Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2018 i Racecar Engineering

Head protection in open cockpit cars has become a major topic in Europe with Formula 1’s introduction of the Halo. But it’s also an issue in the US and IndyCar has been working with its car builder Dallara to introduce the Opticor screen-based head protection system, which has been retro-fitted to the current chassis for a test. The Opticor, produced by PPG, was tested on the Phoenix short oval in daylight, dusk and at night by Scott Dixon, and was hailed a success, although there is a long way to go for the system before it can be introduced into competition. The FIA looked at different ideas for F1 cars for some time. It fired a 20kg wheel and tyre at 225kmh into a variety of potential solutions. One was…

This is the car that BR Engineering and other privateer LMP1 manufacturers and teams will be hoping will slip up, or break down, at Le Mans. The Toyota TS050 will be campaigned in the 2018/19 ‘super season’, which runs from May this year until June 2019 and encompasses two editions of the Le Mans 24 hours. Its specification has remained largely the same as last year, except for some improvements to the cooling. Toyota’s latest offering had started its testing programme at the time of writing and had successfully completed a shakedown at the Aragon circuit in Spain plus a full endurance test at the same venue. The car was due to have two more endurances tests before the WEC prologue at Paul Ricard in April. Much of the publicity…

‘The operator can just tap a few icons and the software writes all the complex code in the background, without them even realising it’ A modern Formula 1 car consists of up to 80,000 components, all of which have been machined at some point during their manufacture. That’s before counting the number of redesigned, or replaced parts or prototypes and spares that never actually make it onto the car. Hundreds of thousands of individual components come together to create the racing cars of today. Producing this sheer quantity of parts, along with their rapid development cycles, is only made possible by machines. Machine technology is not only becoming more accurate and reliable, but the results more repeatable. Unfortunately to achieve that, machines are removing the human element from the process…

The head of the FIA technical department, Gilles Simon, has recently stated that he wants to have hybrid technology in the top LMP1 class, including privateer entries in Le Mans and the World Endurance Championship, while he also wants to maintain the link to the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar series to allow its manufacturers to race at Le Mans. Which, ultimately, could mean hybrids in DPi. Privately, sources at the FIA admit that there is no clear direction that has been agreed by the manufacturers and governing bodies, and discussions on whether to make a standard hybrid system compulsory, and what storage or power would be desirable, are ongoing. The split between the philosophies has always been a thorny issue, with a drive for high technology in Europe, and entertainment in…

Kevin Thomas is a normal bloke. He works in an office, doing an everyday job and lives in a quiet and pleasantly unremarkable suburb of a city in northern England. He’s also a very serious F1 fan. He attends races and tests, but what really sets him apart is in the garage next to his house. When the door raises the noses of a brace of Formula 1 cars are revealed, a 1994 Footwork Arrows FA13 and a 2014 Caterham CT05. Thomas has been featured in this magazine before, when he was rebuilding a 2001 BAR-Honda 003 in the shed at the end of his garden using parts bought from websites such as eBay. His dream is to have his own F1 car that he can drive himself whenever he…

The 2017 World Rally Championship saw a new regulation package aimed at bringing the spectacle back to rallying’s premier series. Most agreed that it did this, with faster cars and a far more open battle for the championship than the WRC has been used to in recent times, including seven different rally winners. These new regulations featured an increase in power from 300bhp to 380bhp, the reintroduction of a central active differential and a more aggressive aerodynamic package. But for the manufacturers and teams new rules meant new challenges, and also a restrictive development regime based on a joker system. This same system remains for 2018, with three jokers for the engine and the same for the chassis – there were five jokers for the chassis last year, as the…

In last month’s issue we delved into the science behind modern engine design (V28N3). This month we will be going a step further, entering the virtual environment to discover how companies are characterising the phenomena of combustion with equations to simulate and optimise engine performance. Today’s Formula 1 engines generate approximately 950bhp, with some rumoured to exceed 1000bhp. To generate that amount of power the engine needs to complete 200 ignitions in the time it takes you to blink. This equates to a total of 46,000 combustion events within a single lap of an F1 circuit. To replicate that in the virtual world is a monumental challenge – so where do you start? As we discovered last month, swirl and tumble are crucial in maximising the amount of air burned…

The LMP1 privateer class has come to life this year, largely because the chance of an overall podium for a privateer has risen dramatically. With Audi and Porsche withdrawing from the hybrid category in 2016 and 2017 respectively, Toyota has found itself as the sole manufacturer entry in the World Endurance Championship’s top class. And with just two Toyotas entered in the WEC and at Le Mans, the privateers now have something very tangible to aim for. There is even the chance that bad luck could hit the TS050s, paving the way for the first privateer win at Le Mans since Champion Racing’s triumph with an Audi in 2005, and the first privateer constructor to win since Rondeau in 1980. There is, of course, also the chance that a reliable…

Ulrich Baretzky, Audi Sport’s head of powertrain, said at a recent MIA conference: ‘Only when half the grid go clockwise and the other half go anti-clockwise and there are no crashes will I trust autonomous racing.’ A fair point perhaps, given that future mobility will require us to put our lives in the virtual hands of a computer as we get moved around by AI technology. Like Baretzky, I too have major trust issues with computers after many accidental deletions, although this is probably user error. But if I can’t trust my laptop to save a document, then how am I going to trust an autonomous car to save me when that traffic light turns red? Driver droids The answer to all this might be motorsport. As is the case…

QUESTION As a wannabe racer, and graduate from the Bondurant race drive school, my goal is to design and build a racecar, putting my aeronautical engineering experience to use. I have long been interested in anti-roll solutions, particularly with respect to isolating bump springs from roll. Audi had almost done it with their late, great LMP1 car, but I don’t think that in their solution bump and roll are completely isolated. I have an idea to vary the spring rate of the springs; in this case the rate of the outer wheels would be increased in turns, and reduced on the straights. This would then eliminate anti-roll bars. It would be activated by accelerometers, which would respond to increasing lateral g as the corners are entered. Question: Is this a…

This meant a complete re-design of the chassis and layout, transverse engines being particularly difficult to install in a single seater In previous articles (April 2017 V27N4 and December V27N12) we ran through the concept and design philosophy of our spec entry-level Brazilian Formula Vee project. In this instalment, we get into the practical problems – unexpected and predicted – as we chart the evolution of our single seater. The business model stated three uses for the new car: a racing single spec model, which would also be used for a driving school, and for track days. Most of the cars were to be owned by the championship organiser and they would make use of the older classic trailing link front suspension and swing axles on the rear. Early on…

Many engineers are so obsessed with correlation they actually forget you learn the most when data doesn’t add up A few months ago I wrote an article on why simulation needs to be one of the first things you do when running a car (RCE V27N9). I outlined where racecar simulation fits into the pecking order and gave you a taste of what you can do with it based on what I’ve seen using it over the last 20 years. In this article I’m going to be returning to the same theme, but this time I want to come at it from a different point on the compass. In particular I’ll explore the benefits of what happens when simulation is a fundamental cog in your engineering process, and we will…

Lena Gade, the former Audi LMP1 race engineer, has moved to IndyCar, where she will oversee the James Hinchcliffe entry at Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. Gade moves to SPM from Bentley Motorsport, which she had joined in the wake of Audi’s World Endurance Championship departure at the end of 2016. She engineered three Le Mans-winning cars during her time at Audi. Ben Kennedy is now general manager of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. Kennedy will oversee all aspects of NASCAR’s truck racing championship, working closely with Brad Moran, the Truck Series managing director, and Jeff Wohlschlaeger, managing director, series marketing. Steve Brabeck, the co-owner of Australian Supercars operation DJR Team Penske, has died after a long battle with cancer. Brabeck initially become involved with the team as a sponsor when…