Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2018 i Racecar Engineering

Nature has protected the brain by having a bony carapace completely enveloping it, the skull. A mere fall from standing up can give peak shocks of translational acceleration of 145 to 500g, there being a very thin layer of skin covering the bone, almost nil deformation to reduce the g. But from time immemorial it has been found that we could help nature by adding protection, usually for combat. By 900 BC Assyrian soldiers wore thick leather or bronze helmets to protect the head, while the ancient Corinthian helmet and the Roman galea are still iconic even today. Yet helmets took a little while to catch on in motor racing. Drivers first wore cloth caps, usually facing backwards for aerodynamic reasons, and XPB then leather hats, the first appearing around…

By the time you read this the 2018 Formula 1 season will have kicked off in Melbourne, Australia. From preseason testing we have a good idea that Mercedes should be pretty quick again, and clues as to where the other teams stand in relation to it. But what the Barcelona tests have also shown us is the state of play in the Formula 1 development war. And that might be a much more interesting story this season. Take cooling, for instance. Here, there is a distinct divergence of opinion in terms of the design of the cooling systems on the current generation of car. ‘I think that the teams have approached it knowing which areas of bodywork are most sensitive and that tends to drive you on how you want…

A fuel soaked lambda sensor will read spuriously and cannot be trusted A misfire can be one of the most difficult engine faults to track down, despite its seemingly simplistic cause. Either an engine does not have enough fuel or a spark at the right time. It is the underlying causes of these two conditions that can cause powertrain engineers to pull their hair out. Fortunately, modern ECUs in motorsport have extensive logging capabilities, and are often coupled with chassis systems that are also capable of logging everything you could possibly need to help with diagnosis. Misfires can range from being a mild irritation if they only occur under very specific circumstances, to extremely destructive if they are consistent on a highly-strung engine. What’s more, a driver will be relying…

‘Whereas in most companies the motorsport money is flowing out the door, we have a solid model that our executives have supported for years’ Go to an SCCA meeting in the US and you will be almost guaranteed to find examples of one make of car: Mazda. The product of the Japanese manufacturer makes up 55 per cent of all SCCA entries, John Doonan, director of Mazda Motorsports in North America, tells us. And that’s great news for Mazda, because it’s due to this saturation of the grassroots of American road racing that it can afford its pinnacle motorsport campaign in IMSA DPi, as well as its well-known driver development programmes. ‘It really all started with the grassroots,’ Doonan says. ‘We have built a foundation of customer support programmes; allowing…

The Sebring 12 hours was what everyone expected: hot, bumpy and the racing was wonderful. But in the paddock there was a clash of two worlds. This was highlighted in two separate incidents; one when Gianmaria Bruni ripped the rear of his Porsche GT off having run off a kerb mid-race, and another when Tristan Vautier somehow managed to drive straight into the wall at the exit of Turn 17, spreading tyres and various bits of Cadillac across the circuit, which caused damage to following cars. Watching all of this was FIA WEC race director Eduardo Freitas, and it was easy to see the calculations going on in his mind. The Sebring circuit is a world away from where the FIA tracks are in terms of layout, surface and perhaps…

It seems that downforce is culturally different in America than it is in Japan and Europe. Super Formula in Japan has for some time pursued high downforce levels and the drivers love it. In F1, the move to more powerful aerodynamics due to larger wings and diffuser, freed-up bargeboards and wider tyres, has received acclaim from those few privileged to feel its effect. The experience of very significant g-forces with the resultant grip and sheer corner speed really pumps the adrenaline. Anyone who has experienced even a little of the ‘great big hand’ that pushes the tyres down onto the track will understand this. So why are the IndyCar drivers in the States enjoying this going the other way? Reducing the overall downforce of the Dallara-built spec cars by around…

A five per cent lateral grip increase will give you three to five times the lap time gain of a five per cent increase in longitudinal grip Claude Rouelle plays a lead role at renowned vehicle dynamics consultancy OptimumG. On occasion he also offers his services as a design judge in Formula Student competitions, which means he’s in an ideal position to offer advice to those looking to take part in these events. 51. Let’s begin where we left off with point 50 last month, discussing sponsorship. Sponsors do not buy your project; they buy into what you believe in. So it’s all about selling your emotions. 52. There are only two kinds of sponsorship: with and without television. If you can have your racecar shown on local or even…

Manufacturing and motorsport are not the only industries that benefit from the positional accuracy of advanced coordinate measuring systems. The medical world actually utilises such technology to help with illnesses such as epilepsy and Parkinson’s. Renishaw makes robots used for neuro-surgery which help to deliver probes and drugs to precise locations in the brain. MRI data is used to develop a 3D image of the human body and the software controls a robot which tells the surgeon the exact position in which they need to drill into the skull to get to the required part of the brain. The patient is often awake and told to sing nursery rhymes because the surgeon needs a response. If they stop singing then they know they have gone too far, and so they…

The ride is excellent and the handling okay, as long as you avoid rolloversteer; these cars have been known to go through the hedge backwards QUESTION I have being reading your articles in Racecar Engineering over several years and have kept a good number for reference. The article on camber compensators prompted this question. I do not know how much you know about the 2.6 Lagonda, so I thought I would start by providing some background information. The car was designed by a small team under WO Bentley at Lagonda, starting in 1944. They had the first experimental car on the road about the time the war ended, and two further experimental cars and three preproduction cars finished by 1946. The company ran into trouble resulting in it being bought…

When RLR Motorsport team principal Nick Reynolds spelled out his main objective for our session with one of the team’s Ligier LMP3s in the MIRA full-scale wind tunnel it was a surprise. We would not be chasing downforce and balance, as is often the case with these projects, but instead we would be looking for drag reductions and efficiency gains. The reasoning was straightforward, Reynolds explaining that track data showed that the Ligier had intrinsically greater drag than its Norma and Ginetta opposition. So the quest for our session was to find drag reductions while preserving or improving aerodynamic balance and efficiency. Drag racer The aerodynamic package allowed in LMP3 provides a few options for fine tuning. In last month’s Racecar we looked at the effects of removing the rear…

Evolution Measurement was founded in July 2016 and is located in Andover, Hampshire, UK. It is staffed by a team of engineers highly experienced in measurement, instrumentation and calibration. The team has actually been in its current premises, in a previous guise, since 2006 and is now fully focussed on the high-end fluid temperature and pressure measurement market. The relationship with Scanivalve in fact goes back to 2001, via the companies that the current staff used to work at. Highly evolved Evolution Measurement now handles northern Europe-wide factory-level calibration, repair and service support for Scanivalve while special relationships also exist with Guildline (as its exclusive UK distributor for precision measurement solutions) as well as with Meggitt (as its UK application-specific distributors for dynamic pressure sensors). The company offers sales of…

One of the last remaining bastions of technical innovation in this business is Time Attack. In most categories when an innovative technical solution is presented the first instinct of a regulatory body is to ban it. For all its foibles Time Attack, in particular World Time Attack Challenge, not only encourages technical innovation but embraces it with gusto. In that regard it’s a positive breath of fresh air and God help our business if this is ever messed with. However, there is one technology that has yet to appear on the Time Attack radar, and this is electric powertrains. This is particularly apparent in the World Time Attack Challenge event. A lot of this is due to the street drag racing/tuner origin of Time Attack. Another reason is that the…

Josh Frankos, the front tyre changer on the No.43 Richard Petty Motorsports Chevrolet driven by Darrell Wallace Jr in the NASCAR Cup Series, suffered a hand injury before the Pennzoil 400 at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Michael Hubert took his place for the race. NASCAR has announced the 20 nominees for its Hall of Fame Class of 2019. On the list are a number of names from the engineering and business side of the sport, including Ray Fox (engine builder, crew chief and car owner); Joe Gibbs (team owner); John Holman and Ralph Moody (co-owners of Holman Moody Racing); Harry Hyde (crew chief ); Roger Penske (team owner); Jack Roush (team owner) and Waddell Wilson (engine builder). Barney Visser, the owner of NASCAR Cup operation Furniture Row Racing, has…