McLaren MP4-26 Mercedes

[PlatinumZealot]

First, what is the definition of exhaust exit?

[tjaeger]

Nice multi page speculation with no source whatsoever, apart from other forums.

Some people seem very sure of themselves.

IF the picture is not outdated look at these areas:

1.Red circle: exhaust pipe?
2.Lavender circle: lower wishbone overheated or debris?
3.Green circle: uprights endplates overheated or debris?
4.Blue circle: central floor cavity under the crash structure?

High resolution picture on http://i.imgur.com/aQcb0.jpg

Fantastic details from that picture! Great work.
Red circle
Well, if you zoom into the picture, red circles area, this is definitely an exhaust pipe, right. Maybe just one option during testing and they did not use it all the time?
Lavender area
Looks like tape getting loose from one of the rear suspension struds. Prolly there for heat protection as the exhaust would blow direct onto it?
Green circles
Looks like some sort of liquid sealing adhesive floating about, maybe little too much heat or quick setup for testing?
Blue Circle
?? Good question, must have something to do with the overall floor cut out an different element embedded with black seals?? All around it?
What is that little fin doing there? Appears to be only on one side, or? Given the distance of it from the center one should see it in this picture on the opposite side if it would be there??

Really interesting whats going on in the back floor with the different material inserted. What is the black lip around the edges that sticks out? Are those seals?

[Owen.C93]

However, really interesting whats going on in the back floor with the different material inserted. What is the black lip around the edges that sticks out? Are those seals?

Definitely not any sort of aquatic creature, I think they might be heat sensors they spread across certain places.

[tjaeger]

However, really interesting whats going on in the back floor with the different material inserted. What is the black lip around the edges that sticks out? Are those seals?

Definitely not any sort of aquatic creature, I think they might be heat sensors they spread across certain places.

Mhhh, possible Owen. Looks like it is fixed down to the floor with silver tape all along the edges...would be funny heat sensors, or?

[murtoidf1]

However, really interesting whats going on in the back floor with the different material inserted. What is the black lip around the edges that sticks out? Are those seals?

Definitely not any sort of aquatic creature, I think they might be heat sensors they spread across certain places.

hm not sure about this,

I think there's evidence of an octopus...

[tjaeger]

However, really interesting whats going on in the back floor with the different material inserted. What is the black lip around the edges that sticks out? Are those seals?

Definitely not any sort of aquatic creature, I think they might be heat sensors they spread across certain places.

hm not sure about this,

I think there's evidence of an octopus...

Quite possible, zoom into the hi res picture following the link. The octopus theory would support some sort of sealing adhesive being use...see green area from posting.

The diffuser is definitely asymmetric! On the right side under the diffuser there are 2-3 vertical fences, but no funny feature on top. On the left side I cannot see any vertical fences, maybe one.

[tjaeger]

The longer I look in detail into the zoom in version of that picture the more the 'octopus' solution makes perfect sense. As well the material outlined earlier.
Was it really not approved by the FIA?

[PlatinumZealot]

The longer I look in detail into the zoom in version of that picture the more the 'octopus' solution makes perfect sense. As well the material outlined earlier.
Was it really not approved by the FIA?

Elaborate on this please. What about the picture makes you think so? just interested.

[tjaeger]

When studying the detailed picture provided before and looking at the sketches via Scarbs twitter (probably does not exactly look like the sketch), it just matches well.

See the 'silver colored' (some sort of foil on top) material inserted to the floor, joining before the front wheels the carbon fiber floor. Then under the crash structure you definitely see another block of material inserted into that material again (looking at the color it could be ceramic, even tough I think that could easily crack if it was).
Look onto the beam wing and a funny shaped piece, which looks like it could have a tunnel inside.
What puzzles me was all the black striped cords, taped with silver tape to the floor in the back? What would these be? Temperature sensors? Well if they would funnel hot exhaust gas in there maybe they would wanna measure it all over the place.
Then in the where the left upright of the wing meets the floor, on the inside (zooming into the detail picture), there appears to be some form or black mass that appears to either being liquid or was liquid before and hardened in that shape....question is could this be remains of some sort of liquid seal used when inserting pieces and assembling them together? (Ceramic block, etc., the gases if there would be sort of of that solution would have to be sealed somehow at the handovers, right?)

Maybe I am wrong, not sure, but certainly all the details kinda make sense...why else would they have all the different shapes of piece parts embedded in each other within the floor? U-bend exhaust pipes and so forth...there got to be some reason for all this, otherwise why spend time, effort, resources and money on it?

[Formula None]

So are we even sure that we've seen the car run with the octopus? Anyway, here's some reference:

[marcush.]

I think if there is no physical connection between exhaust and the distribution box where is the point making it illegal? you could end the exhaust pipe deep into the box and shape the box in a ways to prevent significant flow and pressure to go back and escape through the gap between exhaust pipe and box.you could even use these leaks to blow the starter hole ,if you ended your exhaust pipe in a
180 ° bend so your exhaust is facing forward....

[feynman]

A month ago I was asking about punching exhaust holes in the floor (back when no-one could find them anywhere else) ... the thinking was that as far as the rules go, the floor is regarded bodywork, and the exceptions for closed surfaces allow two (and only two) exhaust exits.

But as we saw with the gills and slits from last year (back when exhausts were where exhaust always used to be), there is a lot of scope for topological tricks and stunts to make "two" exits into multiple exits.

5.6: Engine exhaust systems may incorporate no more than two exits.

3.8.5: Single apertures either side of the car centre line for the purpose of exhaust exits. These apertures may have a combined area of no more than 50,000mm2
when projected onto the surface itself. No point on an aperture may be more than 350mm from any other point on the aperture.

So that's your limit, 350mm max point to point, and 50,000 mm2 of exhaust outlet.

Mercedes especially had nice exhaust exits with a slit just a mm or two into the shoulder of the exit linking to gills and extra bodywork cooling holes, but having trouble finding an image, so the slightly deeper slitted Ferrari will have to do (you can still just about see the slit doesn't actually reach the exhaust pipe):




... if you employed the same thinking you could easily have numerous distinct underfloor exhaust holes, as many as you want, chaining the individual exit shoulders together with slits etched into the floor/bodywork.

The nice thing, the slits would not have to breach individual exhaust outlets, nor would it need to breach the floor, the slit just being there is enough to break the reference surface and start to be counted as part of a single larger hole
... so from the top your octopus could have lots of exit ports splaying out (within a 350mm circle per exhaust), but when viewed from below, topologically and geometrically speaking, the whole arrangement still only counts as two exits.

[ianwit]

The diffuser is definitely asymmetric! On the right side under the diffuser there are 2-3 vertical fences, but no funny feature on top. On the left side I cannot see any vertical fences, maybe one.

I think they are near vertical faces (trick of the light)rather than vanes, that detailed diffuser picture to me looks very similar to the diffuser in the second pic up from the bottom in Formula None's 5.58 am post.

[gibells]

My thoughts from Octogate (haha) is that they took their octopus proposal to Charlie Whiting who rejected it. Scarbs notes that Pyrosic is allowed as a heat deflector, hence the FIA's 'clarification'.

McLaren have since then being playing catch up with a botched system because their back end is designed around the octopus. Maybe the poor performance is based on this compromised design.

Also maybe, this is why they have been 'allowed' to design a new tub, because they've been able to argue that this change is due to a grey area interpretation which has been vetoed?

[Poleman]

Illegal this...illegal that...Someone has to let this sport breathe for Christ sake.

System-wise it seems like a amazing concept and im not surprised why its so complicated and problem-generating.What doesnt make sense to me is that how did McLaren brought this to the car if they knew it was illegal....Its not logical, something fishy is going on.Looks like FIA trying to kill a preety nice innovation again. =D>