Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2021 i Racecar Engineering

The upper echelons of motorsport are riddled with vast amounts of complex technology, both on and off the cars. Onboard contemporary high-end race machines, especially in the hybrid categories, you’ll find an array of electronic systems. And for efficient operation, these cars rely as much on well-designed software as they do hardware. Vehicle management typically involves using many electronic controllers interfacing with sensors and actuators all over the vehicle. In addition, they depend on highly accurate communication between various controllers using computer interrupts, timer circuits, micro controllers and more. Years of investment in this technology has refined the interaction between different control loops, and these days engineers can drive a complex vehicle and power unit package with reasonable efficiency. But, if motorsport is the proving ground for future powertrain deployment…

Q Mark, kudos again to you! Us ‘grass roots’ racers owe you a great debt for the invaluable technical understanding of all types of race car suspension systems. So here’s my question, in relation to vintage leaf spring suspension. First, on road course cars with live rear axles, the simple three link with heim joints / rods anchoring one upper and two lower arms, with a Panhard bar for lateral control, has been the most common, simple and effective solution – whether using leaf springs or coilovers. Many of the cars with leaf springs use a ‘slider’ configuration – that is plates with four holes for u-bolts welded to the axle pad and one similar below the leaf spring, with tubular steel spacers sandwiched between them with the length of…

The beating heart of any racecar is the beam pogo stick visualisation One of the things that astounds me on a daily basis is, apart from a few exceptions, how many people’s conceptions of vehicle dynamics have never evolved past the horse and buggy era. Where this is symptomatic is when you, say, challenge the concept of lateral location of the roll centre, or suggest a particular value of bump steer is not correct. What inevitably flows is a spirited defence that has very little basis in fact and quickly turns into a dumpster fire. The thing that really drives this is not just a lack of awareness of the numbers, but a failure to understand what drives these numbers in the first place. The purpose of this next series…

3D Systems has produced a new material specifically designed to address PIV testing applications used in motorsport wind tunnel testing. The material is called Accura Composite PIV and has been designed in collaboration with the Alpine F1 team to improve the accuracy of reading 3D printed parts in the wind tunnel. The company’s SLA technology has allowed F1 companies to build rigid aerodynamic parts with high productivity and leverage innovations such as integrated pressure tappings. These parts are used in testing that relies on a laser-based technology known as ‘particle image velocimetry’, or PIV. One challenge with taking reliable PIV measurements is the reflections of laser light from background surfaces other than the airborne particles. This reduces image quality and results in a loss of useful information. Accura Composite PIV…

We are looking at WEC and Le Mans, but the only thing we want to confirm today is the IMSA series BMW has added its name to a growing list of manufacturers that will compete in the LMDh category in North America. The German marque will compete as a two-car factory team in IMSA’s WeatherTech Sportscar Championship in 2023, starting at the Daytona 24 hours. It will join already confirmed LMDh programmes from Acura, Porsche and Audi, with General Motors and others, including Lamborghini and Lexus, currently waiting in the wings. The announcement came in unconventional form, with Markus Flasch, the CEO of BMW M posting a picture of Jenny Holzer’s V12 LMR art car on stage in a theatre on his Instagram page, along with the headline, ‘We are…

The Azerbaijan Grand Prix was remarkable in many ways, but perhaps the most startling revelation was that Pirelli bore the brunt of ire from Red Bull and Aston Martin for catastrophic tyre failures on a street circuit lined by trees. The tyre company’s subsequent report says the inner sidewalls failed, despite the teams following Pirelli’s guidance, and the FIA issued a Technical Directive ahead of the French GP mid-June in which it clarified the checks it will make around tyre pressures. However, the fact remains that at Baku a number of competitors suffered cut tyres that were initially thought to have contributed to the punctures, and therefore affected the race result. Pirelli initially surmised the failures that afflicted Lance Stroll and Max Verstappen could have been due to cut tyres,…

This year’s 105th Indy 500 ran true to fascinating form. After first-lap jockeying for position, and the sponsor-pleasing buzz of leading ‘the world’s most famous race’, it soon settled into a fuel-saving, drafting snake of cars leading up to the first fuel stops, from which most team strategies would then evolve. Yellow caution periods, pit fumbles and closures and fuel consumption differences then jumbled up the order and the strategies from there on in. The final few laps culminated in an edge-of-the seat finish, just half a second separating winner and runner-up after 500 miles and over 2½ hours of high speed racing. Exactly what brings the fans flooding back, in person and on TV, year after year. Nervous brake down Not so usual this time was the number of…

In the Bump stop column in the last edition of Racecar Engineering, our esteemed editor quoted from a conversation with GT supremo, Stéphane Ratel. Stéphane probably understands the meaning of the word ‘sport’, as in motorsport, better than just about anyone else, having built up the GT3 series around the world, catering for owners and drivers who participate in motorsport for the sheer pleasure and sport of it. His two comments: ‘Electric is about mobility, not about sport’, and ‘Every category that relies on direct manufacturer involvement is doomed’ bring into focus the key questions facing international motorsport in the next decade: 1. What is promotionally important to the automobile manufacturers? 2. Can motorsport provide this promotion? 3. How does the sport function without them? The auto industry exists to…

Let it be clear, the suspended mass does not rotate around the kinematic roll centre (in 2D), or around the roll axis (in 3D). You cannot calculate the lateral and longitudinal load transfers without considering the tyre forces and moments, or by ignoring the jacking forces. Many right and wrong things have been written about load transfer over the years. In this article, we will cover how load transfer is explained in many vehicle dynamics books and articles, and explain what is sometimes wrong, or incomplete, with these concepts. First, a quick reminder. As explained in a previous article, I prefer to speak about load transfer instead of weight transfer. Some people still wrongly believe that the main cause of the change of vertical load between inside and outside tyres…

Stephanie Travers and En De Liow might have been in F1 for a little while now, but they both agree that working in the paddock never gets old, even if it does get a bit heated at times. ‘The most exciting part for me is being in the heart of the paddock, being able to see these exciting machines going around, and just knowing that I’m part of that,’ says Travers. Liow agrees: ‘There are times when you stand in the garage. Let’s say at the start of the session, right before the cars pull out, and everyone’s on standby, everyone’s super focussed. That’s when you pinch yourself, and it’s like wow! I’m in the presence of greatness, I’m in the presence of some truly amazing people to be working…

The US IMSA series has confirmed the technical details of its new GTD Pro category that will debut next season to replace the GTLM class cars. The series confirmed earlier this year that it will end the category for GTE-spec cars at the close of the 2021 season, following the withdrawal of Porsche and BMW, who will focus only on the long-distance races this season, leaving only Corvette. IMSA introduced the full-spec GT3 cars in 2016 for non-professional drivers but, once it became clear there would be no new GTE class cars coming, organisers announced that the GT3 cars would also be used by all-professional line ups from Daytona in 2022. Both Pro and Am classes will use the same S9M tyre from Michelin for the 2022 season, although a…

Andy Cowell, the former managing director of Mercedes AMG’s high-performance powertrains, spent time at Cosworth and BMW in F1 before joining Mercedes-Ilmor in 2004. From 2013, he oversaw the creation of the V6 turbo-hybrid power unit, which made Mercedes the dominant force in Formula 1 by winning seven consecutive double World Championships. What role can F1, and motorsport engineering, play in the next decade of global climate challenges and energy efficiency? Bill Gates is inspiring when in his book, How to Avoid A Climate Disaster, he says; ‘Achieving net zero will be humanity’s greatest ever achievement… the solution isn’t to stop driving, flying or doing all the things we do today – it is to innovate’. Quick, competitive innovation and effort on a scale the world has never seen, and…