The relative benefits of a pull rod suspension

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Im expecting the W02 to be a BGP001 look alike car with a few tweaks.

Thats my personal expecatation.

Interesting that. May I ask on what basis you are basing that on?(sorry to sound condescending, Im genuinely intrigued).
The BGP was very good but the concept was very DDD dependant. With that gone, I see them going toward the Red Bull concept allowing cleaner air flow around the rear(push rod vs pull rod) as well as having a more pronounced nose than the BGP001(but probably lower than the W01).

The ban of the Blade roll hoop will probably also affect the teams decision in running a more pronounced sharkfin(just an addition to an earlier guess).

[dren]

What benefit will a pullrod front suspension yield?

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

@ ESPI
Yes, I see where you are coming from.

What stands out is your prediction on the pullrod front suspension. It hasnt been done since Arrows in 2001, and apparently the CofG benefit of Pullrod fronts offset against the aero benefit of a raised nose does not warrant the Pullrod fronts.

...as the raised nose aerodynamic concept took hold, teams found the gains from a high nose offset the CofG gain of pull rod suspension.

Going the with pullrod front and rear is pretty spectacular if they do. I can see why they would do it. The minimum weight of cars without the driver has increased, as well as the addition of KERS for this year. So CofG plays a marginally bigger role this year, and is somthing that plagued Mercedes throughout 2010.
In addition, their nose concept wasnt working as well as had been hoped(quoting some posters here, but I think it was evidently not working as hoped).

Adds a spin on things compared to what I think will happen!

*Edit

I remember when RBR’s pull rod suspension was first introduced and virtually all designers were giving push rod suspensions a small stand alone advantage. Looking back to everything that RBR have done, it’s all about the presentation of the air at the back. The pull rod suspension, the glove fitting engine covers and the exhaust. Everything Newey has done in this area is not an advantage in itself, but the ability to give exceptional levels of down force without the benefit of a DDD. You only have to look at the performance of the RBR against the Brawn to realise different forces were at work here.

This year we had every team copying the RBR nose, next year I can see the whole hog getting copied because of the advantage this will bring.

[marcush.]

to me the pull rod is not just a CoG thing.
Push rod is a lot easier to package and just look how far monocoque designers have gone in simplification even putting the rockerarms flat on top of the tub..
fully underlining their view that suspension is not so important...
To put all this low into the car is a hell of a job but very rewarding if you get it all sorted + nowadays the drawback of access (for adjustment) is less than in the days gone as the teams do not really fiddle around with settings anymore.
To me the Aero factor of that thick pushrod in an area of divergence(suspension wishbones and steering trackrodsthere as well ) is a major reason to look for something else and pull rod has potential to save some crosssection .

As the king of packaging is Newey I fear he is the first to show up with it.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

My only reservation with pull rod(other than packaging which you stated Marcush) would be the ease of which to set up the car.
When a quick set up change is needed, doesnt it pose a bigger problem?

[ringo]

I think Newey would have done it last year if it was better.
Looking at the steep control arm angle design of modern suspensions, the pull rod angle would almost be horizontal, going from the top of the upright to the chassis, and the rocker arm and vertical plane damper layout wouldn't change much from the pushrod one anyway.
I don't see the need for it.

What i must say though, is that the Brawn design was the better for 2009, it doesn't mean that same approach would be best for 2011.
The W01 was just as chunky as the brawn, it would be best the have a new from the ground up design. The Brawn was brute DDD downforce and Mercedes engine, and some interesting midbody aero, but i have a feeling it was not as refined in other little areas. It's still team honda, and those guys were never as good at refinements as the big teams.

The W02 could look like an earth dreams honda, for all we know. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

In the final interview for 2010 at Yas Marina, Brawn did say that for the W02 they had some "exciting developments"(not gospel, just what most honchos would say I guess, but it was the way he said it).
The Pullrod front could be just that, with some clever geometery, alot of its pitfalls could be overcome.

But I think he may be talking about the moveable wing and the grey area surrounding it. Montezemolo has already warned that some teams will push the limit of "interpretation", so we may have another DDD controversy again.

[wesley123]

couldn't you just make a bent pullrod so you have the high angle reaching the tub to drive it correctly? I am far from an suspensions guy, but I can understand you want an angle to drive as far from the 90degree as possible, maybe an bent pullrod would help this?

[Tim.Wright]

No bending the pull rod wont change anything. Its only the two end points which define the incindence angles.

There is no way to fit a pull rod on the front of an F1 car

I don't know why people are constantly pushing this idea. What is the supposed advantage of it?? Nothing. I see only disadvantages in this area.

Tim

[marcush.]

Funny enough all teams ,including (!) RedBulls Newey played down the advantages of Pullrod at the rear...isn´t it wonderful that three years on suddenly all teams NEED to have it?
I´m quite sure not many pushrods will be seen as a rearsuspension layout with front running teams.

And look at the awkward angles Newey is using...there is definetly a lot of compromising with the vectoring of forces ....and I would think the rear has a lot more travel to manage than the front..
so it comes down to arrive at some installation stiffness with a front pullrod.
and why not angle them backwards into the area of the splitter And have just the two lever arms (connecting pullrod and damper at a leverage)under the drivers legs...not much in terms of imagination needed to place all the hardpoints low really low ...and still have the splitter area fully available.that is some 6 kg of mass placed a lot lower in the car (2torsionbars,2levers,2dampers)and opening new possibilities to reposition other components in that limited space in the tub ..

[Blackout]

Are you sure Merc will use pull rod suspensions on the rear ? I heard Brawn said they abandoned that idea... but I do not remember if he was talking about the W02 or the W01...

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

blackout

It was one of the solutions they looked at for the W01, but ditched it for the more conservative approach of pushrod suspension. They would have gone ahead with pullrods but Brawn said the strain on his team to get it right first time was too much.

[ringo]

I think the interim car will be a science lab on wheels.
They might chop out parts of the car such as fuel tank volume to house equipment.
Or have multiple gear boxes, pull/push rod,(is that allowed before the season starts?). Basically a "Mr. Potato head" car.

[Raptor22]

Funny enough all teams ,including (!) RedBulls Newey played down the advantages of Pullrod at the rear...isn´t it wonderful that three years on suddenly all teams NEED to have it?
I´m quite sure not many pushrods will be seen as a rearsuspension layout with front running teams.

And look at the awkward angles Newey is using...there is definetly a lot of compromising with the vectoring of forces ....and I would think the rear has a lot more travel to manage than the front..
so it comes down to arrive at some installation stiffness with a front pullrod.
and why not angle them backwards into the area of the splitter And have just the two lever arms (connecting pullrod and damper at a leverage)under the drivers legs...not much in terms of imagination needed to place all the hardpoints low really low ...and still have the splitter area fully available.that is some 6 kg of mass placed a lot lower in the car (2torsionbars,2levers,2dampers)and opening new possibilities to reposition other components in that limited space in the tub ..

Pullrod suspension on the front is impractical because it the space it occupies would require the drivers legs to be further elevated. At the moment they are at a practical limit for the height of the pedals ie the front of the monocoque because the drivers legs and feet go numb if raised further. Its about ergonomics.
So unless there is an aerodynamic reason to keep the nose low and the tub tall it makes no sense to package the suspension this way.
There may be an advantage if the lower wishbone members and the pullrod connecting strut create a flat surface just behind the front wing as it could be used to clean up airflow to the splitter but I'm just speculating. At the moment the preference is to keep as much bits out of the airflow immediately behind the front wing as possible, unless the bits are reshaping airflow that is..

[marcush.]

Let´s wait and see.I know it´s outrageous .