The relative benefits of a pull rod suspension

[myurr]

Looks like Williams have also been able to go with a pull rod rear end - further showing that it's ludicrous to suggest that Ferrari couldn't have developed such a system if they thought it beneficial.

[myurr]

And now Mercedes as well...

[PlatinumZealot]

diddii diddi ddiidii ~ Another one pulls the rod!

diddi diddii diddi ~ another one pulls the rod!



I feel so good right now. =D>

Should have bet some Eruos on this.

[ringo]

I said stay cool!!

but the fight lives on.


pull rod is winning the fight for the teams attention.

It's a no brainer!!
Copying is a part of F1. Evolve or die.

Ferrari too passionate and set in their ways. But at least it resulted in an evolution of push rod.

Pull rod has the advantage as seen by the williams car. It was truly a no brainer by all teams bar ferrari. It is clear to see the benefits.


Whoever else stated that CoG is not so important need to look on the williams gearbox and think about what they were saying.

These benefits can't guarantee race wins, but they lay a solid foundation and keeps the teams using pull rod ahead of the game. There is nothing a pushrod team can do that a pull rod team can't do. All things being equal a pull rod car will have an aero and CoG advantage. Anything ferrari do with their car can be reseached and copied. The same can't be said of ferrari copying a pull rod team to develope their car. Push rod will simply put you on the back foot, aero and Cog wise.

I said everyone should stay cool and wait.

The disadvantage of the pull rod is.. I can't think of 1 outside of servicing.

[RacingManiac]

Its still just a mean to an end. Their goals are trying to clear up space at the back to improve rear aero, you can do that with both means given enough time and attention. I don't think anyone ever said pullrod is not the right thing for this purpose, I mean it was a clever thing to do in 2009 for Newey to do that, given the fact that they are cutting back on diffuser size(in 2009) it was good direction to move to, before the whole DDD thing. Now we are back to the same point and the logic still stands. But it is never the only solution. If Ferrari wins races this year does that mean team with pullrod did wrong? Or vise versa? Obviously not....

Just seem to be an silly amount of focus on that one engineering detail...

Williams rear end is by far the craziest thing I've seen so far though...

[Jersey Tom]

The disadvantage of the pull rod is.. I can't think of 1 outside of servicing.

Because you are stuck on thinking of this purely within the context of the suspension assembly, and not within the global context of the vehicle on the whole.

[Tim.Wright]

The disadvantage of the pull rod is.. I can't think of 1 outside of servicing.

Because you are stuck on thinking of this purely within the context of the suspension assembly, and not within the global context of the vehicle on the whole.

Which is why its pointless arguing with him. I gave up a long time ago.

[carvetia]

I think one advantage of the pull-rod system is that you can automatically adjust the geometry of the suspension during the race to maintain a more optimal ride height despite the weight loss due to fuel expenditure.

By constructing a cover from a material with a very high specific heat capacity to contain a material with a particular (and high) thermal expansion coefficient, one could conceivably rely on the relatively constant exhaust temperature to heat the external material, thus gradually increasing its temperature through the duration of the race, so increasing the length of the internal material and in turn the pull-rod. This would lower the car as the race goes on, which naturally is not possible with a push-rod setup.

It would also be extremely hard to detect and regulate. If what I have written doesn't make sense, it's because I'm not an engineer and a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, so do enlighten me

[ringo]

The disadvantage of the pull rod is.. I can't think of 1 outside of servicing.

Because you are stuck on thinking of this purely within the context of the suspension assembly, and not within the global context of the vehicle on the whole.

I am not stuck on thinking that. It was already made clear that there are surrounding considerations. What you don't realize is that the global context of the vehicle is the same for all teams, thus it cancels out for this comparison. Especially for the Torro Rosso that uses a ferrari engine and possibly a ferrari KERS system, proving that on the car itself Ferrari may have used such a suspension system and still be able to have a fully integrated car.

You are not bringing any specifics to identify any "global" factors unique to any of the teams so far that are using push rod suspension. Anyone would consider, if you actually identified the elements outside of the suspension itself that are unique to one team and not the others in principle.

All these elements are accounted for by all teams just the same. Ferrari is not unique and neither is any part on their car, pit mechanic or tool. Your argument only holds if Ferrari has a unique "global" factor that deems push rod advantageous in a direct comparison.

I am not saying being bullish about 1 solution, but for a set of regulations there is one theoretical ideal and the other teams are willing to approach that at all costs. Ferrari have not yet made it clear why they deviated from the assumed ideal.

[PlatinumZealot]

I only just saw it... holy bejeezus!

This thing must be mutually exclusive to a having a double diffuser! Polar opposite from Ferrari in regards to pushing the boundaries.

[Jersey Tom]

Because you are stuck on thinking of this purely within the context of the suspension assembly, and not within the global context of the vehicle on the whole.

I am not stuck on thinking that. It was already made clear that there are surrounding considerations. What you don't realize is that the global context of the vehicle is the same for all teams, thus it cancels out for this comparison.

Ferrari is not unique and neither is any part on their car, pit mechanic or tool.

I want you to read what you wrote a couple times.

You're telling me all the teams have the exact same design philosophy? They all place their ancillaries are components in the exact same place? Airflow around their cars is identical? Same relative contributions to downforce and drag from the front wing, rear wing, and diffuser? Same gearbox and differential in the same location? Same simulation packages giving the same answer for relative importance of lateral and longitudinal capacity? Same importance given to forward and rear weight transfer and its impact on driving and braking ability? Same importance given to reliability and serviceability compared to raw, all-out mechanical performance?

And furthermore, NONE of those above play any contribution into whether one suspension arrangement may meet goals better than another?

[ringo]

Here's an example to demonstrate how relatively ordinary these cars are.

Ferrari gearbox package and Torro Rosso gear box package...

As a reference, this is what all F1 chassis look like, no exceptions:


Does the suspension have anything to do with bolting up gearbox to the engine? No, the suspension layout is very harmless to the rest of the car, since it is a subsystem of the gearbox.
If a gearbox fits a car, the suspension automatically fits.

It becomes the new chassis. A gear box with lighter suspension, with lower CoG, with tighter rear means a better gearbox, which inevitably means a lighter, lower CG, tighter rear when fitted to the car. Looking at the toyota, It's as simple and modular as that.

You can't come up with any far fetched excuses that will prevent that from being so. Ferrari are not unique in any philosophy or policy.

A torro Rosso gearbox ,which was made for a ferrari engine, will fit on an F150 seamlessly and with a few setup and electro mechanical adjustments that car will run.

If you are given a set of rules to follow, and then asked to find a goal. Those rules will guide you to a simplified universal solution. All iterations will converge to one given enough reptition. This is why from 2009 cars begin to look the same every year.

You may ask, if this is so, what was Torro Rosso thinking differently than Ferrari? Shouldn't they reach the same suspension conclusion since the engine and the KERS is the same?

The only factor i can think of differently is the human element. Simply a preference or emotion toward a certain idea. Anything Ferrari liked about push rod had to be outside of the car running on track.

This is all my opinion anyway. Let's forget this debate, it ideology really.
The discussion should have shifted to more technical matter, but i guess once the teams run some more.

[segedunum]

Because you are stuck on thinking of this purely within the context of the suspension assembly, and not within the global context of the vehicle on the whole.

What 'global context of the vehicle' would this be? It would help your case if you could explain what that is.

The two overriding factors in using a pull-rod layout is a lower centre of gravity and vastly more unrestricted aerodynamics in exactly the areas where you would put a single diffuser either side of the gearbox. That's pretty much it.

If I was Ferrari I'd be mighty worried having looked at the Red Bull, Renault and even the Williams rear ends. Going with what you know is certainly a legitimate consideration in going in the direction they've gone but the idea that it might have been too complex to implement has now evaporated. If the F150 is behind then it will have been proved to be the wrong solution.

[SpookTheHamster]

Here's an example to demonstrate how relatively ordinary these cars are.

Ferrari gearbox package and Torro Rosso gear box package...

As a reference, this is what all F1 chassis look like, no exceptions:


Does the suspension have anything to do with bolting up gearbox to the engine? No, the suspension layout is very harmless to the rest of the car, since it is a subsystem of the gearbox.
If a gearbox fits a car, the suspension automatically fits.

It becomes the new chassis. A gear box with lighter suspension, with lower CoG, with tighter rear means a better gearbox, which inevitably means a lighter, lower CG, tighter rear when fitted to the car. Looking at the toyota, It's as simple and modular as that.

You can't come up with any far fetched excuses that will prevent that from being so. Ferrari are not unique in any philosophy or policy.

A torro Rosso gearbox ,which was made for a ferrari engine, will fit on an F150 seamlessly and with a few setup and electro mechanical adjustments that car will run.

If you are given a set of rules to follow, and then asked to find a goal. Those rules will guide you to a simplified universal solution. All iterations will converge to one given enough reptition. This is why from 2009 cars begin to look the same every year.

You may ask, if this is so, what was Torro Rosso thinking differently than Ferrari? Shouldn't they reach the same suspension conclusion since the engine and the KERS is the same?

The only factor i can think of differently is the human element. Simply a preference or emotion toward a certain idea. Anything Ferrari liked about push rod had to be outside of the car running on track.

This is all my opinion anyway. Let's forget this debate, it ideology really.
The discussion should have shifted to more technical matter, but i guess once the teams run some more.

You've hugely underestimated how complicated these cars are. While all the tubs may look similar, there are differences between all of them, some more obvious than others. Each team makes different decisions on individual parts and whole design directions, parts will not be interchangeable. While the mounting patterns may be shared between teams running the same engine, it would definitely not be possible to run with the other team's gearbox.

There are so many component systems that make up the gearbox and hydraulics systems, and each team will have a system which works for that team. Often some systems will be kept largely constant for many years (some teams still run parts over 10 years old). On a wider scale, teams go for different goals. It's plain to see that Red Bull have gone for a low cross section, which is why they've got pullrod suspension. In doing so they've had to go to a huge amount of trouble to package everything, including packaging other systems inside the gearbox where they could otherwise go above/below it.

Ferrari obviously have other goals, and an entirely different way of working as a team. Their pushrod solution could be amazing, they could have even spent MORE time working on it than it would have to create a pullrod system, and for all we (or members of other teams) know it could be better than a bodged pullrod system.

The nature of F1 is that there is no "perfect" solution, even when working to such a strict set of rules. Some teams will take chances on a new idea, others won't. At this level of performance it can be hard to tell if a change has even made an improvement as gains are so small.

[marcush.]

one of the big challenges in F1 is to fit everything needed into a smaller envelope than others without sacrificing reliability and performance beyond limits putting you either on the sidelines or towards the back of the field.
Go to conservative and your car is slow as a stone ,be too adventurous and you will either stop short of the flag or will show too much compromise in other areas .

The Williams layout has shown just how much can be done taking the pullrod to the edge.They have reduced the cross section between rear tires by at least 30% and simply put there is nowhere to fit a pushrod setup in that concept,they have to fix the wishbones to the wing support as the box is so low.
There is absolutely no doubt this is aerodynamically a huge step in itself.Of course it remains to be seen if the implications of this setup will make it a success.

Comparing this to the Ferrari layout ,my thoughts are:A lot of work for a bit of optimisation...
But of course the result could be Ferrari was already close to the best compromise and is winning because of this.