2014-2020 Formula One 1.6l V6 turbo engine formula

[tuj]

I think with DI allowed this year, 14:1 would be the minimum. The NA engines were running as high as 17:1 without DI. But I really don't now.

[wuzak]

The Ferrari engine is the most compact laterally and uses an air-water-air intercooler, therefore it can run significantly smaller sidepods, thus reducing drag. Also, don't forget that top speed is often also an indicator of a lack of down-force in F1.

100hp less at 336km/h (Alonso's recorded maximum speed) would require ~12% less drag. Condsidering that the cars are said to be 15% less draggy compared to last year, it is unlikely that one has almost the same improvement against the others.

Next top speed was Magnussen at 330km/h. He has the Mercedes engine, supposedly with the 100hp extra. That would suggest the Macca is carrying ~20% more drag.

Seems very unlikely to me.

These increased speeds could be due to ? :

1. A lower AoA RW main flap
2. A rear wing flap this year is 20mm smaller than last year and therefore the flap is slightly shallower in profile
3. A DRS flap can now open as wide as 65mm, 15mm wider than last year.
4. No beam wing.

Nonetheless, this situation is very interesting coz this year car is 48kg heavier, at least in Qualy trim
and tyres are harder now so therefore car is slower

I was commenting on the idea that one 2014 engine could have 100hp more - and yet still be slower in a straight line.

The cars are less draggy than last year's and, therefore, are faster in a straight line.

[wuzak]

in the comments on an exclusive interview with vettel autosprint reports that merc engine is revving 14.000 and renault 12.500 so far. also, they implicitly suggest that all the teams are looking for 15.000 despite the decrease in power above 10.500 due to friction...

Which is a bit odd, I didn't think they will go much higher than 13/13.5k. I understand that with compounding the friction losses are traded in for less pumping losses/boost requirements and therefore higher MGU-H power harvest to be sent to the MGU-K, therefore improving WOT efficiency. However, I thought there is no point about going all up to 15'000. This also because the broad power band.

I agree. Due to the fuel flow limits, running a lambda of 0.98 (similar to the Honda RA168E) you can only run 2.5 bar to around 11,000RPM. The limit at 12,000 around 2.3 bar, 2.1 bar at 13k, 2 at 14k and less than 1.9 at 15k. Honda's testing on the RA168E showed a drop off in efficiency greater than 18% for boost pressures less than 2.1 bar! You can lean out further, but this also has efficiency and power generation penalties.

The other significant factors to note from the 1988 FIA Regulations:
- There was no limit on the ingredients in the fuel (the RA168E ran on a cocktail of 84% Toluene and 16% n-Heptane to get combustion stability)
- The cars were allowed 150kg of fuel per race (although we do have ERS now).

Honda achieved a minimum Brake Specific Fuel Consumption (BSFC) of 272g/kWh on this engine (32.2% efficiency). This was over 25 years ago, and engine management and lubricants have come a long way, and direct injection engines will be inherently more efficient.

The numbers I saw from the Cosworth "still born" V6 project quoted minimum BSFC around 190g/kWh, an efficiency around 40% very impressive but what is the combustion stability of pump fuel at 2.5bar? At 25% Toluene content, Honda found volumetric fuel consumption increased by 14% (BSFC increased by 3.5%). The F14T's "backfiring" in the garage shows they are obviously working on the limit...

I am in awe of what the engine manufacturers have achieved to date!

The 1988 cars were restricted to 150l of fuel. Which is about 113kg, depending on the fuel's density.

That 150l of fuel had to do the race, the out lap (to the grid), the formation lap and the in-lap (back to the pits). And the rules allowed, as now, to do multiple passes through the pits on the way to the grid. Not sure if they were allowed to refuel on the grid - they certainly aren't now.

The 2014 cars are allowed to use a maximum of 100kg from the start of the race (when the lights go out) to the chequered flag. Roughly a 13kg reduction in fuel usage after 25 years shouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility.

Also, F1 fuel may share many of its ingredients with "pump fuel", but it is not in fact "pump fuel" and is highly tailored to the task.

[ringo]

sorry if it's beating a dead horse with my power graphs.
But i've done some refinements calculation wise. It's a bit bumpy around the 10,000 to 11,000rpm mark because i didn't include the 10,500rpm point. I just wanted 1,000rpm increments for expedience.

The power does drop after the fuel limit peaks. Well according to theory, however the cosworth engine graphs show otherwise.

What i do notice though with my calculations is that reducing the fuel pressure does have positive effects on the power output in some cases. Maybe direct injection is a different case. But yeah, the teams can also manipulate that as well.

[Wayne DR]

The 1988 cars were restricted to 150l of fuel. Which is about 113kg, depending on the fuel's density.

That 150l of fuel had to do the race, the out lap (to the grid), the formation lap and the in-lap (back to the pits). And the rules allowed, as now, to do multiple passes through the pits on the way to the grid. Not sure if they were allowed to refuel on the grid - they certainly aren't now.

The 2014 cars are allowed to use a maximum of 100kg from the start of the race (when the lights go out) to the chequered flag. Roughly a 13kg reduction in fuel usage after 25 years shouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility.

Also, F1 fuel may share many of its ingredients with "pump fuel", but it is not in fact "pump fuel" and is highly tailored to the task.

Sorry, you are right it is 150L, not kgs.

Honda/Elf's Toluene mix (102 RON) was really dense at around 0.84 kg/L (so 126kg for 150L), but the energy yield was low (only 41 MJ/kg = 52 GJ/tank).

A 60% Toluene, 9.5% n-Heptane, 30.5% Isooctane mix has a density of 0.8 kg/L and energy of 41.9 MJ/L. Only 99kg of this mixture will produce 52 GJ...

Standard 98 RON "Pump Gas" (say BP Ultimate) has a density of 0.75 kg/L and an energy of 44.37 MJ/L (only need 88kgs). Fuel technology to the rescue...

You are right, it is not that much of a stretch.

[Tommy Cookers]

@ Wayne

you have made a mistake, 126 kg of 84% vs 99 kg of 60% Toluene blend 'do not compute'

and ... figures of energy/tankful anyway ?
(according to your figs) why would Honda have used 84% Toluene ?
have you considered the stoichiometric mass ? (what quantity of fuel can be burned in a unit or a Honda-ful of air)
this would be different for the 60% and 84% blends
fuel technology always avoided aromatics (eg Toluene) as far as practicable, because of their poor energy content
poor by all measures except volume-specificity (crucially valuable in 1988)
the big change from 1988 is the abandonment of any limit to Octane number

btw a detail for Honda lovers ...... Mr Bamsey's writings say they never raced on 0.98, always about 8% rich for response
not what the SAE paper might make us assume


@ tuj

we know from Cosworth, BMW and Ferrari papers that recent NA F1 used 13.2 - 13.5 CR, never more
because the valves demand space that makes a higher CR impossible to arrange (though it would be possible Octanewise)
Simon's article on the 2014 F1 pointed out the conflict between valve size etc and high CR
that valve size might be sacrificed to make possible (very ?) high CR

[tok-tokkie]

The cars don't look as zippy to me. They have the electric torque for 33s and the gearing and the low downforce body and pirelli tyres. The truth about the top speeds is somewhere in the middle of that.

They're not limited to 33s. They're limited to 120KW from the MGU-K and 2MJ from the ES. This year, since they don't have a KERS button, the MGU-K will apply it's power as part of the engine mapping. The teams will probably not use it as a "turbo boost" but rather use the MGU-K to improve acceleration and to make the PUs' torque curve flatter.

I don't think you fully understand joules? The joule is the same as a watt second. That means that the MGUK can produce 120 kilowatts for 33 seconds 120 x 33.3= 3,996 or just about 4MJ. The MGUK can only produce 120 kilowatts (160 hp) but 4 mega joules it can take from the ES has a time limit 33.3 seconds. Or if you reduce the watts you can increase the time. Here is the formula
Time x kiloWatts = megajoules


Edited to kilowatts thanks to Dren my mistake typo

If time is in seconds then it must be kilos both sides of the =. So kiloWatts & kiloJoules

[Abarth]

[....]The power does drop after the fuel limit peaks. Well according to theory, however the cosworth engine graphs show otherwise.[...]

This is the only graph from Cosworth which I question, not quantitatively but qualitatively.
And they do contradict themseves with the BSFC graph, where they show the BSFC of the engine without MGU-H, reaching a best point of approx. 225 g/kWh @ 9'000/min and then raising all up until >260g / kWh @ 15'000/min.

If you use all the allowed fuel flow, max. performance must be at around 10'500 / min with these BSFC numbers.
With compounding, cou can use the almost constant exhaust mass flow above 10.5k. The higher you are revving, the less you need for compressing the charge air and therefore you use it for electrical power generation.

In that case, Cosworth calculates a best point of approx. 190 g /kWH @ 12'000/min.
With a fuel having 45.5 MJ/kg, this results in an efficiency of around 41.5%.

[Cold Fussion]

[....]The power does drop after the fuel limit peaks. Well according to theory, however the cosworth engine graphs show otherwise.[...]

This is the only graph from Cosworth which I question, not quantitatively but qualitatively.
And they do contradict themseves with the BSFC graph, where they show the BSFC of the engine without MGU-H, reaching a best point of approx. 225 g/kWh @ 9'000/min and then raising all up until >260g / kWh @ 15'000/min.

If you use all the allowed fuel flow, max. performance must be at around 10'500 / min with these BSFC numbers.
With compounding, cou can use the almost constant exhaust mass flow above 10.5k. The higher you are revving, the less you need for compressing the charge air and therefore you use it for electrical power generation.

In that case, Cosworth calculates a best point of approx. 190 g /kWH @ 12'000/min.
With a fuel having 45.5 MJ/kg, this results in an efficiency of around 41.5%.

Could it be that Cosworth are reporting the standalone ICE power as if the mgu-h were attached, and just not counting the extra 120 kw?

[mrluke]

in the comments on an exclusive interview with vettel autosprint reports that merc engine is revving 14.000 and renault 12.500 so far. also, they implicitly suggest that all the teams are looking for 15.000 despite the decrease in power above 10.500 due to friction...

Which is a bit odd, I didn't think they will go much higher than 13/13.5k. I understand that with compounding the friction losses are traded in for less pumping losses/boost requirements and therefore higher MGU-H power harvest to be sent to the MGU-K, therefore improving WOT efficiency. However, I thought there is no point about going all up to 15'000. This also because the broad power band.

Thinking aloud here, the more efficient you can make the ICE at higher rpm the better. Ideally if you manage to achieve the same efficiency at 15k as at 10k then you are still using the same amount of fuel (as it is fixed) to make the same amount of power from the ICE, however you will have far more "excess boost" which will show itself as MGU-h regeneration -> mgu-k power.

Say at 10k you can only harvest 30-50bhp (as output from the mgu-k) but at 15k you can harvest 160bhp+ thereby maxing out the permitted mgu-k output and still adding more energy to the ES.

[tuj]

@Tommy Cookers - http://www.f1technical.net/articles/16839

The BMW paper tells us that the E41/4 had a bore of 94.0 mm, and with four titanium valves per cylinder it had 40.5 mm intake and 31.2 mm exhaust valves. BMW used compound valve angles throughout but the valve angles remain undisclosed. The timing drive was always at the front of the engine. Valve operation used finger cam followers, and intake valve lift was in the region of 16 mm. Throughout, the compression ratio was in the region of 14.5-15.0:1.

Conventional thinking would suggest that the addition of a turbo would require a lower CR but with DI being allowed, perhaps the CR has stayed the same or even increased?

[tuj]

I've been thinking about the MGU-H more and wondering if above 10k they could run a lean but stratified charge to prevent knock. Supposedly stratified charge engines have been developed with CR's as high as 20:1 running normal petrol. Then add that the MGU-H can supply a whole ton of boost *and* exhaust scavenging, I'm wondering if we are looking at some radically different performance parameters for these engines? While conventional wisdom says peak power should be around 10k, anecdotally it seems to be higher than that, maybe 12k. Just some thoughts.

[Abarth]

[...]if above 10k they could run a lean but stratified charge to prevent knock. Supposedly stratified charge engines have been developed with CR's as high as 20:1 running normal petrol. [...]

Usually stratified charge is used to improve part load efficiency.

I do not think it will be possible to improve a given WOT efficiency with stochiometric..lean mixture by using a markedly lean operation, even if you'll be able to increase CR (which will be limited by geometrical issues anyway, as TC alluded to).

Is there any study available?

[WhiteBlue]

Getting into some form of stratification must be the objective for the combustion engineers. There is very little knowledge what the limit of the spray guided combustion processes are with 500 bar injection pressure. We can be sure that stratification from the spray geometry will happen. The question is how much you can exploit leaning of the mixture when you go beyond 4.000 rpm. The F1 engines don't even run in those numbers where normal engines use stratification.

[WhiteBlue]

sorry if it's beating a dead horse with my power graphs.
But i've done some refinements calculation wise. It's a bit bumpy around the 10,000 to 11,000rpm mark because i didn't include the 10,500rpm point. I just wanted 1,000rpm increments for expedience.
http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af2 ... 6138ae.png
The power does drop after the fuel limit peaks. Well according to theory, however the cosworth engine graphs show otherwise.

What i do notice though with my calculations is that reducing the fuel pressure does have positive effects on the power output in some cases. Maybe direct injection is a different case. But yeah, the teams can also manipulate that as well.

You do not believe in 650 bhp from the engine?