Red Bull RB20

[Farnborough]

Maybe CoG height is not as important in this application as previously thought.

Quite often with a successful integration of an aspect that was previously accepted as just routine normality, in this case the statement of "lower Cog is better" (in other words, making use of something both against conventional thinking and establishing that as a positive within a rule set) has been proven to define a different route to solving a problem.

Free thinking, or other description often attached to this. Stepping out of tbe ordinary etc.

Is Cog being consideration turned upsidedown here ? It would appear to offer different characteristics by raising it and possibly influence the low speed dynamics by forcing more roll,, possibly. Then to effectively migrate downwards under the influence of the floor and wing downforce exceeding the Cog element as speed climbs. This possibly to enact a transient load condition to the tire by driving a notionally "floating" effect.

Also to consider roll centre etc in chassis dynamics.
"In summary, though derived from kinematics, the concept of a roll centre goes far beyond the location of suspension linkages. It represents a powerful tool to control the forces and load transfer across the car. This is only a narrow slice of the full picture, as in this article, we explored the roll centre in a 2-dimensional context. In reality, race car suspension is a 3-D system, and one can’t merely consider forces in isolation. The roll centre must be regarded alongside kinematics and compliance, migration of the roll centre, tire flex, and other factors. Hopefully, this information offers insight into the nature of load transfer and can help you strengthen the intuition required to tackle more complex vehicle dynamics problems in the future." and quoted from here https://www.racecar-engineering.com/tec ... ll-centre/ as part of the "solution" in this RB series of chassis and the performance envelope it delivers.

Of course, everyone knows within these design team what these things do or good design practice to build into their car. Casual observation may not understand the complexity of these shifts though.

There is though, a very clear and prominent difference in how this RB team brings their design to the competition which others don't appear to have in their command.

Breaking the mould is normally looking at the same problem, then to reconsider the outcome by possibly using what other's have seen as faults to bring a evolved and successful performance solution.

Its very clear that these tires need hugely focussed, very concise and repeatable application of the forces expected to be taken by them, all to obvious effect in this chassis, while still,a mystery to their competitors.

[Martin Keene]

With the Formula 1 paddock being a hot-bed of research, teams often figure out their rivals’ innovations in time, but the period of new cars being released brings about uncertainty while new designs are pored over.

“Well, I would deeply love to be invited into the Red Bull garage and to take the engine cover off and delve around under those sort of ‘snorkelly’ things,” Allison told Sky Sports F1’s Ted Kravitz when asked if any features from the paddock have surprised him this season.

“There’s definitely a different approach being taken there because what glimpses you see of their cooling system, it’s definitely not light and svelte.

“So they’re doing that for a reason, and I’d love to know what that reason is, but we haven’t figured it out yet.”

https://www.planetf1.com/news/mercedes- ... 20-feature

video here

Interesting. Basically saying there is a weight penalty to that cooling system, so there has to be a benefit elsewhere, which must be aero.

[Jibbyslap]

I really doubt Newey or Wache or whoever pulls the strings would have supported more inlets for a higher engine mode. I'm not sure that ever pays off and doesn't really make sense to me......

Without having seen the Japan car, I can't say anything, but I can only assume that the Japan update somehow incorporates some smaller sidepods. That would be the logical result of increased centerline cooling. That still doesn't resolve the "s-duct" inlet question, if it's even an s-duct.

I couldn't agree more. It seems the only good reason to move all that cooling from the sidepod to the centerline and add all the additional weight of RedBull's sophisticated cooling solution (most of which is higher up on the car and thus negatively affects COG) is that there's a significant aero benefit from shrinking the sidepods. My conjecture is that there's truth in the reports that RedBull has found gains from Mercedes' W13 and W14 concept, namely, using a SIS wing fairing to generate the requisite pressure gradients to keep the front tire wake outboard without the need of larger sidepods, and the smaller sidepods thus allowing more air make its way to the back of the car, thereby increasing DF. Of course, smaller sidepods also entails moving more of the cooling to centerline. Mercedes presumably (but mistakenly) saw enough aero gains from their particular concept that they were willing to go so far as to move the driver forward in the car in order to create enough space to get the requisite centerline cooling in the back of the car.

Unwilling to make this compromise, RedBull has instead devised their clever solution of using Mercedes' other concept but tweaking it by enlarging the diameter of the engine cover barrels in order to cram some of the centerline cooling (radiators) in both barrels and feed them by adding inlets into the barrels near the halo. While this is a rather ingenius solution (presumably better than moving the driver forward to create more space), RedBull are, nonetheless, making serious compromises by using this cooling solution; I suggest the only plausible explanation is that RedBull too has found that a SIS wing fairing concept, along with the smaller sidepods it enables, produces aero gains that justify these compromises in cooling (viz., increased weight and higher COG).

As many others have already pointed out, the RB20's current cooling setup is not compatible with the W13's so-called "zeropod" solution, not to mention that it would be such a significant conceptual departure from the design of the RB20 and its predecessors. My guess is that what we are going to see is more like the W14b (but with a shark mouth inlet under the fairing and the significant RB20 undercut) than the W13, but really I think we are going to see a design that is RedBull's own blending of a SIS wing fairing concept with their existing concept, which they've been evolving over the last 2 years. The RB20's switch to their overbite design and the shark mouth inlet clearly lends itself to be transformed into a SIS wing fairing concept (Note how, from above, the most forward facing part of the overbite looks a good bit like the W14 SIS wing fairing and also note how the SIS in the RB20 is already placed high up fairly close to the inlet). The RB20's overbite design also allows for more clean air to flow over the top of the sidepod, which would presumably be further improved with the SIS wing fairing concept and a tighter sidepod (i.e., less surface area on the top surface of the sidepod and better sculpting for movement of the clean air). My guess is that what we are going to see in Japan is RedBulls' own version of the SIS wing faring concept melded with the RedBull concept we see on the RB20 and we've seen developing over 2 seasons.

Pure speculation, but if I'm right, the bottom of the RB20's sidepod won't change much, but the sidepod will taper in at the front to allow for the wing to stick out (not entirely dissimilar to the MCL38)--also note that the RB20's existing sidepod radiators appear to allow for such a taper at the front--and the top outer portion of the sidepod will be much tighter to the radiators; they will lose the more vertical aspect of the outer portion of the sidepod and be more curved. It might look something like this.
(I can't figure out how to make the image appear in this post)
https://imgur.com/a/NdvyCBB

Mod edit: fixed the image for you, is the .png that is linked below:

[Rinde]

In essence, the RB car has grown 4 new inlets, an increase in bulk of the engine cover, and an arguably slight larger roll hoop inlet in exchange for a fairly negligible change to the sidepod size. Unless they are now mining for bitcoins under the engine cover, this makes no sense.

So there's something more than cooling taking place imo. I like James Allison's take. This no longer looks svelte, it looks onerous. So there has to be a very good reason. I don't know what that is but want to understand.

This has been nagging me and I thought I'd look at it from a different route. What if the Honda engine's limitation was cooling and what we all thought about the DRS overtakes last season was the engine unleashed. Maybe the aerodynamics team's main agenda this season was to build a package that could maintain it's aerodynamic advantages of last season while curbing the cooling limitations of the engine. I know this is an outside-the-box thought, but.........

[f1isgood]

I think Red Bull will shrink their side-pod in a way that preserves the downwash and also increases the undercut.
I also wonder what the effect of this mini revolution be on the suspensions and their ability to handle load. It might be interesting to see if Red Bull produce too much downforce this way. Also curious to see if the RB bleed excessive downforce with their floor and suspension theory works out if they don't bounce around.

[matteosc]

Maybe CoG height is not as important in this application as previously thought.

Quite often with a successful integration of an aspect that was previously accepted as just routine normality, in this case the statement of "lower Cog is better" (in other words, making use of something both against conventional thinking and establishing that as a positive within a rule set) has been proven to define a different route to solving a problem.

Free thinking, or other description often attached to this. Stepping out of tbe ordinary etc.

Is Cog being consideration turned upsidedown here ? It would appear to offer different characteristics by raising it and possibly influence the low speed dynamics by forcing more roll,, possibly. Then to effectively migrate downwards under the influence of the floor and wing downforce exceeding the Cog element as speed climbs. This possibly to enact a transient load condition to the tire by driving a notionally "floating" effect.

Also to consider roll centre etc in chassis dynamics.
"In summary, though derived from kinematics, the concept of a roll centre goes far beyond the location of suspension linkages. It represents a powerful tool to control the forces and load transfer across the car. This is only a narrow slice of the full picture, as in this article, we explored the roll centre in a 2-dimensional context. In reality, race car suspension is a 3-D system, and one can’t merely consider forces in isolation. The roll centre must be regarded alongside kinematics and compliance, migration of the roll centre, tire flex, and other factors. Hopefully, this information offers insight into the nature of load transfer and can help you strengthen the intuition required to tackle more complex vehicle dynamics problems in the future." and quoted from here https://www.racecar-engineering.com/tec ... ll-centre/ as part of the "solution" in this RB series of chassis and the performance envelope it delivers.

Of course, everyone knows within these design team what these things do or good design practice to build into their car. Casual observation may not understand the complexity of these shifts though.

There is though, a very clear and prominent difference in how this RB team brings their design to the competition which others don't appear to have in their command.

Breaking the mould is normally looking at the same problem, then to reconsider the outcome by possibly using what other's have seen as faults to bring a evolved and successful performance solution.

Its very clear that these tires need hugely focussed, very concise and repeatable application of the forces expected to be taken by them, all to obvious effect in this chassis, while still,a mystery to their competitors.

I would be careful in mixing the concepts of roll center and center of gravity. The amount of rolling motion is not to be confused with the amount of lateral load transfer generated during turning.
You can achieve the amount of roll (angle) that you desire tuning suspension's stiffness and geometry (i.e. changing the position of the roll center.

The higher the center of gravity, the higher the lateral load transfer, which is something that you want to minimize because of tires considerations.

The way that cars are built is a compromise between a lot of aspects, including aerodynamics. Optimal solutions may require to increase the cog height to achieve other effects, but increasing the cog height is not a benefit by itself.

[Farnborough]

I feel my point has been missed in response.

We can be comfortably assured that all of the technical teams know these things and are fully able to enact those (conventional concept) within their design.

To state that point I'm making.... conventional thinking, overlaid sometimes with "lazy" reasoning, can and does sometimes give a very normal and ordinary response thats entirely predicted in its outcome. An average result ftom not challenging the conventional, in other words.

Critical examination of that recognised very CONVENTION and following scrutiny of the most fine detail MAY bring an approach that others will,dismiss as potential failure, but give a gateway to change firstly the performance and secondly the progression in thinking about this....possibly the new normal expressed within these overall technical limitations imposed through rules and tire type.

Red Bull design team very clearly are outperforming their competitors with this series of chassis , that may be through not rigidly confining themselves by very staid acceptance of the normal.

[matteosc]

I feel my point has been missed in response.

We can be comfortably assured that all of the technical teams know these things and are fully able to enact those (conventional concept) within their design.

To state that point I'm making.... conventional thinking, overlaid sometimes with "lazy" reasoning, can and does sometimes give a very normal and ordinary response thats entirely predicted in its outcome. An average result ftom not challenging the conventional, in other words.

Critical examination of that recognised very CONVENTION and following scrutiny of the most fine detail MAY bring an approach that others will,dismiss as potential failure, but give a gateway to change firstly the performance and secondly the progression in thinking about this....possibly the new normal expressed within these overall technical limitations imposed through rules and tire type.

Red Bull design team very clearly are outperforming their competitors with this series of chassis , that may be through not rigidly confining themselves by very staid acceptance of the normal.

Your point is well taken and mostly agreed upon, but there is a difference between conventions and physical principles.

Accepting an higher cog because it benefits the whole car does mean that an higher cog is beneficial in that specific case, but it does not mean that an higher cog is beneficial by itself. My point was only about this.

[venkyhere]

"We mustn't miss the forest for the trees"

A weight shift of 50kg from left to right, at a height of 50cm is worth (50-(-50))x50 = 5000 kg-cm of lateral moment that the chassis has to fight.

A weight shift of 45kg from left to right, at a height of 55cm is worth (45-(-45))x55 = 4950 kg-cm of lateral moment that the chassis has to fight.

CoG is 10% higher in the 2nd case, but the weight that is getting shifted is 10% lesser. Still the 2nd case is better in terms of chassis balance.

[matteosc]

"We mustn't miss the forest for the trees"

A weight shift of 50kg from left to right, at a height of 50cm is worth (50-(-50))x50 = 5000 kg-cm of lateral moment that the chassis has to fight.

A weight shift of 45kg from left to right, at a height of 55cm is worth (45-(-45))x55 = 4950 kg-cm of lateral moment that the chassis has to fight.

CoG is 10% higher in the 2nd case, but the weight that is getting shifted is 10% lesser. Still the 2nd case is better in terms of chassis balance.

Yes, but the car is 10% lighter. in the second case...

[AR3-GP]

It's never straight forward. The driver has to drive it. The true benefit of any change depends also on the perception of balance by the driver. So a strictly mathematical weight reduction or increase might make a car faster or slower in theory, but it's balance may be affected in a way that the driver does not like so they are not able to go faster.

That's probably not the case with the RB20, but just a general comment.

[matteosc]

It's never straight forward. The driver has to drive it. The true benefit of any change depends also on the perception of balance by the driver. So a strictly mathematical weight reduction or increase might make a car faster or slower in theory, but it's balance may be affected in a way that the driver does not like so they are not able to go faster.

That's probably not the case with the RB20, but just a general comment.

Absolutely, but drivers (and humans in general) are sensitive to movements (actually, accelerations), not to loads. You can make a car move more or less with the same load transfers. The current generation of cars is stiffer and that is something problematic from a drivability point of view.

[venkyhere]

"We mustn't miss the forest for the trees"

A weight shift of 50kg from left to right, at a height of 50cm is worth (50-(-50))x50 = 5000 kg-cm of lateral moment that the chassis has to fight.

A weight shift of 45kg from left to right, at a height of 55cm is worth (45-(-45))x55 = 4950 kg-cm of lateral moment that the chassis has to fight.

CoG is 10% higher in the 2nd case, but the weight that is getting shifted is 10% lesser. Still the 2nd case is better in terms of chassis balance.

Yes, but the car is 10% lighter. in the second case...

Need not be, strictly speaking. Both cars can have same weight, with the 2nd one having more nose ballast and a heavier gearbox, such that the 'within wheelbase' weight (that which actually can be considered to laterally 'shift') remains less than the 1st one, whilst also having it's 'within wheelbase' CoG higher than the 1st one.
(don't read into the 10% difference numbers, that was just to convey the point).

[vorticism]

Re: CoG & cooling comments. Someone should find two good front views of RB19 & RB20 and compare the total inlet areas. RB18/19 also had significant centerline cooling, to the extent that the CoG of RB20's centerline rads might not be much higher, if at all; rather we can more surely say it has been shifted forward. Whether that was a weight distribution choice or aero choice I won't say.

As dedicated ducts, the shoulder/halo inlets should be helpfully tunable. The inlet scoops and outlet louvers of said duct could be altered per circuit demands. I'd guess those two coolers make up 5-10% of total liquid cooling; altering that with a simple louver panel change probably is useful vs. changing an entire engine cover (cannon exit).

Further to this point about easy alterations: the sidepod leading edge is now a single thin blade shape. That's another relatively small part of which multiple versions could be manufactured. Cost effective aero tuning track to track.

RB19:


RB20 & Merc:

W11 or 12 (similar to 13 & 14 installation)

You can see said plugs nicely here.
https://i.imgur.com/dKEYU1x.jpeg

+1 Thanks. There seem to be no hoses attached to the plugs for the vertical inlets, so, only acting as plugs.

[matteosc]

"We mustn't miss the forest for the trees"

A weight shift of 50kg from left to right, at a height of 50cm is worth (50-(-50))x50 = 5000 kg-cm of lateral moment that the chassis has to fight.

A weight shift of 45kg from left to right, at a height of 55cm is worth (45-(-45))x55 = 4950 kg-cm of lateral moment that the chassis has to fight.

CoG is 10% higher in the 2nd case, but the weight that is getting shifted is 10% lesser. Still the 2nd case is better in terms of chassis balance.

Yes, but the car is 10% lighter. in the second case...

Need not be, strictly speaking. Both cars can have same weight, with the 2nd one having more nose ballast and a heavier gearbox, such that the 'within wheelbase' weight (that which actually can be considered to laterally 'shift') remains less than the 1st one, whilst also having it's 'within wheelbase' CoG higher than the 1st one.
(don't read into the 10% difference numbers, that was just to convey the point).

Sorry, but that is not how it works. The whole mass of the car contributes to the rolling moment. You can just "ignore" what is outside the wheelbase, it is not disconnected by the car.