Brakes in F1 - Boring?.... perhaps not!

[Mikey_s]

Sad character that I am, I happened to be thinking about brakes the other day. To an extent this was fuelled by the thread about using the wheels to generate down/side/up force I got to thinking about how much energy the brakes on an F1 car must dissipate (bear with me, it's worth it!!).

Take a circuit like Monza, or Montreal; at the big stops the cars must brake from somethingaround 340km/h to about 80km/h - now think about how much energy that is, and most of it must be lost through the brakes.

If one uses the formula for kinetic energy (KE=1/2 mv^2) they must lose 260km/h, now assume that the car weighs 650kg (after all it has some fuel on), plug the figures into the formula and it transpires that the car must shed approximately 1.7 Megajoules of energy in about 2-3 seconds. To put that into context, that's about the same anoutn of energy you get from a 1 bar electric fire running for about 30 minutes... no wonder the brakes glow.... and they have to do those type of stops twice per lap and a few lesser ones on the other corners. It's quite an engineering challenge to lose that amount of heat in a very short time.

Now, some of that energy will be dissipated via the downforce and drag, but the majority has to be shed as heat and that means brakes and tyres - That's one reason why the wheels have enough work to do without generating down/side/up force - I think this is one more reason why I love F1 - just about everything on these cars is amazing...

[Guest]

i think its just as cool how light the corbon fibre wheel mounting are, they weight no more than a few kilograms(scarbs or someone probably has more accurate info), in comparison to the amount of twist they have to endure during the brakings

[Reca]

Except for the fact that it’s (initial speed ^ 2 – final speed ^ 2) and not (initial speed – final speed) ^ 2, hence it’s 2.7 MJ and not 1.7 MJ, I totally agree.

At the first F1 test of the year I’ve the habit to sit on the grandstand at the Parabolica braking point, at least, previous year braking point, every year I’ve inevitably to move closer to the corner; now, last year... as an average they started to brake approximately 7-8 meters AFTER the 50 m signal...
I know that braking for the chicanes, particularly the first one, is, in term of numbers for deceleration, speed etc etc, theoretically more impressive, but the Parabolica entry, considering that at close to 340 km/h they have to brake just the right amount and take the right line for a quite difficult and quite fast corner, crucial for the following straight line, is the point at Monza where cars really amaze me no matter how many times I see them. Unfortunately on tv isn’t as impressive.

Anyway, you mentioned glowing discs...

[manchild]

Ferrari changed shape of disc vents again, now they are square and once again in the middle.

[Mikey_s]

Reca - of course you are correct; as far as kinetic energy goes, clearly the higest speed is the important issue from the perspective of kinetic energy... in any case, I was at least on the conservative side, makes it even more impressive - furthermore, the fact that they dump that heat so efficiently in such a short time is the incredible thing.

Thanks for the correction (and nice pic!)

[Reca]

Don’t worry about the small mistake Mike, I pointed it out only because it’s sometime hard to stop the peaky engineer on me . As I already said you are absolutely correct in noticing the F1 braking capabilities, they are indeed amazing.

As for the pic manchild posted, that’s the F2004 hence it doesn’t have the horizontal “duct” used on the F2005 and the 248.

[Guest]

The brakes are one of the things I would regulate in Formula 1. Yes they are very impressive however with such short braking distances it leaves no distance/time for overtaking. Added to this because the brakes need to opperate at elevated temperatures for best efficiency the technology is not transferable to road cars. If Max wants to improve racing this is one area I would strongly look at and it can be introduced almost overnight. You would however get a load of moans from the drivers however we are used to that. What do you guys think?

[manchild]

As for the pic manchild posted, that’s the F2004 hence it doesn’t have the horizontal “duct” used on the F2005 and the 248.

So, you're saying that Ferrari tested F2004 in Barcelona in January 2006?

http://www.pitpass.com/images/galleries ... 7_s199.jpg

That is photo from Barcelona, Jan 2006.

[img::]http://www.pitpass.com/images/galleries ... 7_s199.jpg[/img]

[Spencifer_Murphy]

yeah they did Manchild...Felipe Massa drove an F2004 this year.

It shows us either: The F2005 was a real dog, or Massa is being treated like a second rate driver already lmao!