Limiting downforce?

[Crabbia]

Has Anyone seen the propose 2008regs yet. They're talking about limiting downforce acting on the car at any time to be 12500N at any time. Also talk about the engine R&D freeze.
My question is how can will they measure the down force of a car at a race weekend?

[JimmyK]

I'm not sure, unless they have any handy wind tunnels lying around, I don't think that they'll be able to measure it.

Frankly limiting downforce is a stupid idea, imo, the point of the rules now is that the engineers are always coming up with new and better ways of getting downforce and effeciency whilst under the current regulations, which change to make it a challenge for them, with limitations, the engineers would find the optimum, then everyone would adopt it and it would become redundant.

Also, an engine improvement that increases the maximum speed of the car in the race would utterly mess things up, as the downforce-speed graph is exponential, a slight increase in top speed would be a noticable increase in downforce, how would they account for that? Ask them to lower the downforce the car produces?

And I hate the engine freeze rule, but this ain't the topic for that, and I've made my views known before.

[johny]

measuring that should be almost imposible, they've problems with flexi-wings so imagine with the whole car downforce

[zac510]

To my knowledge the downforce will be policed by applying that amount of pressure to the car via a hydraulic press during scrutineering and mandating that the car touch the ground with this pressure applied.

Subsequently the teams will have to ride between the plank wear limit and the downforce limit.

Development will switch to efficiency.

I don't agree with the strict engine freeze though. A downforce limit and single tyre supplier will slow the cars enough.

[NickT]

Sorry guys, but I do agree with the engine freeze. We haven't seen the cars do close in years However I still think there is too much down force, I would guess that it would be fairly easy to measure - 4 load gauges that measure the forces being transferred via the push rods, continually logging into a little black box, you can see the forces while stationary and when moving and it could be checked during post race scrutineering

[Ciro Pabón]

Has Anyone seen the propose 2008regs yet...
... My question is how can will they measure the down force of a car at a race weekend?

Yes, they are at FIA site: http://www.fia.com/sport/Regulations/f1regs.html.

You can measure the downforce with little impact to your wallet if you measure the riding height, know the position and speed of the car, the profile of the track and the constants of the springs. There are a couple of threads that you may find interesting here and here where this article on data acquisition is mentioned (warning! 1 Mb PDF on that last link). Here is a short explanation, taken from that PDF:



There is something on telemetry on this site, but not specific.

[vis]

I heard still in the past season that FIA made a technical agreement with partner AMD to develop a software for a super-computer to measure the amount of downforce via computational fluid dynamics...

[flynfrog]

why does every one suddenly think they have to much down force

the reason the cars cannot over take is because the rules limiting the down force have made the front wings verry senstive to dirty air

i say give them more wing closer to the ground and watch overtaking make its return

[i70q7m7ghw]

Aero development will always continue, there is no such thing as an optimum because there will always be new and better ways to do things. Downforce should have a limit, its better than constantly banning things in my opinion. I say set a limit and then remove all the recent regulations changes which were intened to cut downforce. As flynfrog said, put the front wings back where they were.

[DaveKillens]

Back in the days of extreme ground effects and sidepod skirts, the downforce and cornering speeds became an issue. Many drivers commented that to negotiate a corner, it was more "aim, hang on, and hope". They were flying into corners, blazing through the apex,and rocketing out. There was almost no time or room for corrections.
The FIA changed the rules, banned skirts and severely reduced the size and shape of the undertray. Wheelbases were narrowed, slicks were banned, and in their place skinnier tires with groves. All in an attempt to limit corner speeds.
But in the years since them, the teams have invested billions in aero research, and their preformance with these limitations has now reached a point where the cars are negotiating the corners very quickly.
I agree on limiting cornering speeds, but of course, "how" is debatable.
If a complex mathod is sought in enforcing the new rules, then there will be tons of ways of finding loopholes or ways around the FIA testing. Whatever way is implimented should be simple, yet repeatedly accurate.

[zac510]

why does every one suddenly think they have to much down force

Just to add to what diesel and DaveK said well already, the FIA have limited the shape of diffusers, underbody, rear wing and front wing in the opposite direction to optimal in order to gain the greatest effect. But this screws up the wake and the balance of the car. Hard to understand given that they are faster than ever, but these developments have come in dribs and drabs every year since about 1998.

A better shape diffuser and an open front wing would change the car a lot.

Ciro, that method would work well but I don't think fans like it when the FIA disqualify cars after a race. I think this would happen with a load cell like that - FIA would check over the datalogs, find a car has gone 'over downforce' and disqualify it? Fair, but not pretty for the sport.

[i70q7m7ghw]

It probably wouldnt be that strict, maybe a buffer would be used, if a car goes over the limit only slightly they are warned and then watched very closely for a repeat offense in the following races.

[Ciro Pabón]

I think this would happen with a load cell like that - FIA would check over the datalogs, find a car has gone 'over downforce' and disqualify it? Fair, but not pretty for the sport.

I think I myself could build a program for doing it "on the fly", I've been using LapSim for a while now and I have some "tweaks" built on it. But the method you propose is more like FIA. These guys are (for my taste) not "into computing". But you know I love simulations more than wine or sunshine.

You could affix a little bell to the bottom of the chassis and it'll ring every time downforce is exceeded... This would be a "totally FIA" solution.

[flynfrog]

I think this would happen with a load cell like that - FIA would check over the datalogs, find a car has gone 'over downforce' and disqualify it? Fair, but not pretty for the sport.

I think I myself could build a program for doing it "on the fly", I've been using LapSim for a while now and I have some "tweaks" built on it. But the method you propose is more like FIA. These guys are (for my taste) not "into computing". But you know I love simulations more than wine or sunshine.

You could affix a little bell to the bottom of the chassis and it'll ring every time downforce is exceeded... This would be a "totally FIA" solution.

no they would have a council vote on weather or not they feel a car is going over the limited down force

[zac510]