Red Bull RB7 Renault

[kalinka]

The FIA can not turn around and say, hey look at this picture or video, see your wing is flexing, you cant race. Also in turn they cant go on a witch hunt to just try to get one car excluded. Their scrutineering is there to do that, should the car pass scritineering then its good to go.

Yes they can. Remember Ferrari flexi front wings in 2006 ? It was indeed the front wing onboard camera video that caused the whole thing banned. Prior to that, the wing passed all FIA tests too. What's missing here is the complaining of the other teams, which is uderstandable , because they see that FIA is not their partner at this.
And what's that stopping FIA to iterate their FW flex testing every few races if they see it fails to catch the felxing wings? Nothing. They could implement new test procedure whenever they want. I think it's an opposite way as you think : The FIA cannot say :"We can't find a test method, so we just stay with current test, and everything is legal, regardless what you see on track.". They have all the technical and other capabilities to catch that flexing, they just didn't care. Anyway there's a flexi-wing topic, so better continue there...

[marcush.]

The FIA can not turn around and say, hey look at this picture or video, see your wing is flexing, you cant race. Also in turn they cant go on a witch hunt to just try to get one car excluded. Their scrutineering is there to do that, should the car pass scritineering then its good to go.

Yes they can. Remember Ferrari flexi front wings in 2006 ? It was indeed the front wing onboard camera video that caused the whole thing banned. Prior to that, the wing passed all FIA tests too. What's missing here is the complaining of the other teams, which is uderstandable , because they see that FIA is not their partner at this.
And what's that stopping FIA to iterate their FW flex testing every few races if they see it fails to catch the felxing wings? Nothing. They could implement new test procedure whenever they want. I think it's an opposite way as you think : The FIA cannot say :"We can't find a test method, so we just stay with current test, and everything is legal, regardless what you see on track.". They have all the technical and other capabilities to catch that flexing, they just didn't care. Anyway there's a flexi-wing topic, so better continue there...

absolutely .the situation has developped into even more dramatic rule bending by RB this year ...so why should FIA now not intervene when they did for less bendy wings last year? The rule says NO BENDING.the enforcement of the rules says 20mm under these conditions is accepted.Still the first rule -no bending allowed -is valid .So even saying the forces are higher in reality -so we logically have more bending is not sanctioned by the rules ..it is nothing less an interpretation by engineering principles.But stop: the original statement was NO BENDING allowed.So the original statement was not respecting engineering rules to start with...so why should you be allowed to use them to justify your bending at higher loads?
The whole thing is smelly and possibly to annoy wwhoever the FIA has decided to keep the status quo and force the other teams to try and catch up on this.It clearly is a quirk to the story Ferrari,Mercedes and all the small teams were not expecting.

[Dragonfly]

Yes they can. Remember Ferrari flexi front wings in 2006 ? It was indeed the front wing onboard camera video that caused the whole thing banned.
...............

You're wrong.
It was the first time such a wing (w bridge wing element) appeared.
The bridge wing was not attached rigidly to the nose cone - it was pivoted on sliding pins and that is an outright contradiction to the rules - it was actually moving with a degree of freedom in the joint. Quite different to flex.
Ferrari said they have forgotten to tighten the nuts inside the nose cone. And after the remark from FIA they simply put a sleeve over the joint so it was no longer possible to see the gap between the cone and the wing end.

[marcush.]

does nobody remember the travesty of rearwing bending in all possible directions we have seen for years?
The whole thing is not new and a lot of checks have been implemented to enforce the rule.

.

[kalinka]

@Dragonfly > I have no doubt that you're right, but my point was not on the technical aspects of moving aero, but the fact that the whole banning procedure started based on the onboard videos of that wing, and video footages was indeed used as evidence for taking actions against that solution. So 5 years later with HD video avaliable , suddenly they say the video evidence is not enough....c'mon...

[zgred]

[Dragonfly]

@Dragonfly > I have no doubt that you're right, but my point was not on the technical aspects of moving aero, but the fact that the whole banning procedure started based on the onboard videos of that wing, and video footages was indeed used as evidence for taking actions against that solution. So 5 years later with HD video avaliable , suddenly they say the video evidence is not enough....c'mon...

There's a significant difference:
- the Ferrari wing of 2006 was visibly in breach of the rules and needed no quantification - it simply had an attachment point to the bodywork which was moving, the distance changing visibly and beyond doubt. No matter whether it was 5 mm or 5 cm, the very fact is enough.
- with flex, when the wing is rigidly secured to the bodywork at its attachment points, movement is a result only of elastic deformations. And the main question is "how much?". You can't measure this from a photograph, first because the distortions by the shooting angle and the optics themselves, and second because one must take into account the disposition of the virtual reference plane of the car, which gives the basis for measuring deflections and which changes its inclination with higher rake for example.
Yes the wings (all wings) flex under load and that is common knowledge. Photographs prove just that, but cannot be used to quantify the amount, especially when precision is down to millimeters.
So the only stable ground is the current FIA flexibility test. It may be tightened in the future, maybe not. That is the role of FIA.

[kalinka]

As I explained in flexi-thread high res ptotographs CAN be used to meause dimensions up to mmm precision. The only thing you need is a decent camera in fixed position on track, where cars usually take the same position in straight line, like start-finish line...speed trap..etc. You can measure movement relative to the known dimension of the wing itself, which can be measured stationary ( like dimension of the endplates, pillars, etc). Then all you have to do is do some math to match millimeters witg pixels, and there you go...
The camera shutter can be triggered by timing system to take picture at the exact same spot on track, and with that help, you can take pictures as close as 5meters from the car. With high resolution, even a few millimeter of movement at that distance can represent a few hundred pixels on picture, so it's enough to do a mm precision measurement. So FIA currently have to invest in a good high res camera, and a trigger electronics, and maybe some software help IMHO.

[HampusA]

Or just use common sense since a person with even one perfectly fine eye can tell the difference between 2cm and 5+cm which the RBR wing flexes.

Will be interesting to see what will happen when other teams start to get a hang of the procedure in making their own version.

[Tim.Wright]

At the risk of going round in circles again (like in the flexi wing thread); There is no way photographs can be used as a measuring tool in this fashion.

1. The main problem is you need to measure the distance between the wing and the reference plane, not the floor. You cant see the reference plane so easy from outside the car so this already shoots the idea dead

2. While it is possible to measure to within 1mm accuracy with a camera, it would require the car to be stationary and in a controlled environment. From my experience in metrology from my previous occupation, I can tell you this is the most important part of a measurement job. We had a temperature controlled room and had to glue part down to get 0.02mm accuracy with a laser tracker. This is simply not feasible to catch with a camer on the track with the car bouncing over bumps, and moving at approx 200kmh.

Once you add up all the errors and uncertainties, your error range will be well over 1mm and probably in the range of 5mm. Its simply not accurate enough in this environment. Just forget it.

3. Because of all of the uncertainties, and the sensitivity of the measurement on the environment, you will have teams makeing wings they can't test themselves. Also, you will also have the case where a wing could be legal on one track, but not on another track because speeds, wind conditions, temperature differences. Thats completely unacceptable. The wing is either legal or it isnt.

4. If thats not enough evidence as to why you can't use photos to measure the wing flex, the cost to setup such a system would surely convince you. Not to mention the time consuming post processing which will have to be done. It would just become a massive expensive mess and a huge waste of time just to check one rule.

The current flex test is elegant in its simplicity and should be left at that.

Tim

[kalinka]

I understand your points Tim, and I accept what you explained and I must agree. But you don't need such a big accuracy to tell if the wing is legal or not. Maybe you can't tell the exact amount of flexing on one picture, but you can take a photo every lap on every car esentially, and as a programmer I can assure you there are very powerful softwares out there which can sum all those pictures using reference points either on track, or on the car, and get much better accuracy. During the season the software even can be "teached" to adapt to the cars and conditions , and that requires minimal user input. It's done automatically. They have to tell only if the wing bends more than 20mm, it doesn't matter how much it flexes over that threshold. If one car brakes it constantly over and over almost every lap, then it's very much probable that it's illegal. Yes, maybe they need to change the "reference plane" rule too, but why not? If your goal is to make cars legal, you have to work on it constantly, or it's not a rule anymore. Now their philosophy is :" We try this and that, we increased weights 2-3 times, and that's it. We stop here, whatewer the cameras show us it's not relevant, we didn't want to analyse pictures, we're helpless...let's all of you make those flexi wings we didn't care more ever...and so on". That attitude is frustrating. Like they're living in another world where there are only weights and measuring rods avaliable.

[Formula None]

Thanks zgred. It looks like there are air ducts running along the inside edge of the step plane/plank area, exiting into the starter motor slot. Seems separate from the "middle" and "top" channel that can be seen in this pic:

[Rikhart]

What are those wires? Some sensor? Should they be there at all?

[marcush.]

At the risk of going round in circles again (like in the flexi wing thread); There is no way photographs can be used as a measuring tool in this fashion.

1. The main problem is you need to measure the distance between the wing and the reference plane, not the floor. You cant see the reference plane so easy from outside the car so this already shoots the idea dead

2. While it is possible to measure to within 1mm accuracy with a camera, it would require the car to be stationary and in a controlled environment. From my experience in metrology from my previous occupation, I can tell you this is the most important part of a measurement job. We had a temperature controlled room and had to glue part down to get 0.02mm accuracy with a laser tracker. This is simply not feasible to catch with a camer on the track with the car bouncing over bumps, and moving at approx 200kmh.

Once you add up all the errors and uncertainties, your error range will be well over 1mm and probably in the range of 5mm. Its simply not accurate enough in this environment. Just forget it.

3. Because of all of the uncertainties, and the sensitivity of the measurement on the environment, you will have teams makeing wings they can't test themselves. Also, you will also have the case where a wing could be legal on one track, but not on another track because speeds, wind conditions, temperature differences. Thats completely unacceptable. The wing is either legal or it isnt.

4. If thats not enough evidence as to why you can't use photos to measure the wing flex, the cost to setup such a system would surely convince you. Not to mention the time consuming post processing which will have to be done. It would just become a massive expensive mess and a huge waste of time just to check one rule.

The current flex test is elegant in its simplicity and should be left at that.

Tim

RedBull and others do laser track their windtunnel work ,so I guess if its good for 60% model it must be ok to measure those centimeters we are talking about here.As said before you could easily have a laser tracker mounted to the teatray and just have three targets on the wing (or the other way round)if the laser is losing the target for longer than a defined time you are black flagged.
that is straightforward and would police either inconsistencies in Wings and Teatray.

[scarlet]

What are those wires? Some sensor? Should they be there at all?

Here come the conspiracy theories...

http://mccabism.blogspot.com/2011/05/re ... ables.html