Centre of gravity height

[orjanbye]

Approximately how high is the centre of gravity for a Formula 1 car?
I know this is not a constant exact value, but it would be nice to know something.
I have never found any info on this. I only know Max has proposed to set a minimum value for the new 2008 technical rules.
Probably the lack of info is because it is not so easy to measure.

I have the old F1 sim GP4, and in this game the value is set to 245 mm. Possibly this corresponds to an Arrows 2001 car, because the makers got some help from the Arrows team.
But the teams sure must have made some progress since then...

[Lukin]

I heard the non-suspended COG is higher than the suspended COG. If that's the case then less than 170 mm.

[timmyt]

I have heard the same information. Have you seen where the cylinder head of an f1 engine is? Its pretty much on the floor. As the previous post suggested, you have to be looking at sub 170-150mm.

MrT

[persovik]

Wouldn't the non-suspended COG be reasonably close to the tire radius, ie. appr. 320mm?

[RH1300S]

To be honest you need Pedro De La Rosa's email address to find the truth...........

The driver makes up a fairly large lump of that weight and sits relatively high. Your head is pretty heavy. I read once that the human CofG sits somewhere around the kidneys - which actually would be decently low in an F1 car. But if the legs are raised (they are), this will lift it up a bit.

Many computer games measure the CofG height from a reference plane (usually the underside of the vehicle).

I think it is more normal to measure the CofG from the ground, so add whatever ground clearance there is.

Trying to imagine where the CofG is, 245mm from a reference plane wouldn't sound too unreasonable. Quite possibly lower these days. But even 245mm is pretty low (not much more than a piece of A4 paper short side up - stick that on the floor and consider how low it is! ).

Suspended CofG would bear no relationship to the wheel radius, but I suppose the non-suspended does.

[Carlos]

Let's introduce some math:

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/cg.html

[modbaraban]

Many computer games measure the CofG height from a reference plane (usually the underside of the vehicle).

Exampels:

The "reference plane" is equal to the ride height.

CGHeight=0.2408 // height of body mass (excluding fuel) above reference plane

The "reference plane" is equal to the ride height.

CGHeight=0.1568 // height of body mass (excluding fuel) above reference plane

Quite a change!