Yeah i figured it wont work as quite as it is drawn, it was a 10 minute job. The whole point was to use the fuel weight as an input. However it can be done whoever wants the headache of figuring it out and analyzing it , be my guest.
Maybe I haven't been paying enough attention, but i don't think I have seen any team actually change the ride height during a pit stop. Can this be true ?
The only way to close a stupid question is to give a smart answer
pgj wrote:From what has been said the ride height variation from start to finish might be as low as 4mm or 5mm.
sure this is what we are talking about.not more than 5 mm
and of course with this much downforce available we are talking about the slower parts of the track mainly where downforce is not dominating everything.
pgj wrote:From what has been said the ride height variation from start to finish might be as low as 4mm or 5mm.
sure this is what we are talking about.not more than 5 mm
and of course with this much downforce available we are talking about the slower parts of the track mainly where downforce is not dominating everything.
True but only if you run very hard springs and that is the point, the RB does not.
So proud of it i put my name on it, though it's simplistic in how the shock itself operates.
No external power and directly linked to fuel weight, very simple and needs no adjustment by mechanics. The internals of the shock were simplified by me; i am not very knowledgeable on F1 shock technology so ignore that.
Tank and valve are lightly spring loaded. Realistically the needle valve should be implemented in a way that the shock force is not acting back on the tank piston. Maybe if it was threaded and moved via hydraulic motor motion and supported by torsional spring. This way only torque can move it and not pressure force.
edit: feel free to criticize and correct. It's only an initial thought, it's possibly not visually accurate in terms of holding a specific ride height, but the restriction could limit shock motion. Any F1 team should be able to make the proper corrections too.
Close ringo, now all that has to be done is to replace the moveable fuel tank with the whole sprung mass and redefine the gas pressure effect.
Then design it into a conventional sprung system using the hydrolic cylinders and make it work internaly with no clue externaly.
Simpuls tch
So proud of it i put my name on it, though it's simplistic in how the shock itself operates.
No external power and directly linked to fuel weight, very simple and needs no adjustment by mechanics. The internals of the shock were simplified by me; i am not very knowledgeable on F1 shock technology so ignore that.
Tank and valve are lightly spring loaded. Realistically the needle valve should be implemented in a way that the shock force is not acting back on the tank piston. Maybe if it was threaded and moved via hydraulic motor motion and supported by torsional spring. This way only torque can move it and not pressure force.
edit: feel free to criticize and correct. It's only an initial thought, it's possibly not visually accurate in terms of holding a specific ride height, but the restriction could limit shock motion. Any F1 team should be able to make the proper corrections too.
A nice idea, and elegant too.
A couple of points:
1. The fuel in the tank will slosh making the effect of the pressure on the cylinder supporting the tank vary as the car corners/accelerates/brakes. This would in theory have the effect of changing the rideheight as the car moves around (probably not brilliant in terms of safety?)
2. Brace yourselves for a wild suggestion: I understand that the tanks are made from a flexible material (I thought a rubber bladder until fairly recently, but I think I might have been wrong there) in order to avoid fuel vapour, so the tank essentially contracts as the fuel within it is used up. What if a pneumatic piston were to press on the flexible tank, and in turn that piston were linked to the dampers as per your suggestion. As the fuel is burnt off, the suspension would lower itself. This would have the side effect of pressurising (slightly) the fuel in the tank, perhaps allowing RB to run a smaller fuel pump - Perhaps Vettel's problems in Bahrain were as a result of the fuel being used more quickly than expected, meaning that the last 10% of fuel in the tank was no longer being pressurised, and so the fuel pump had to do all the work. That would certainly have made the engine run lean!?!?
I still think that there's something going on involving the exhausts, and that reworking the outlets was in order to serve a ride height solution. This could explain why RB have been cagey about exactly what went on both in Bahrain and in Melbourne.
The answer to the ultimate question, of life, the Universe and ... Everything?
So proud of it i put my name on it, though it's simplistic in how the shock itself operates.
No external power and directly linked to fuel weight, very simple and needs no adjustment by mechanics. The internals of the shock were simplified by me; i am not very knowledgeable on F1 shock technology so ignore that.
Tank and valve are lightly spring loaded. Realistically the needle valve should be implemented in a way that the shock force is not acting back on the tank piston. Maybe if it was threaded and moved via hydraulic motor motion and supported by torsional spring. This way only torque can move it and not pressure force.
edit: feel free to criticize and correct. It's only an initial thought, it's possibly not visually accurate in terms of holding a specific ride height, but the restriction could limit shock motion. Any F1 team should be able to make the proper corrections too.
I had a similar idea for such a system. Didn't bother to put "pen to paper" though. Well done.
If you are more fortunate than others, build a larger table not a taller fence.
I have made some back of the envelope numbers and I am going to put forward a theory. Then surely I will be ridiculized in one hour by the systems in the RB and the Ferrais being outlawed, but until then, let's leave reality aside and think crazy.
I think that the two fastest teams have no ride height control in their cars out of the ordinary, all that they have is more donwforce than the opposition.
My first point, the 160Kg of fuel are irrelevant when the car is stationary. I don't want my car to be fast while stationary (ta-da!), but in the corners and when braking. It is the ride height in the corners and while braking that is important.
Now I'll put forward some very rough numbers. Feel free to change them, they are not particualrly accurate, but I hope they are in the right ballpark:
A typical empty tank lap is something like 4Km and lasts something like 80sec. Average speed is 4000/80=50m/s or 180Km/h.
A full fuel lap is 5 seconds slower, now 85 seconds, resulting in 47.06m/s and 169.4Km/h.
I'll assume that at 180Km/h downforce is 1200Kg. Admitedly, just a ballpark. This speed is representative of many corners and braking areas, but not all.
Downforce does, in a first approximation, vary with the square of the speed. 169.4Km/h is 0.941*180; squared, downforce at 169.4Km/h is now 88.6% of the downforce at 180Km/h or 1063Kg.
Hence, at the beginning of the race, the vertical force pushing the car down is 1063Kg downforce + 160Kg fuel= 1223Kg.
At the end of the race or in qualifying, it is 2Kg of fuel (to make it back to the pits) + 1200Kg of downforce = 1202Kg.
I only get 21Kg of difference, not so dramatic.
If the downforce is a tad higher, the numbers would cancel out and your car handles beautifully the same at all fuel loads. With less downforce, the difference gets larger and one has a ride height issue, which surely contributes to reducing downforce even more.
Of course all of that is a crude approximation, and some corners are taken with much more speed, ejem, downforce! than others. Also, the average corner is surely slower thanthe average lap. My point is that current F1 cars must be close to a situation where fuel weight is not an issue, and maybe that the fastest teams simply have one problem less to deal with. Then the effect of carryng fuel around is only extra inertia, and not variations in ride height.
It would depend if there is a balance point available between DF handling and mechanical handling if the benefits of soft springs are to be realised.
The car would be set high enough to give sufficient suspension travel soft sprung and therefore give the ability to maximise mechanical handling at low speed. As the speed increases the soft springs would allow the DF to suck the car down to a lower ride height for high speed/DF corners.
The fact that they are already running a ride spring(third spring) should already allow them to run rather soft in individual corner spring, which is what you need to deal with bumps and curbs anyway. The ride height adjustment if its needed will be IMO for aero purpose in that you can run a low enough setup for qualifying to get your downforce, without making it scrapping badly when you are fat with fuel.
I don't know though it it needs to be the level of "load leveling" on the car. 160-200kg of fuel in the grand scheme of things really seems not that much when you consider the downforce level of the F1 car. Like hollus mentioned it probably won't factor in that greatly. Though if you are already running low to the ground, you probably will be worry about bottoming. If they are allowed to re-gas stuff, can't you run a parallel helper air spring with rate to support the extra fuel load(3-400psi on a relatively small diameter piston will probably be sufficient), parallel to your normal 3rd spring. Gas it in parc freme as you are allowed to do that. And once enough fuel had burnt off before the first stop, degas it during the stop(you are allowed to adjust stuff while the car is stationary no?), and you are back to normal ride rate. Or if you are not allow to adjust something, back to the whole time-release thing.
though it's simplistic in how the shock itself operates.
