CDG Wing gets thumbs down from tech chiefs.

[RacingManiac]

much like any of the aero bits.....from one of the judge for the FSAE competition who's been in the industry for a while, most of the F1 team does very little on track(real world) testing before they put the car together. But every bits of the car were either simulated to death, and the validated by some form of physical testing, or just run on a lab bench for days and weeks. Like I said, even if they start now, they probably could have a CFD model running already, then inless than 2 month a scale model would've been in the tunnel, running non-stop, then prototype bits could be on the car before the summer. F1 teams can do that, and they have to resource and knowhow to. They just chose not to. FIA is just giving them too much choice, hence no real rule change ever takes place until topic been drag on to death and countless compromise made. Hence all the rule in the last few years trying to slow down the car endup making them faster.....

[Matra et Alpine]

RM, for them to do all the things you suggest in the timeframe you suggest then their current developments to make THIS YEARS CAR COMPETITIVE woudl be hampered. F1 wind tunnels are used continuously. There isn't ltos of time in the team to do lots of condensed work !! They do NOT have the resources - infact soem teams have TWO wind tunnels avalable to them to cope with their needs to ensure a competitive maching current and next.

[RacingManiac]

Concurrent development is nothing new though in F1. And like any other proposed rule change this one was given the same amount of leadtime as most of them. Windtunnel time maybe more precious compared to the engine dyno for the 2.4 liter V8 rule, but most of the leading teams now all have 2 windtunnels(in many cases, a full size and a 60%), enough to get a prototype going on the small tunnel and a full one for the current car. IMO, they still just don't want to be hurried. Whats to say the same excuse won't be use in 06-07 transition as they have to concentrate on the competitiveness of the 07 car. Fact is most new cars are developed while current car just hit the track(like now) as by the time they finished they already have a pretty good idea what they want to make on newer ones, and potentially to adapt to the announced rule changes.

[Matra et Alpine]

RM, WHY do you think most of them now have 2 tunnels ? WHen a couple of years back you woudl be lucky to find one ??

it's because the CURRENT DEVELOPMNT work requires it.

So takign on board the additional evaluation of a possible future means taking time AWAY from current and next developmetn.

F1 teams are CONSTANTLY changing what the CFD said using the wind tunnels. Sorry, but it's MUCH more driven by the tunnel time than you seem to think. It's one of the reasons a couple of seasons ago that WIlliams retained the inverted rear wing lower element. It made NO difference, but by keeping running it they KNEW that other teams would spend(waste!) wind tunnel time evaluating it in the beleif it MUST do something and they in the meantime woudl use their widn tunnel time to make their cars faster.

Anotehr exampe ( tho older ) is the Tyrrel dihedral wing. Teams were testing and deploying it without fully realisign why Tyrrel were gettin gHUGE benefit and no amount of CFD and wind tunnel was telling them the answer -- becuase it wasn't there that the "win" was. The wing meant more air got ot the side pods by virtue of the bottom splitter and that the side pods could be MUCH smaller and produce LOTS less drag ! Direct from Tyrrels designer !!

Giving up one day of wind tunnel time to evaluate an FIA proposal means one day NOT trying a teams own idea for performance improvement.

THey at least now have 2 years to find those odd days and MORE IMPORTANTLY aren't "wastign" time this year while they struggle with fundamentally different aero packages fro new engine configurations. The team who is even 1% less efficient in aero this year may not make the cut for the big bucks from FOM

[RacingManiac]

But you can't possibly be suggesting that all their development work for the "new car"(ie for 07), starts in October when the season ends? Usually by this time(and in most cases, in the summer of the current year), new aero bits for the coming season are already on the car, testing on the track. And before that could happen, hours have already been spent on CFD and wing tunnel before they actually make the actual part for the car. I just don't see how this will be different in 06-07 transition if they were to run the CDG wing for 07, and if they don't, the 07-08 transition will not be any different from now. The step may seem to be a big step from the current design to CDG, but if what you are suggesting its true, that the resource(tunnel time that is) are only spent on current car, then the step is no less steep from 07-08, because despite the extra year, they will only be running this on CFD. And that certainly doesn't get you far enough into any design to say it may or maynot work....

[Matra et Alpine]

But you can't possibly be suggesting that all their development work for the "new car"(ie for 07), starts in October when the season ends?

No, but from the first moment a competitors car hits the screens then the aero teams are 100% focused on seeing what each Little difference brings as an advantage.
As soon as their own car hits the tracks in practise and race then the aero teams are 100% consumed trying to grasp the issues running in dirty air causes - no amount of CFD or wind tunnel can get this
At EVERY race the aero teams are trying to see and then test/build/evaluate everything they learn about their own car and just as much their opponents.

Usually by this time(and in most cases, in the summer of the current year), new aero bits for the coming season are already on the car, testing on the track.

Yeah, but this season is WAY different with some MAJOR aero changes AND new engine shapes/weights !!

And before that could happen, hours have already been spent on CFD and wing tunnel before they actually make the actual part for the car. I just don't see how this will be different in 06-07 transition if they were to run the CDG wing for 07, and if they don't, the 07-08 transition will not be any different from now. The step may seem to be a big step from the current design to CDG, but if what you are suggesting its true, that the resource(tunnel time that is) are only spent on current car, then the step is no less steep from 07-08, because despite the extra year, they will only be running this on CFD.

CDG is not a tweak of a known confoguration. Engineering isn't just luck, it's hard graft !!!

AND LET ME REPEAT.

In EVERY year in the past all the time and money and availability of wind tunnels and aero teams has Bent consumed making the cars run faster. So why will it be different THIS year especially with all those changes ? CFD doesn't get it right, it gets an approximation of "better" !!

These are CLEAR REASONS why the constructors dont' want to rush it.
If you can suggest another reason I'm willing to engage

And that certainly doesn't get you far enough into any design to say it may or maynot work....

THAT is the point, CFD doesn't let ANY team get far enough to know if it MAY work. So you put investment and risk in on a half-worked through idea. IF this had been pre-testing in a lower formula then it woudlnt' carry as much risk. Think of it this way.... woudl YOU put $100 million of yoru own money on teh table AT THIS TIME to say that CDG WILL work ? No ? Well why do you think a team will ??

[RacingManiac]

Which brings it back to my point, "the constructors" don't want to rush it, because in situations like that some may work out better than others. But really this is level for ALL teams, so it should not matter whether the teams have found something optimum for themselves. And then there is the question of whether it actually improves passing and on track action. But thats a null point, as so far all the rule designed to make car slower or passing better all failed miserably, yet they were implemented in hope of that. Hence why I mentioned sinced the begining, that its the teams that don't feel comfortable, and therefore wants to delay the introduction, not that its impossible. And why F1 needs to be dictated....

[Matra et Alpine]

Which brings it back to my point, "the constructors" don't want to rush it, because in situations like that some may work out better than others. But really this is level for ALL teams, so it should not matter whether the teams have found something optimum for themselves. And then there is the question of whether it actually improves passing and on track action. But thats a null point, as so far all the rule designed to make car slower or passing better all failed miserably, yet they were implemented in hope of that. Hence why I mentioned sinced the begining, that its the teams that don't feel comfortable, and therefore wants to delay the introduction, not that its impossible. And why F1 needs to be dictated....

Sorry, I dont' understand how that fits with

funny thing is I thought the idea of the new wing needs more optimisation to work is rubbish.

When cleary we've come around realisign the amount of wind tunnel time isnt' there to make this workable ?
Remember it's not just about "optimisation" - if you've followed ANY sportscar racing you'll have seen the M-Bs and Porsches flip.
You force the CDG and their will be the BIGGEST lawsuit in history if any accident was proven to an oversight in understanding it !!!!

[RacingManiac]

What I figured is this, the CDG wing will generate downforce, we can be sure of that, how efficiently or effective it will do that is another story. But that is not the point of the new layout. Would it be more or less dangerous than now(structurally speaking), I don't see why it'd be an issue, as even as of NOW, with no particular changes from year to year, we have had people's wing collapsed under load, and this happened to backmarker like Minardi, as well as front running McLaren

While the incident like the CLR/911GT1/V12 LMR certainly looms in the background, as well as the debacle of flying IRL car, there are always risk of that happening, and most of the time it is the team that did those car are ultimately responsible, because for every CLR there is a Toyota GT-One that runs under the same rule, and had nothing happen to it. Hence it wasn't Mercedes to sue ACO, but they just pulled out and left knowing they screwed something up. While BMW and Porsche were more of case of wrong place at the wrong time. But fundementally the rule was not at fault, because there were clearly teams that did it right

I still think, that if CDG wing doesn't cause the car to explode or something to that effect, there is no reason why, from a rule maker's point of view, to not implement it in the time frame the rule maker wants(not what the team wants).

If it makes shit downforce, you'll see durastic reduction in speed, and probably increased on track racing, which is the purpose of the change anyway, job done. The worse thing that could happen, aside from catastrophic safety issue, is that CDG wing does nothing to improve passing. And while testing may validate that, it did not deter FIA in any of the previous rule change to implement those equally useless change

[Matra et Alpine]

What I figured is this, the CDG wing will generate downforce, we can be sure of that, how efficiently or effective it will do that is another story. But that is not the point of the new layout. Would it be more or less dangerous than now(structurally speaking), I don't see why it'd be an issue, as even as of NOW, with no particular changes from year to year, we have had people's wing collapsed under load, and this happened to backmarker like Minardi, as well as front running McLaren.

EXACTLY.

There is a KNOWN configuration with known forces and twists experience buiklt up from DECADES of experience of running gearbox moinuted wings. AND now you want to move a wind to the bodywork/suspension mounts ?

I bleieve waht your are missing in your experience is that the KNOWLEDGE taht strees analysis and CFD uses is based on years of colelcting data from instrumented test mules, race cars and failure modes. NONE of those exist for what FIA are proposing so it's all theory. HENCE why the teams are saying they are unwilling to accelerate the development. THEY wasnt and NEED to build up a similar body of knowledge before knwogin tehy have a safe configuration.

While the incident like the CLR/911GT1/V12 LMR certainly looms in the background, as well as the debacle of flying IRL car, there are always risk of that happening, and most of the time it is the team that did those car are ultimately responsible, because for every CLR there is a Toyota GT-One that runs under the same rule, and had nothing happen to it. Hence it wasn't Mercedes to sue ACO, but they just pulled out and left knowing they screwed something up. While BMW and Porsche were more of case of wrong place at the wrong time. But fundementally the rule was not at fault, because there were clearly teams that did it right

No, there were teams that were LUCKY.

The combination of low front splitter height, downforce focussed on middle to rear of underbody venturis, followign cars and hitting bumps. The regs on underbody venturis were changed. MORE importantly teams now had evidenc ewhat to avoid. EVERYOINE changed their configuration.

Well clearly uo've never been involved in making ar applying any rules wehre peoples lkives are in danger. It's why at every race a scrutineer TAKES RESPONSIBILITY for the safety of a car. if a car fails on somethgin a scrutineer shoudl have seen and identified then he/she IS culpable. You want to try explaining it to a kid who's "pride and joy" is running some cheap aluminium roll cage why you are NTO letting hom out on the track !!!

erm, you are forgettign there are more than one car out there. only ONE of the worst scenarios that are plainly obvious is that the CDG central area combind with vortices from the inner wing endplates coudl EASILY generate lift points that woudl pick up the front wing of a followign car. Plains landing and taking off at airports have minimum distances precisely to allwo the vertices to settle out and give following planes less wind-shear. AND YET even in that environmetnt we have planes that drop out of the sky because of changes in configuration causing incresed vertices that were unexpected and undetected.

Find me ONE rule change as significant as CDG in the history of Formula one.
You'll find all the others came about the other way round. The FOCA teams came up with the ideas and tested them - THEY carried all the risk. Ideas that were dangerous only affected the team trying it out ( high pylon mounted wings may have been the exception that proves that rule )

I suggest reading a little on the fallability of engineering and esp. car and plane failures to understand WHY everyoen who could be held responsible is backign away from this until it can be given the time and effort to show that ALL POSSIBLE MEANS were taken to prevent injury or worse.[/quote]

[Zytek_Fan]

Mercedes CLR flip investigation


http://www.mulsannescorner.com/techarticle1.htm

[Matra et Alpine]

Interestign one, Z. Iv'e seen aanother one which showed the way the centre of the downforce genreate MOVED as the car's nose lifted and it clearly showed how it dramatically shifted under some conditions. The dramatic shift enabled the front to lift sufficiently for it then to lose all weight. It used force charts and concetrated on the underbody venturis and bleeds. I'm damned if I can find the article again, maye it's enough to trigger someone who does and can post shows there was more at play than jsut the underbody airflow

[RacingManiac]

There were also suggestion that the how the suspension was setup on the CLR aided the lift of the nose....

It is still my belief that whether the hardware holds up or failed, its in the hands of the people who's actually making it. In the collapsed wing case, especially with McLaren, it is very likely, that they pushed the boundary in their design, and step over the line, and obviously paid for it. In engineering we also always stress safety factor, and any initial design are supposed to be functioning without fail first, and in many cases that means over built to make sure it will work. Optimization is what takes time, and in that time you build up experience to know what works and what doesn't. And I DO involve in applying rules where people's life are at stake. And when I am designing stuff when FEA is telling me iffy result, I know to give it more margin than maybe optimum for, but if thats what you have to do then thats what you do. If I were a constructor to build a CDG wing I certainly wouldn't build the most fragile one first. Maybe I am giving too much credit to the technical resources available to an F1 outfit, but we are still talking about more than a year of time that many of these thing could be validated before hand. What I don't understand in your viewpoint, is that given that the delay to 08, with still the resources concentrated on the competitive car, how are the teams going to find time even to have something as radical as CDG to work even for 08?

[Matra et Alpine]

There were also suggestion that the how the suspension was setup on the CLR aided the lift of the nose....

Tyeah that was tied in to the one I am trying to find, the suspension was the starting culprit as the car tended to porpose and combined with a bump, an "up-porpoise" and the disturbed air -- bingo.

I know to give it more margin than maybe optimum for, but if thats what you have to do then thats what you do.

Then for competitiveness you HAVE to as soon as possibly back that saefy margin out to find the mininal./ Be it strength, longevity or cost. It's all the same. THAT can take 80% of teh design time for a product/feature

What I don't understand in your viewpoint, is that given that the delay to 08, with still the resources concentrated on the competitive car, how are the teams going to find time even to have something as radical as CDG to work even for 08?

Ok, let's come up with a mythical week ...
day one is in the wind tunnel with the new barge board trial. It has taken 2 days to make in the conclave and ready to test. Setup of teh car in teh tunnel takes a couple of hours, testing over the wide range and variatino cheking for slip air flow takes 3-4 hours so there goes day one in the tunnel.
Day 2 first does a shorter test on a tweak to the barge board on a differnet angle/pitch setting to confirm some oddities in day one tests. So tehre goes an hour or so. THEN the copy of the Williams wing is put in, that's taken a week of analysis and design/build and takes an hour to reset the mule to standard configuration and fit new wing. Then 4-6 hours of testing and recording is compelted. These results will then be analyised ober th enext few days byt hte aero team to try to find the advantage/benefit.
Day 3 has the new long chassis for Indy in for an update test to cehck against hte results of the Day one barge board otpimum settigns. So a couple of hours to swap the mule over, only an hours test is needed on this and so there's an afternoon "free" because ther esults were as expected.
Day 4 and the winglet additiosn for the front end plate are ready after a days CFD and days build. So reset the mule and install the winglet takes an hour and then a couple of hours test are run to capture the resutls for analysis. So the aero team have ANOTHER few terrabytes of recorded data to view and determine when and how best to use them. Afternoon looked as if it was free but one of the aero team noticed an unusual set of results from the Day 1 test and needs to clarify the unepected result. SO the mule is reset to Mondays' setup and then quickly tested varying the parameters around teh poitn the aero identified, so antoher 2-3 hours gone.
By Day 5 the inital analysis has identified the benefits the Williams wing added and has shown how it can be improved on our chassis and aero setup. So having rushed a minor mod to the Day two config the aero team want a FULL run-off for comparison. So there goes the FULL DAY.

Now this may seem a lot, but that was only seeign ONE BENEFIT from Williams. THere are 20 other cars our there to be doing comparative aero analysis with.

Note that we managed a 1/2 day "free" that we MIGHT have been able to do some of the CDG work on. It would take a couple of hours to rerig a mule to CDG layout and get 3-4 hours of collected data at a cost of THOUSANDS of pounds per test. The data collected THEN needs analysed - wind tunnel doesn't give a yes/no answer it gives forces and drag across the range of speeds, slip angles, ride heights, wing angles that they chose to cycle through. So in that afternoon you probably manage 1/10th of what you'd LIKE to do to evaluate one aspect of the design. At some tiem you will complete all the aspects adn THEN you can start on the interaction of each. EVERY time needing to confirm the brains and CFD outcomes, does a Gurney make a positive/negatice, what about with and without end plates, end fins, multiple elements. Each time another variable is added the test MULTIPLY and quickly go exponential as there will be very little past experience to use to prune the possibilities.

Getting it now ?

I see you've done FEA. So when you find a stress point are you able to consider other options or does the job fix them. So what if you could change material ? or tempering ? or elasticity ? or location points ? or angle and duration of torsional stresses ? or the million and one other things that are NOT "make it thicker" - the usual first approach if a failure mode is detected. Even in FEA you would have a HUGE amount of options to consider if you had a very large budget.

it's doubly so in F1