Renault Power Unit Hardware & Software

[McHonda]

Renault says reliability looks good, so all three teams will have a little bit more power from now onwards. MGU-K upgrade planned with second round of power units.

Source: https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/rena ... e-1025524/

Is it more power though? This line makes it sound like it's not an increase in the power they currently have, just more use of the high power mode.

The works Enstone outfit, Red Bull Racing and McLaren are henceforth all allowed to use higher power modes for longer than was the case in Australia and Bahrain.

I hope it's more power, make a it a proper 3 way fight at the front, but that may have to wait until PU #2.

It's being able to use the highest power modes for longer basically. So while not any extra power than what they had in the highest mode, it's still more power than what they had available in Australia and Bahrain as they can access it more often.

[GhostF1]

Can probably assume all Renault teams will turn it back down now after Ricciardo's explosion in FP3..

[restless]

Wanna bet that Renault team won't turn down their engines?

[GhostF1]

Wanna bet that Renault team won't turn down their engines?

Maybe there's just a pissed off engineer or two in Viry that make "an adjustment" to the PU's bound for RBR.

[baybars]

The exchange of the MGU-H is unrelated to the turbo damage at Red Bull. On Thursday we recognized a potential problem from the data. It only affected our MGU-H and not our customers. To be on the safe side, we removed the parts and sent them back to Paris to test them on the test bench. Should our suspicions not be confirmed, they will return to the contingent and will be used in the Friday training sessions or maybe even in races. "
Abiteboul sees no general problem with MGU-H. "Otherwise, we would have taken action at the customer's and changed the turbocharger as well. These are parts from a particular batch, which has just gone to us

https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... eue-mgu-h/

[MrPotatoHead]

Hydraulic VLIM?

Doubt it, would guess electro-mechanical actuators.

Linear Hydraulic Actuators are used to control pretty much everything on a modern F1 engine - especially the Variable Intake.
Controlled by electronic solenoids with closed loop positional feedback.

[MrPotatoHead]

Maybe a dumb question, but why are they using VLIM on (e-turbos)turbo engines?

Because a Forced Induction engine operates the same as a "Naturally Aspirated" engine.

[MrPotatoHead]

I am not quite sure why electric vs hydraulic is still being debated.
All cars already carry a hydraulic pump so why not actuate everything hydraulically? An electrical actuator is several times heavier than a hydraulic actuator since it normally consists of a low power electric motor that drives a large reduction gearbox to generate any useful torque.

Exactly.
When you compare the torque vs packaging size the hydraulic actuator is hard to beat.

[Tommy Cookers]

the pressurised fluid does not come about without cost of weight, bulk, and complexity ?
or are these already charged to the gearbox's account so we act as though they were free

the electromechanical way would be straightforward (assuming we only want vlim length proportionate to rpm)
the car is already swimming with electricity

are the throttles actuated hydraulically ? - assuming they have throttles

(given the topic was apparently not dismissed days ago)

[godlameroso]

the pressurised fluid does not come about without cost of weight, bulk, and complexity ?
or are these already charged to the gearbox's account so we act as though they were free

the electromechanical way would be straightforward (assuming we only want vlim length proportionate to rpm)
the car is already swimming with electricity

are the throttles actuated hydraulically ? - assuming they have throttles

(given the topic was apparently not dismissed days ago)

Could be like cam phasing or VANOS/VTEC/whatever variable lift doohickey, and just work off the engine oiling system. It's not a big ask from the actuators, nothing a 100psi positive displacement pump can't handle.

If you want to get F1 technical about it, run the pump off the MGU-K, then you have a secondary energy storage through the oil pumps, the tank itself can function as an accumulator, then you can feed energy back to the MGU-K, or to the accumulator and with the free path to the ERS via the MGU-H, you have the main ERS cells and a hydraulic super capacitor to supplement the MGU-K(your oil system). This is nice because it lets you incorporate the transmission hydraulic system into your capacitor, so you can charge it by shifting. Hell you can even charge your oil capacitor via the drivetrain in excess of the 120kW limit as it only pertains to the MGU-K(although you'd only be able to send to the MGU-K at 120kW max), of course being a capacitor your charge is very limited, particularly by the oil capacity.

According to this it's allowed.


It could also serve to take some of the shock loading off the MGU-K.

[MrPotatoHead]

the pressurised fluid does not come about without cost of weight, bulk, and complexity ?
or are these already charged to the gearbox's account so we act as though they were free

the electromechanical way would be straightforward (assuming we only want vlim length proportionate to rpm)
the car is already swimming with electricity

are the throttles actuated hydraulically ? - assuming they have throttles

(given the topic was apparently not dismissed days ago)

Correct - the cars already have a hydraulic pump and system there for the gearbox - it is in theory free at that point other than extra piping and volume needed for those pipes.
The actuators are very small and light - compare the size of a motor on a typical DBW system - then take into account that it is not fast enough for F1, and thus would need different gearing and then would not have the torque.

And yes - the cars have throttle plates, I'm not sure where the strange notion came from that they do not.
How else would they throttle the engine? Not to mention it's kinda in the rules is it not?
They have ITB's controlled hydraulically.

[baybars]

Spain's AS newspaper reports that a performance step is planned for the Canadian grand prix in June, although single units might be available by Monaco. "According to informed sources, the improvement will be about 30 hp, and on a track like Canada, it would be about three tenths per lap," said the report.

https://www.f1today.net/en/news/f1/2379 ... for-canada

[stevesingo]

Didn't McLaren look at using hydraulic accumulators charged on engine deceleration for the hydraulic systems some time ago? I'm thinking MP4-19/20.

FiA poo poo'd the idea I believe.

It would make sense to have a variable swash pump which is active under deceleration (gear change/braking) to charge the accumulator from which pressure is drawn during acceleration for steering, gearbox, throttles and other actuators.

The only drawback I can see is packaging the accumulators.

[FW17]

Accumulator would be illegal as the only way of powering the wheels is the engine and MGUK

The accumulator could be used to run other systems such as water pumps, oil pumps and gearbox, which would save up some engine power

I wonder if a hydraulic braking regenerative system can be deployed on the front wheels to power engine ancillaries

[ScrewCaptain27]

Red Bull 2017-2018 packaging comparison:

Note how much longer the 2017 exhausts are.