Thermoplastic floors on the RB9.

[DaveW]

McMrocks, Good post...

... the connection between floor and chassis ( the bar from the front of the floor to the tube) is not very aerodynamicaly shaped. I can't imagine RB sacrifices this for no good reason. And it could be also made off carbon fibre but it isn't

Many moons ago, discussing stability issues experienced with the Lotus 80, I suggested it might be possible to control downforce by "gearing" the leading edges of the tunnels to the suspension, much in the way geared tabs are used to modify hinge moments in aircraft controls. The idea was vetoed at the time as being (too obviously) illegal. I wonder....If it is possible to control suspension ride heights with hydraulic coupling, why not also the splitter?

[McMrocks]

McMrocks, Good post...

... the connection between floor and chassis ( the bar from the front of the floor to the tube) is not very aerodynamicaly shaped. I can't imagine RB sacrifices this for no good reason. And it could be also made off carbon fibre but it isn't

Many moons ago, discussing stability issues experienced with the Lotus 80, I suggested it might be possible to control downforce by "gearing" the leading edges of the tunnels to the suspension, much in the way geared tabs are used to modify hinge moments in aircraft controls. The idea was vetoed at the time as being (too obviously) illegal. I wonder....If it is possible to control suspension ride heights with hydraulic coupling, why not also the splitter?

Do you think of a hydraulic cylinder in the t-tray or cockpit which gets compressed as the car touches the ground? And that this cylinder is linked with the front suspension to move them up/make them stiffer as the car touches the ground under braking/at high downforce moments?

Sorry if i missunderstood

[DaveW]

Do you think of a hydraulic cylinder in the t-tray or cockpit which gets compressed as the car touches the ground? And that this cylinder is linked with the front suspension to move them up/make them stiffer as the car touches the ground under braking/at high downforce moments?

If I understand the FIA test, then the linkage & actuator would be more or less rigid. Both the linkage & actuator would be buried in the nose and arranged to drive the splitter stay.

However the length of actuator could be "geared" to suspension deflection and the linkage & stay could cause the splitter height to be raised relative to the nose as the suspension lowers with weight & down force, allowing the vehicle to run lower without destroying the splitter (when set-up correctly).

[Mikey_s]

I have no clue whether there is anything in this heated floor/splitter debate or not, but I think there are some misunderstandings about the thermoplastic/thermoset debate;

Permanent deformation in the floor would obviously be picked up by scrutineering, so it's safe to say that IF something is happening there is no permanent deformation (or creep to use an engineering term). However, both thermosetting and thermoplastic materials will reduce in stiffness (modulus) as the temperature increases. Reduced stiffeness could permit greater flexing in the floor and provided any deformation remained in the linear elastic range there would be no permanent deformation resulting. When the heat was removed the floor would be nice and stiff again and, hey presto, all compliant with any regualtions.

I think the scrutineers were expecting a kind of bimetal strip effect when they heated the floor up, but it evidently isn't that. If the stiffness of the floor (or the splitter) is changing with temperature they would need to combine the temperature with some representative loading to see it happen. We know from the flexi-wing debates that RB are pretty clever with the aero-elasticity stuff... it'd be nice to see if any clever photographers had snapped a pic of a bendy floor in action