Mercedes F1 chief technical officer James Allison is confident that his technical team has found the root cause of the German-Anglo squad’s recent gearbox failures and can make the necessary changes to avoid its reappearance.
A place to discuss the characteristics of the cars in Formula One, both current as well as historical. Laptimes, driver worshipping and team chatter do not belong here.
PhillipM wrote:I see they still haven't changed the loophole around the camera mountings then, I'm surprised Merc seem to be one of the few still doing it though, unless I need my eyes testing.
They must reside within the green box (below), and more than 150mm outboard of the car's center. The shape of the box changed for 2017. Other than that, no specification on mounting method.
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Mechanically the suspension front and rear looks optimized for strength. They brought in the rear upper wishbones closer and the king pin has been raised. with the higher downforce and wider car you have to increase strength but also keep the weight of the suspensions members under control. Remember buckling increases to cube of the length.
To me it's simple - that extended upright raises the upper wishbone to a point where it aligns with the aldo whisker behind it. It's pretty clear to me that it's just minimising the number of airflow disturbances.
PlatinumZealot wrote:Mechanically the suspension front and rear looks optimized for strength. They brought in the rear upper wishbones closer and the king pin has been raised. with the higher downforce and wider car you have to increase strength but also keep the weight of the suspensions members under control. Remember buckling increases to cube of the length.
In my opinion it's heavier in the W08. Yes there is less force in the control arms so the might have slightly less material but the upright is taller which, being aluminium, is likely going to negate the weight savings made in the control arms.
Both Mercedes and Ferrari have configured the front wishbones to be more horizontal than last year's droopy affairs. To do this Mercedes have raised the upper outer ballpoint and Ferrari have lowered the lower inner so that it is at the bottom of the monocoque or slightly below.
I would think that the Mercedes solution provides clearer progression of air front to back.
I wonder if this choice, more horizontal wishbones, has resulted from the increased allowable incidence ( from 5° to 10°)? This will work the air harder and so the wake from the wishbones will be more disrupted and so needs to be more aligned with the following aerodynamic surfaces.
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The w07 and previous McLarens also had very horizontal wishbones. What makes the W08 different now is the greater height between upper and lower wishbones and also that the lower wishbones is much higher off the ground so the tub is also raised.
I'd like to apologize in advance for any gross errors in my armchair analysis. However, as an engineer, I want to make an attempt at figuring out their aero concept.
AFAICT, Merc never pursued the blown front axle concept, because their whole belief is in harvesting all the controllable air passing through their aero system.
So as I see it, they're taking most of the air moving over the front wing elements, and spending it on downforce generation, while trying to exhaust it out or over the wheels. The air passing through the inner elements has a portion of it conditioned by the batwings for use by the intakes (or possibly downstream for the rear wing. The air passing through the neutral zone is conditioned by the suspension geometry, the "angry birds" and the bargeboards to get redirected by the skirt vents either around the car, or into the cokebottle stream.
The nose portal compresses the airflow slightly, before expanding some into the S-duct inlets under the nose. This creates a low-pressure area under the nose, which is accentuated by the increased airflow over the S-duct, which aids in keeping the airflow attached over the cockpit/helmet area, into the main air intake. The S-duct increases the negative pressure downstream to the T-tray, increasing the effects of the floor and diffuser. The tunnel effect of the larger bargeboard exascerbate this effect.
The sidepods are flared at the front, with the main benefits being increased surface area for radiators, and to trap the airflow harvested from the front wheel aero assembly. This can help the coanda effect keep the airflow attached to the floor/bottle through to the diffuser. They showed with some of the lighting the amount of rear diffuser area they have available for the airflow, so if they can keep as much of it compressed that far back in the chassis, then the downforce generated is more effective. That should give them more options with rake angle, especially combined with the front end geometry flexibility.
In short, I think they've gone for increased aero flexibility with their already powerful PU platform, whereas it seems their competitor RBR might have had to go in the direction of aero efficiency, given their currently design.
Again, sorry for the amateur opinion. I just tried trackiing desireable airflow through each section of the car. Am I wrong to assume that the "odd-angled" sections, like the weird lip at the edge of the floor by the corner of the sidepods are there to generate vortices? I can see some of those helping to seal areas further downstream. I assume there are even vortex generators mounted on the uprights, just based on my knowledge of vortices on jet fighter wingtips.
EDIT: The vortices on those upright sections are all outboard, seemingly pushing the air spilling off the brake duct intakes out into the front tire turbulence.
Are the slits on the floor, in front of the rear tires, pulling air up from under the floor, or down from above it?
Lastly, why are the turbo exhausts now ported outside of the area the monkeyseat used to be in? I know other teams did the same configuration last year, but I wasn't sure what benefit it would serve this new rear wing configuration. Do you really want to expand air over the central part of the diffuser?
Last edited by pimpwerx on 26 Feb 2017, 19:19, edited 1 time in total.
