Mercedes AMG F1 W08 EQ Power +

[bosanac1]

Mercedes

All those little winglets, good lord.

How many super computers does Mercedes have?

Must been running cfd 24/7

[dougskullery]

Mercedes

All those little winglets, good lord.

How many super computers does Mercedes have?

Must been running cfd 24/7

Funnily enough, the computing power that teams are allowed to use is quite heavily restricted in F1. From a recent Ars Technica article:

For example, each Formula 1 team is only allowed to use 25 teraflops (trillions of floating point operations per second) of double precision (64-bit) computing power for simulating car aerodynamics. 25 teraflops isn't a lot of processing power, in the grand scheme of supercomputers: it's about comparable to 25 of the original Nvidia Titan graphics cards

[fawe4]

Mercedes

All those little winglets, good lord.

How many super computers does Mercedes have?

Must been running cfd 24/7

Funnily enough, the computing power that teams are allowed to use is quite heavily restricted in F1. From a recent Ars Technica article:

For example, each Formula 1 team is only allowed to use 25 teraflops (trillions of floating point operations per second) of double precision (64-bit) computing power for simulating car aerodynamics. 25 teraflops isn't a lot of processing power, in the grand scheme of supercomputers: it's about comparable to 25 of the original Nvidia Titan graphics cards

That's really interesting. But how can they check it? It's not like wind tunnel that you can't hide in one designers bathroom.

[dans79]

That can't be right? A 24Gb Titan M6000 costs £4500 at one site. 25 of those would be £112500 and that's peanuts in F1 terms.

It's not, check the Appendix 8 of the sporting regulations for details. Make sure you have pencil and paper handy, and are ready to read through it several times. It's convoluted because you can trade processing power for tunnel time and visa versa.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... V_nYp13qKQ

[drunkf1fan]

Am I the only one who thinks this isn't exactly what Mercedes wanted to do? I mean, this is quite bold step... I would understand if they tested it in Bahrain and then use in Barcelona. This to me looks like they get worried after winter testing...

Meh, not really, I think this is the intended step in the car that just wasn't working right in wind tunnel/winter testing.

Ferrari had a genuine concept change in car from previously while Merc(and most cars) heavily resemble the 2016 cars. This looks like Merc's real 2017 car, but just wasn't ready for the start of the season.

This isn't the kind of change you can do overnight, this looks like work that started long before the start of the season.

[bosanac1]

interesting.

so if they are limited by cfd use

could some of these parts be guessing game?

[PlatinumZealot]

Maybe the 'front diffusor' was the reason for the long wheelbase from the beginning.

A diffuser only applies if you have something with a low pressure that you want to bring up to a higher pressure with minimal energy loss. I don't think that peice is positioned to be a front diffuser.. But never the less it would help the central section of the front wing and also under the nose.. Just another design of the guide vanes it seems.

Le Mans cars are a good exaple of how the front diffusrs are used. Check the relative position of an LMP1 nose and front wing and front diffuser. You can see the differences. Out of the box thinking i give you that.

[bill shoe]

Wow, Mercedes can take the 2017 car out of the wind tunnel and start detail work on the 2018 car. They are probably already up to iteration 2018-074.

Ferrari will run them close in 2017, but the Merc chassis detail combined with flawless engine reliability will lock up constructor's and driver's before the last race.

Speaking of engines, Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines is probably already up to iteration 2018-126.

[dans79]

interesting.

so if they are limited by cfd use

could some of these parts be guessing game?

I think what you will find is that because they where so far ahead in 2014-2016, they have been designing and testing way in advance.

In other words no need to spend all of the 2016 tunnel/cfd time, on the 2016 car when you are going to walk both championships, better to use it on the 2017 car.

[PlatinumZealot]

Ok. No im confused... What the actual hell is that thing?

It splits the air up top... Flattens the air below... While functioning as a guide vane and a vortex generator?!

It appears to create lift on it's trailng edge but i can bet it doesn't? Or maybe it does but the net benefit downstream makes up for it?!! Aw shucks someone put this thing in CFD!

[Nathanael F1]

Wow, I really did not expect something so radical from Mercedes! It will be interesting to see how it actually performs on track.

[SR71]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C_kKwm7XUAUxYcv.jpg

Ok. No im confused... What the actual hell is that thing?

It splits the air up top... Flattens the air below... While functioning as a guide vane and a vortex generator?!

It appears to create lift on it's trailng edge but i can bet it doesn't? Or maybe it does but the net benefit downstream makes up for it?!! Aw shucks someone put this thing in CFD!

Check the angle of the suspension members just above.

The interaction between them and the snow plough should be direct?

[SR71]

I'm no stranger to making counterintuitive statements here on F1T, so here goes my latest

Mercedes has for the past few years been running an almost biological philosophy when it comes to aero.

This year felt very different at the first few races and had more of a stealth characteristic when it comes to describing their surfaces.

This update on the W08 plants them right back in biological for me. I see the leading edges of moths wings for example when viewed under a microscope.

For this reason I believe Mercedes has a two fold design advantage. First and foremost they achieve amazing flow structures.

Now the counterintuitive statement: while not the primary design objective, i believe these intricate details to be better at managing performance loss in dirty air than a simple solution would be.

When you have 15 points adding to a vortex, the performance loss is much less if a few of them drop out.

When you have 3 points adding to a vortex, dropping one or two is catastrophic to the efficAcy of that vortex.

Moths//insects/birds/bats/etc are efficient in all sorts of conditions and have very subtle but complex surfaces when viewed at a macro level - I think we're seeing that played out in a larger real world scale on the W08.

Again, not saying it's a dirty air solution - my gut just tells me they handle dirty air better than most commentators first impressions.

[LookBackTime]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C_kKwm7XUAUxYcv.jpg

Ok. No im confused... What the actual hell is that thing?

It splits the air up top... Flattens the air below... While functioning as a guide vane and a vortex generator?!

It appears to create lift on it's trailng edge but i can bet it doesn't? Or maybe it does but the net benefit downstream makes up for it?!! Aw shucks someone put this thing in CFD!

It confused me too! .
Totally different from what you expect seeing the front pictures of the nose.
Not many members of the of the site paid attention to this picture. Which in my opinion is the most interesting.

Few observations:
- no serration(s) (or better said: not yet)!
- in this area they choose to have a laminar flow
- looks like it is creating a low pressure area below the nose (increase of the downforce in the front of the car !?) - a guess

[dominaze]

I wonder how more complexity they can add to that car and how they deal with troubleshooting