track. Virtual testing is now a reality.

Modern simulation technology can be traced back to the 1920s when an American engineer called Edwin Link, who had begun his career as a builder of organs and nickelodeons, used his knowledge of pneumatic pumps and valves to create the first flight simulator in the out of the way town of Binghamton, in upstate New York. At the time teaching new pilots to fly in cloud, using only their instruments, was both expensive and dangerous and Link felt that a machine could do the job more cheaply and safely. The result was an enclosed aircraft cockpit, which became known as the Blue Box. The pilot sat inside this device and used the controls to “fly” the device using instruments alone. The Blue Box produced pitch, roll and yaw motions controlled by the pilot. The prototype appeared in 1929 but Link’s business did not really take off until 1934, when the US Army Air Force purchased four of the machines after a series of trainee pilots died while doing instrument training. For Link the advent of World War II created a boom for his ever-improving machines. He provided 10,000 of them and more than half a million aircrew from different nations learned to fly on these machines. The development included large scale systems aboard which entire bomber crews trained together.

The boom in civil aviation after World War II led Link to develop simulators for the new generation of jet engines. By the 1960s the technologies had changed with pneumatic actuators being replaced by hydraulic versions and the new simulators were built to include what was known as “six degrees of freedom”, which meant that the platforms on which the cockpits were mounted were able to generate roll, pitch and yaw plus surge (longitudinal), heave (vertical) and sway (lateral). Visuals were introduced, with the earliest versions using cameras that filmed models of the ground and then in the 1970s wide-angled screens with film footage and later curved mirrors and ultimately plasma screens with virtual imagery.

The development was not restricted to planes, with the advent of gaming and a diversification into ground vehicles, notably armoured vehicles. These simulators enabled the army to create battlefield environments in order to train its crews. The automotive industry also started looking at the potential of simulators to help the companies involved understand how drivers behaved in different situations, thus enabling the designers to improve dashboard ergonomics and to strengthen the safety features based on the accidents that might occur because of drivers becoming tired or being distracted. Military demands meant that development was constant with innovations such as G-seats, belt-tightening devices and pneumatic cushions, all of which helped to create the impression of the pressures that a driver would feel at certain speeds, in addition to 360-degree domes to create a totally virtual environment.

Today there are reckoned to be 1200 professional flight simulators in the world, designed and developed by companies such as Canada’s CAE, France defence giant Thales and US firms like Flight Safety International and Northrop. The majority of these use motion platforms known as Hexapods or Stewart Platforms, which feature six independently-actuated legs, the lengths of which change in order to orient the platform. Sound and imagery add to the environment created.
The accuracy of simulators is based on the interaction of these three elements, but it is an area in which there has been much controversy between the mechanical engineers and advanced medical researchers, who argue that it is not very realistic because of the way in which the human body reacts to stimuli. This is a very complex question because of the wide range of sensory inputs that the brain integrates. The medical men argue that the reactions of the muscles and joints (the proprioceptive system) do not tie in with the others and also believe that the vestibular system (the balance mechanisms in the inner ear) is also affected. They argue that this means that depth perceptions are not always correct.

One of the problems with some of the simulators is that they induce sickness for some drivers because of a discrepancy between the perception of visual motion and the corresponding motion cues. This led the engineers to look at ways to overcome the problem and to the development of what are called dynamic simulators, which have the entire hexapod moving around to meet the body’s need for the sensation of real motion.

The bottom line is that there is no such thing as a standard simulator. Each one is a prototype and the most interesting element in their use in F1 is that most of the systems have been developed in-house by the teams, rather than being developed with specialist partnerships. One thing that is clear is that the experts on simulators have also been moving as teams realise the value of what they do not have.

There is general agreement that the two best systems at the moment are the two that have had the most development: McLaren is believed to have spent as much as $40m on its system and used British Aerospace technology, developed for the Eurofighter aircraft. At Woking the driver sits in a full-size F1 monocoque, in front of a large, curved plasma screen. The whole device is mounted on a hexapod which moves around an area about the size of a professional basketball court, in response to the driver’s steering and pedal input. This is the only dynamic F1 simulator in F1 at the moment. It is believed that the best of the fixed-base units is at Williams where the development has been amazingly cost-effective, with a budget of probably a tenth of what has been spent at McLaren. Williams is believed to be able to stream data back to its factory after a practice session so that it can use the simulator to try out other set-ups, which can then be tried overnight to ensure that the cars have the optimum set-ups based on absolutely current data.

Up to now Ferrari has been using a fairly simple unit, which is housed at the Fiat Research Centre in Turin. The team had recently announced a partnership with the US firm Moog. This will be the very latest dynamic device.

“The dynamic driving simulator is a new step for us in developing virtual tests that give drivers the true feel of a real environment and direct feedback on their actions,” says Scuderia Ferrari’s head of R&D Marco Fainello. “It will support the new breed of tests we are planning to launch.”
Red Bull Racing tried a relationship with a specialist company but is now doing its own thing and intends to have a dynamic unit as soon as one can be built. Honda is doing likewise. Renault has an arrangement to use a system created by a local specialist firm, but they don’t want to give details. The team admits that the system is not on par with other teams. Force India has its own very basic system but recently tried out a facility at the old Upper Heyford airbase which is owned by Wirth Research, built by Nick Wirth, who was technical director of the Benetton team before it became Renault. It maybe that this is also Renault’s secret facility. Oddly, Toyota and BMW say that they are not using any simulators at the moment, although both firms have advanced road car simulators: Toyota having the world’s largest driving simulator at the Higashifuji Technical Centre in Japan and BMW having a similar unit in Munich. Both teams say that they do not use a simulator at all.

What is clear is that the teams believe that the F1 simulators are the most advanced of all.

“I think they are better than the best flight simulators,” says Red Bull Racing’s Geoff Willis. “Those are now more about training and not so much about performance.”

And do they work?

“It’s pretty useful,” says Williams’s Patrick Head, although he won’t say more than that.

The other thing to watch is whether or not the F1 teams can find a way to make money from the systems. In the world of computer gaming, the race is on to create cost-effective simulation systems that could be sold to the to public. The Nintendo Wii is a move in that direction with sensors that transform the movement of the players into actions in the game. The next leap forward will probably be a device to give players the same sensations as those being simulated. Since the end of 2006 an astonishing 30m Wiis have been sold. They cost around $250, which means that it is a $7.5bn market. The first company to get to the markets with simulation technology as is seen in F1 stands to make even bigger profits. In the meantime money can still be made. Recently the Costa cruise ship line bought a series of F1 simulators from a Dutch company called VESC to try to attract customers (mainly Italians) to a number of its ships. The fullscale machines, complete with hexapods, are now cruising the world.

https://joesaward.wo...6/02/02/20101/?

[Rad-oh-yeah?]

Evo kako Indikar to radi - postoji jedan simulator u Dalarinoj fabrici u Indijanapolisu koji se daje svim timovima na koristenje:

 

http://www.indycar.c...SA-headquarters

[alpiner]

McLaren's novel MP4-31 suspension revealed

 

 

Giorgio Piola and Matt Somerfield analyse the innovative front suspension design on McLaren's new MP4-31 Formula 1 car.

McLaren has openly talked about there being some 'innovation' on its 2016 Formula 1 car when the first images of the Honda-powered machine emerged on Sunday.

And while there were already hints from the launch pictures about an aggressive suspension solution, it was only when the new car hit the track at Barcelona on Monday that such concepts have been confirmed.

As Giorgio Piola's exclusive photograph below shows, McLaren has been very bold with its front suspension design - with the upper rear arm much lower than is normal.

McLaren MP4-31 detail

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

It was interesting too that the team had fitted additional sensors on both of the rear arms of the wishbones to help monitor data from this area during the first day of testing.

Suspension thinking

Rather than an assimilation of the conjoined lower wishbone (see below), pioneered by Mercedes in 2014 and adopted elsewhere, we can see that McLaren is thinking independently.

Mercedes AMG F1 Team W07 detail

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

The front suspension can have a marked effect on how the airflow moves down and around the rest of the car and so the teams have to carefully plan its layout, as it is exceptionally difficult to change once designed.

McLaren is clearly searching for previously untapped aerodynamic performance, with the rear profile of each of the wishbone arms placed virtually on top of one another.

The upper of the two is slung lower than usual, meaning it should work in unison to pull the airflow down and around the sidepod, rather into or over it.

These early tests, with the sensors placed on the wishbones, are used to correlate the on track data with what the team expected when the car was tested both kinematically and aerodynamically in CFD, the wind tunnel and on the seven-post shaker rig.

Red Bull push

The pitlane launch of the 2016 Red Bull challenger, amongst a frenzy of other machines, means a more detailed analysis of it will follow later.

However, one area of interest, like the McLaren, is the front suspension. It has converged on the idea of conjoining the lower wishbone element but, as is usual for Red Bull, it has taken it to extremes, with only a small opening now available at the inboard sections.

Of course this is done for its aerodynamic purposes with the large surface area allowing a smoother transition of the airflow.

Red Bull Racing RB12 detail

Photo by: XPB Images

Whilst the wishbone wedge is already fairly substantial (highlighted in yellow) it has also continued to utilise a rearward extension (highlighted in green), as was in use on the RB11.

This will further shape the airflow, improving performance downstream.

Red Bull isn't the only team to have converged on the use of the conjoined wishbone solution, with the sister team Toro Rosso and Haas implementing it too.

Meanwhile, Mercedes, Ferrari and Force India who've all used the solution during 2015 have refined their concepts further.

 

Haas VF-16 detail

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

Edited by alpiner, 22 February 2016 - 19:40.

[Rad-oh-yeah?]

This is how Brembo tests the carbon discs that are used in Formula 1:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWra93NkrHU

[alpiner]

Next gen F1 simulators and how F1 gears up to stream live video