Red Bull RB18

[Bandit1216]

Hi, I'm reading this with great interest. My thanks to all for obtaining and sharing all these pictures.

I made an account just to chip in on the fibre panels in the undercut. To me it looks like nomex. Carbon is terrible at absorbing impact. Any debris on track, but also gravel could easily find its way at very high speed into the undercut. Its unusually blunt face can easily damage any panell there and panel damage might have a cascading effect. You can still race with some bargeboard damage, but if a puncure in this panel stops the airflow in your radiator, you are out of the race. My immediate assumption was an impact resistant laminate and i feel the conjecture here might overlook the (for me) obvious

Reckon you’re spot on. It’s either that or just used as a temp repair.

Both Nomex as Kevlar are brand names, but you might be right-ish that it's aramid. In fact more of an F1 car is made of aramids, it's not all carbon.

I was thinking maybe it's that shark-skin stuff ice skating suits and swimsuits where briefly made of before banned.

[basti313]

Hi, I'm reading this with great interest. My thanks to all for obtaining and sharing all these pictures.

I made an account just to chip in on the fibre panels in the undercut. To me it looks like nomex. Carbon is terrible at absorbing impact. Any debris on track, but also gravel could easily find its way at very high speed into the undercut. Its unusually blunt face can easily damage any panell there and panel damage might have a cascading effect. You can still race with some bargeboard damage, but if a puncure in this panel stops the airflow in your radiator, you are out of the race. My immediate assumption was an impact resistant laminate and i feel the conjecture here might overlook the (for me) obvious

I do not think so. If the carbon is tooooo thin a stone may go through it. But then you make the carbon simply thicker. Carbon is a very flexible material and especially hard to pierce through. Any composite is heavier. Nomex is just a flexible fiber, if we are not talking about clothing no benefit vs. CF.

No, it is either...less likely...some crazy material or just an additional layer of fiber glass because they made the carbon too thin.

[Owen.C93]

Redbull normally package their oil tank in the splitter. So I image the weird shape is to help with that.

However we know that getting a flexing splitter is very important, we've seen all sorts of solutions so far to achieve that, so I'm not sure how they are doing it.

[PhillipM]

No, it is either...less likely...some crazy material or just an additional layer of fiber glass because they made the carbon too thin.

Doubtful, they would patch it with carbon if it needed patching, not mess around with fibreglass, the wagons are full of pre-peg repair sections.

[Henk_v]

Hi, I'm reading this with great interest. My thanks to all for obtaining and sharing all these pictures.

I made an account just to chip in on the fibre panels in the undercut. To me it looks like nomex. Carbon is terrible at absorbing impact. Any debris on track, but also gravel could easily find its way at very high speed into the undercut. Its unusually blunt face can easily damage any panell there and panel damage might have a cascading effect. You can still race with some bargeboard damage, but if a puncure in this panel stops the airflow in your radiator, you are out of the race. My immediate assumption was an impact resistant laminate and i feel the conjecture here might overlook the (for me) obvious

I do not think so. If the carbon is tooooo thin a stone may go through it. But then you make the carbon simply thicker. Carbon is a very flexible material and especially hard to pierce through. Any composite is heavier. Nomex is just a flexible fiber, if we are not talking about clothing no benefit vs. CF.

No, it is either...less likely...some crazy material or just an additional layer of fiber glass because they made the carbon too thin.

I am very sorry, but I'd have to say you are mistaken. Nomex is a non-woven form of aramid (aromatic fibre) optimised for compressive strength and impact resistance, hence it's common use as a honeycomb material. You're right it's a brand name. Carbon is highly impact sensitive as the compressive strenghth is low and its modulus is high. A nonwoven material is very common in high tech laminates for impact sensitive area's and abrasion sensitive area's. For the latter it is sometimes used in its textile (non laminated) form as abrasion patches in clothing.

Technora is also commonly used for this purpose (an other aromatic fibre)

[Fab55]

porous aramid material metalloy it

[Henk_v]

Redbull normally package their oil tank in the splitter. So I image the weird shape is to help with that.

However we know that getting a flexing splitter is very important, we've seen all sorts of solutions so far to achieve that, so I'm not sure how they are doing it.

I would say the brown material is flexible. The brown streak near the bottom would be necessary to cope with the shear induced by the metallic edge of the tea tray when te splitter is flexed inward. Just my guess. I hope my opinion is not too strong for my 3rd post...

[Fab55]

It's alternative to schotters.
http://www.metalloyitaliana.it/tessuti/ ... aramidici/

[Tim.Wright]

Wouldn't the side view inclination be more apparent if you scaled the image width to height proportionately? The tires look like ovals and the x-axis is compressed relative to the y.

The way I have fitted the geometry (importing an image into an Excel diagram) means that the geometry of the wishbones are independent on how the picture is scaled. The picture and the 3D geometry are scaled together.

There is a white circle representing the tyre which is in the same reference system as the suspension link and it is also in oval in exactly the same way as the picture.

I can stretch the picture horizontally and then everything is square - but it doesn't change the location of the identified suspension hardpoints and the resulting calculation of anti-dive.

[godlameroso]

This bow looks screwed on, they can probably bolt on different configurations.

[organic]

Edit
Thanks for correction

[AeroDynamic]

Nice view of the RB18 from the rear after Perez had issues.
https://i.imgur.com/4CiCRoT.jpeg
Source: @tgruener on Twitter

It's the Haas VF22

[AeroDynamic]

Internal packaging peek of the Honda engine in 22

[timbo]

So the top forward suspension arms are actually a single continuous element? Can it be used as a spring itself?

And if true, what's that first semi-dependent front suspension of an F1 one car in like, ever?

[marcel171281]

So the top forward suspension arms are actually a single continuous element? Can it be used as a spring itself?

And if true, what's that first semi-dependent front suspension of an F1 one car in like, ever?

RB16(B), and I believe RB15 as well, had a similar continuous element: