Mclaren MP4-30 Honda

[OO7]

What advantage would putting the MGUK in the V give? You still have to have some form of gear drive to the transmission/crank.

Maybe the MGUK is actually inside the block, incorporated into the crank? I'd believe that before having it placed up high in the V.

Honda directly incorporates their hybrid motors into the transmission with their road cars. Maybe they went that route?

Packaging.

The MGU-K has to be placed ahead of the clutch if I recall correctly.

[maguetox]

What advantage would putting the MGUK in the V give? You still have to have some form of gear drive to the transmission/crank.

Maybe the MGUK is actually inside the block, incorporated into the crank? I'd believe that before having it placed up high in the V.

Honda directly incorporates their hybrid motors into the transmission with their road cars. Maybe they went that route?

Packaging.

The MGU-K has to be placed ahead of the clutch if I recall correctly.

I initially believe that the MGUK was in the middle of the V, but as I stated before now I think is located between the crankshaft and the transmission after looking the video of Scarbs, that location will be very difficult to cool down in the actual packaging.

[rifrafs2kees]

I'd guess the MGU-K is situated at the end of the crankshaft between the transmission and the engine. That makes it a highly stressed member hence the major seal failures...I suppose the seals failed as a result of fatigue and 'crawl' as the engine block, MGU-K and the transmission flexed under g-loads. Currently, that's fixed-tentatively at least.
Jenson's apex speeds couldn't have been low enough to protect any structural elements...at least laterally-loads had to have been in the ball part of other slow cars--His acceleration wasn't nothing to talk about but it wasn't abnormally bad--Perez and force india are my barometer here.
So this leaves us with a strictly energy conversion issue. If the MGU-K cannot be used to full capacity, the weakest link in that system, other than the structural issue aforementioned, is the battery or lack of cooling thereof. There's been no rumors of that.
My 'educated guess' is that it's the MGU-H is the handicapped member here. Specifically there's some mechanical trickery that for now, keeps them from running high boost, which in turn hurts MGU-H performance...2cents

Interesting.

What would Honda see as major benefit of placing KERS there?

It allows for that size zero rear end..or whatever they call it. Having that between the engine and the transmission means the wide engine is shoved forward ..allowing for narrow back end. This is what Honda has done on their commercial hybrids...I think

[damager21]

Given the heating issues with MGU-K, does it not make sense for Honda to reposition MGU-K placement such that the cooling issue is manageable even if it would require a redesign and hence larger engine cover / rear.

Since only 4 engines are available this year, for JB, Honda needs to get through 4 more races on the same engine they used in Australia.

Maybe for the next 3 race they could reposition the MGU-K and run their PU more aggressively. This would also give enough time to engineers back in the factory to improving reliability. At the 5th race they can plug in some new parts, place MGU-K back in its original position and go full speed to see if there is an improvement. Any ways, an engine failure in the 5th race would not hurt much and should give them some valuable data.

Being 5 seconds slow is not gonna help McLaren improve aero of the car.

[Richard]

Maybe for the next 3 race they could reposition the MGU-K ....

That's a major repackaging exercise. It would involve a new ICE with revised output shafts and mounting points, redesigned transmission, repackaged exhaust and cooling to fit around the new PU confirmation, new bodywork to fit around the new packaging. It would also use up some precious tokens etc.

All Honda can do as a temp measure is to update the seals, coolant pressure/flow rates, change the ancillary pipework. I expect they'll use some tokens to update the major components to solve the cooling problem for the first European race.

[timbo]

I expect they'll use some tokens to update the major components to solve the cooling problem for the first European race.

Aren't changes made for reliability reasons not token taxed? I had a feeling it might be clever for them to make severely unreliable engine at the start to be able to make much more changes than allowed by tokens they got.

[ScottB]

I expect they'll use some tokens to update the major components to solve the cooling problem for the first European race.

Aren't changes made for reliability reasons not token taxed? I had a feeling it might be clever for them to make severely unreliable engine at the start to be able to make much more changes than allowed by tokens they got.

I'm assuming that's exactly what they've done because the regs as they are make it the only viable strategy; instead of building a solid engine and then adding performance (which would be token limited), they've presumably gone for the most powerful, radical engine they could, knowing they can update for reliability reasons without penalty or limit.

[the EDGE]

Being 5 seconds slow is not gonna help McLaren improve aero of the car.

I don't see why it would have too much of an effect, surely the drivers will just brake later and still enter to the corner at the same speed, and seeing as you don't use anywhere near full throttle going through a sequence of bend, I don't see why they would lose out too much there either. The only real loss should be on the corner exit onto straights

This is why Jensen managed to keep Perez behind him for so long at the start of the race?

[siwillems]

I expect they'll use some tokens to update the major components to solve the cooling problem for the first European race.

Aren't changes made for reliability reasons not token taxed? I had a feeling it might be clever for them to make severely unreliable engine at the start to be able to make much more changes than allowed by tokens they got.

Bingo

[diffuser]

Maybe for the next 3 race they could reposition the MGU-K ....

That's a major repackaging exercise. It would involve a new ICE with revised output shafts and mounting points, redesigned transmission, repackaged exhaust and cooling to fit around the new PU confirmation, new bodywork to fit around the new packaging. It would also use up some precious tokens etc.

All Honda can do as a temp measure is to update the seals, coolant pressure/flow rates, change the ancillary pipework. I expect they'll use some tokens to update the major components to solve the cooling problem for the first European race.

I haven't heard a detailed enough explanation of their over temp issues to make that kind of statement.

In fact the statement from Arai sounded like he was confident that McLaren might be able to do something.

[rifrafs2kees]

There's likely nothing to the MGU-K overheating story. Conservatively, electric motors and generators, are at least 95% efficient across their entire envelope of operation. Let's take for a example a braking event from 250kph to 50kph in 100m for a car that weighs about 720kg; with brake bias of 50% F/R. So using m*v^2 delta, energy into rear axle is half of the total...which is about 1.7MJ of energy.
Assuming the MGU-K takes 50% of that, we have 0.9MJ of energy going through it. At the previously stated efficiency of 95%, that leaves 43kJ of heat into the MGU-K in 100m. At constant deceleration, it'll take about 2.4 seconds for this event to take place. So we have heat transfer at a rate of 18kW.
Now to make this quick, the entire ICE at about 35% efficiency produces heat a rate in orders of magnitudes greater than 18kW. The point is, if they can cool, the entire engine minus the MGU-K, the additional task of cooling the MGU-K will be easy.
Again, this is the same MGU-K motor that can be put between the turbine and impeller housings of a turbo to make an MGU-H....a much harsher location in my opinion.
I think the entire package has a myriad of problems...of course a few more prominent than others...but MGU-K cooling isn't one...if engine cooling is roughly adequate, all they'd have done was run coolant to the MGU-K if they aren't already.

[timbo]

Now to make this quick, the entire ICE at about 35% efficiency produces heat a rate in orders of magnitudes greater than 18kW. The point is, if they can cool, the entire engine minus the MGU-K, the additional task of cooling the MGU-K will be easy.

A lot of the heat produced by ICE goes out with exhausts. 18kW of heat is not very small, especially because ICE normally are marginal (e.g. F1 cars don't like to be run slowly, don't like staying stationary with engine running etc). And also the energy density needs to be considered. MGU-K unit is small, so again if it produces that much of heat, things can get really tough in its vicinity.

[rifrafs2kees]

Now to make this quick, the entire ICE at about 35% efficiency produces heat a rate in orders of magnitudes greater than 18kW. The point is, if they can cool, the entire engine minus the MGU-K, the additional task of cooling the MGU-K will be easy.

A lot of the heat produced by ICE goes out with exhausts. 18kW of heat is not very small, especially because ICE normally are marginal (e.g. F1 cars don't like to be run slowly, don't like staying stationary with engine running etc). And also the energy density needs to be considered. MGU-K unit is small, so again if it produces that much of heat, things can get really tough in its vicinity.

Decided not to go there but 18kW compared with what goes into the radiator is small. Also this 18KW is super aggressive and if we have an electrical engineer here, he'll say 99% motor efficiency isn't unusual. The MGU-K, isn't working all the time also...unlike the ICE. If MGU-K overheating has been the bulk of their problem, they've had weeks after the first test to start augmenting their cooling. Redbull did that last year. So far there's been zilch sign of that at mclaren

[michl420]

There is overheating and overheating. A machine is made of hundreds of parts, and docens of different materials. When just one part, is located in an area whitch is slightly to hot it can fail. Maybe the whole thing runs in a good emperatur window in generall, there can also be circumstances when one part reach a higher temperatur than planned. These are the tricky things. It's like trying to cool only the left kidney in the Body.

[rifrafs2kees]

The MGU-K can't be temperature limited. Merc has theirs between the exhaust and the block..a far harsher environment. Mid engine cars have plastic parts in the V so the valley of a V engine isn't as harsh as you'd imagine....unless for an air cooled engine. Merc has their MGU-H in the V which is the same type of electric motor. Again, this same type of motor can be mounted directly to the turbine housing to make an MGU-H ...the turbine housing hits at least 800 C.