Ramifications and speculation around TD045 and how it affects team operations

[mzso]

Sitting at a terminal running full CFD on your F1 design is what the TD is about - and it's especially about not doing so at somewhere that isn't the F1 team's bit of the factory.

When does CFD become "full"? I'm quite sure I saw CFD graphics on this forum, which I strongly suspect wasn't as sophisticated as what the F1 teams do.

So what if a bunch of engineers are gifted high performance PCs or such. When is it too much?

[Just_a_fan]

Sitting at a terminal running full CFD on your F1 design is what the TD is about - and it's especially about not doing so at somewhere that isn't the F1 team's bit of the factory.

When does CFD become "full"? I'm quite sure I saw CFD graphics on this forum, which I strongly suspect wasn't as sophisticated as what the F1 teams do.

So what if a bunch of engineers are gifted high performance PCs or such. When is it too much?

I guess that's for the FIA to define, really.

Would you consider team staff doing "off book" work to that sort of fidelity to be breaching the resource cap? If not, what would be "bad behaviour" in that context?

[chrisc90]

So a merc engineer uses LMH & LMDh FIA regulations which use ground effect at home and this is ok.

Red bull uses a RB17 which uses ground effect and this isn’t ok.

I see how it works now.

I guess this Merc engineer doesn’t learn anything that’s transferable or of any use in F1 ground effect either then.

[ValeVida46]

So a merc engineer uses LMH & LMDh FIA regulations which use ground effect at home and this is ok.

Red bull uses a RB17 which uses ground effect and this isn’t ok.

I see how it works now.

I guess this Merc engineer doesn’t learn anything that’s transferable or of any use in F1 ground effect either then.

Man with CATIA software on home PC for 100 bucks a month does not equal 150m dollar ground effect hypercar project.


From Red Bull themselves, it will feature advanced ground effect technology and F1 derived engineering solutions.
Over 100 staff are involved in the process and actually work on the project on the same premises.

Can you not see the monstrous chasm in this false equivalence?

[chrisc90]

Whether your using 100 dollar tools or 150million dollar tools - there is one important common factor….. the person inputting the data. The tools are only as good as the person using them.

[Cs98]

So a merc engineer uses LMH & LMDh FIA regulations which use ground effect at home and this is ok.

Red bull uses a RB17 which uses ground effect and this isn’t ok.

I see how it works now.

I guess this Merc engineer doesn’t learn anything that’s transferable or of any use in F1 ground effect either then.

Man with CATIA software on home PC for 100 bucks a month does not equal 150m dollar ground effect hypercar project.


From Red Bull themselves, it will feature advanced ground effect technology and F1 derived engineering solutions.
Over 100 staff are involved in the process and actually work on the project on the same premises.

Can you not see the monstrous chasm in this false equivalence?

$100 a month? More like tens of thousands for a license and annual maintenance costs on top of that. Can't use a discounted student price when talking about commercial use. Those "low" prices are just a bait to get people to learn the software so they'll be inclined to use it later in their professional life, at full price. And I'm sure he designed that piece of kit on a run of the mill "home PC"

[ValeVida46]

$100 a month? More like tens of thousands for a license and annual maintenance costs on top of that. Can't use a discounted student price when talking about commercial use. Those "low" prices are just a bait to get people to learn the software so they'll be inclined to use it later in their professional life, at full price. And I'm sure he designed that piece of kit on a run of the mill "home PC"

Wrong.

Student Package for $60 a month


I posted a link in my previous post. But for your benefit here's another.

https://www.3ds.com/edu/education/stude ... /catia-3dx

And you can customise a PC to do intensive work at stupid levels fairly cheaply. I have an Ice river KS1 miner that crushes anything non dedicated costing 10 times as much.
Besides that, nobody bats an eye lid if these guys have 5k drones, online racing rigs, or anything like that.

[Just_a_fan]

And I'm sure he designed that piece of kit on a run of the mill "home PC"

Drawing a rules compliant set of bodywork is way less intensive than running CFD on an entire car or even just a decent section of a car. One can be done on a domestic-scale lap top. The other simply can't.

[chrisc90]

And I'm sure he designed that piece of kit on a run of the mill "home PC"

Drawing a rules compliant set of bodywork is way less intensive than running CFD on an entire car or even just a decent section of a car. One can be done on a domestic-scale lap top. The other simply can't.

More than capable. People on here post CFD of full cars. No half, full cars.

Don’t forget there might be online CFD aswell which have much more processing power.

[Cs98]

$100 a month? More like tens of thousands for a license and annual maintenance costs on top of that. Can't use a discounted student price when talking about commercial use. Those "low" prices are just a bait to get people to learn the software so they'll be inclined to use it later in their professional life, at full price. And I'm sure he designed that piece of kit on a run of the mill "home PC"

Wrong.

Student Package for $60 a month


I posted a link in my previous post. But for your benefit here's another.

https://www.3ds.com/edu/education/stude ... /catia-3dx

And you can customise a PC to do intensive work at stupid levels fairly cheaply. I have an Ice river KS1 miner that crushes anything non dedicated costing 10 times as much.
Besides that, nobody bats an eye lid if these guys have 5k drones, online racing rigs, or anything like that.

But he's not a student. And the student pricing is not reflective of the advanced nature of the program (for the reasons I outlined earlier). He will have to pay (or rather Merc will have to pay) full price, which is in the 10s of thousands for a license.

And you can customise a PC to do intensive work at stupid levels fairly cheaply. I have an Ice river KS1 miner that crushes anything non dedicated costing 10 times as much.

Not exactly a "run of the mill home PC", but I take your point. However, the rapid advancement of computing is not an argument in your favour. It just goes to show anyone with a skill-set, a CAD program, and a fast computer can do work from anywhere.

[ValeVida46]

But he's not a student. And the student pricing is not reflective of the advanced nature of the program (for the reasons I outlined earlier). He will have to pay (or rather Merc will have to pay) full price, which is in the 10s of thousands for a license

How do you know he isn't a a part time student and what precludes him from learning more and experimenting to further his own personal growth outside of work? Maybe he takes advantage of his Cranfield university pass, because he doesn't want to pay top rate?
As the comparison of a multi million dollar hypercar project with direct F1 tech transfer, to a guy who has a hobby of creating surface design models is abhorrent conflation.
It should also be noted, he was using this software since 2019 preceding his employment at Mercedes


He has a clear and defined hobby of creating surface design cad models that utilises CATIA.
Here's some of his ideas dating back to 2019.
https://grabcad.com/library/thunderbird-1-2
It's literally all there if anyone can be bothered with the tiniest bit of referencing.

However, the rapid advancement of computing is not an argument in your favour. It just goes to show anyone with a skill-set, a CAD program, and a fast computer can do work from anywhere.

An Apple A16 bionic can be configured to do some crazy stuff. The A17 will double this according to geekbench(jury's out on that). So we could have reach the point where anyone in a technical role in F1 won't be allowed a PC or a new smart phone.
Of course this goes to show how utterly unreasonable it is to compare something like Mr Vella, with timestamped history of what he does, to Project RB17.

[dans79]

Whether your using 100 dollar tools or 150million dollar tools - there is one important common factor….. the person inputting the data. The tools are only as good as the person using them.

The person isn't doing basic math, the software and hardware are just as important as the person. The software has to produce data accurately and efficiently, so that the user can interpret the results and make decisions based on data produced.

More than capable. People on here post CFD of full cars. No half, full cars.

CFD isn't a simple thing. The people that post results here and have a true grasp on what they are doing, outline the constraints they ran tests under.

For example:

1. how fine is the mesh used. for example was a run done with a 5 million cell mesh, or a 500 million cell mesh. A course mesh will run orders of magnitude faster, but can be significantly less accurate. not to mention the relationship between mesh size and run time is not linear.
2. how large is the volume of the mesh. If it is to small, you won't get accurate results. for example does the mesh extend out from the car 1 meter or 10 meters. Note that a larger volume requires a finer mesh (more cells) to maintain accuracy.
3. How good is the underlying formulas/algorithms used by the application. some applications use simplifications to decrease run time. Depending on the scenario you are testing the simplification might be fine, or it might generate garbage data.
4. How many scenario did the user run. one run in a strait line at constant speed is pretty much useless. Teams do a large number of runs at different speeds, as well as yaw and role and maybe pitch angles.
5. etc etc

A good analogy I thought of while writing this response was air cargo. You can use a Piper Super Cub to carry just shy of a 800 lbs of cargo. A C5 Galaxy can carry 281,000 lbs of cargo. If all you look as is the cargo capacity, the Piper Cub can deliver just as much cargo as the Galaxy given enough time to make all the extra trips. When you step back and look at the whole real world picture, the Piper Cub is a joke because it really can't handle more than mail and small consumer goods.

Don’t forget there might be online CFD aswell which have much more processing power.

Yes, and if that was what the individual is doing he should be punished/fired. If the team is intentionally having him do it, the team should be punished!

[dans79]

An Apple A16 bionic can be configured to do some crazy stuff. The A17 will double this according to geekbench(jury's out on that).

Imo, all the consumer grade stuff is a joke compared to a properly specced server center, when you are talking about real computational number crunching.

[ValeVida46]

An Apple A16 bionic can be configured to do some crazy stuff. The A17 will double this according to geekbench(jury's out on that).

Imo, all the consumer grade stuff is a joke compared to a properly specced server center, when you are talking about real computational number crunching.

Agreed.
Running CATIA is really pretty easy with min specs of an Intel i5k with 8gb memory and a graphics card being listed as "beneficial but not necessary". Again pretty easy to reference this stuff but some are insistent you need a monster set up to run it. Simply false.
I would also hazard a guess that most F1 teams have staff with a version of CATIA running from home. Especially given COVID restrictions etc.

The implied nefarious action is also suboptimal for any team to have individuals running separate systems for "gain".

Data can be traced easily on input basis due to FIA checks, and if this was a systemic approach by any team there would be multiple staff doing this leading to fingerprints being left everywhere. Covering up those fingerprints would need a dedicated IT department to sift through processing allowance for each individual that brought ideas, to see if it can be squeezed into the legal allowance without being caught in the act. That is expensive and time consuming and risks all sorts of implications.

There is a way around the above. Just start a 100m+ hypercar project.

[Just_a_fan]

And I'm sure he designed that piece of kit on a run of the mill "home PC"

Drawing a rules compliant set of bodywork is way less intensive than running CFD on an entire car or even just a decent section of a car. One can be done on a domestic-scale lap top. The other simply can't.

More than capable. People on here post CFD of full cars. No half, full cars.

Don’t forget there might be online CFD aswell which have much more processing power.

Sorry, no one here is doing whole cars to F1 standards on a lap top. And if someone were able to do it, and did it without booking time to the F1 car and it's allotted resources, the team would be in breach.

Making use of online processing power that isn't part of the F1 team's allotted resources would be a breach of the resource cap.

Doing these things is what TD045 is trying to prevent.