Ferrari Power Unit Hardware & Software

[PlatinumZealot]

I'll stay with my opinion, that the whole block is not doable.

3D printing in steel or aluminium alloys is no problem, however conventional additive and subtractive techniques (eg casting and machining) are well developed and the raw materials relatively inexpensive. This is why you see 3D printing emphasis on exotic materials like titanium and nickel alloys.

with the materials, i think part of it is that instead of casting a piece in one material, with 3D printing now they can vary the material during the build:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WL4b03Tfjg
so they can go hard/soft, dense/lightweight, nickel alloy/steel alloy, whatever, with each tiny droplet! Being F1, i wouldn't be surprised if by now they can actually mix the exact alloy in real time as they go. It must be a whole new way of looking at designing something. They could even cool it by making some of it porous, possibly, who knows where it could lead

Metal 3Dprinting is different. Usually the material is a powder in a bed and a lazer sinters the desired details as fresh layers of powder are laid.
Multiple materials would be tricky.

[PlatinumZealot]

Oh, awesome. This must be such a time to be a design engineer, and you can imagine things are pretty hot at Ferrari right now, with a full blown engineer in charge. I wonder if they're AM-ing their own radiators? Or hybrid AM. That'd be a huge gain potentially

Honestly, why are people so excited by AM?

The level of manufacturing detail on a modern F1 car is already astounding, but add a tiny 3d printed widget and the internet loses its ---.

F1 moving to additive manufacturing is the largest single step that the sport can take to increase their "Green" footprint.

There is far less waste to recycle (energy/labor/fees/environmental), it is faster in most cases, as well as far more energy efficient.

If you only use what you need, instead of throwing out what you don't need, you are the most efficient. Why wouldn't everyone be excited about this technology?

Teams have been using additive manufacturering even before I started watching F1. The same technologies you see in the Video have been around since maybe the eighties. So i don't get the excitement either. It is more Materials science and maybe faster processing that would advance the application of additive manufacturing in F1 i would say.

There are already many 3d printed parts on the F1 cars. In testing especially. Sometimes the simplest shapes give the best performance.

[dans79]

I'd love to see the electric usage between a SLS printer, and the electric arc furnace used in casting...

Hopefully we won't get to far off topic, but I can tell you they are orders of magnitude different. My father has worked in the steel industry longer than I've been alive. In the late 90's he ran a large electric arc mill that had direct lines to a nuclear plant about 40 miles away. The monthly power bill was 2 to 3 million USD, and if the mill was going to go offline for maintenance for any length of time, someone was supposed to call the power plant and let them know in advance so they could dial back the reactor.

[izzy]

Metal 3Dprinting is different. Usually the material is a powder in a bed and a lazer sinters the desired details as fresh layers of powder are laid.
Multiple materials would be tricky.

there's a technique called Bound Powder Extrusion that they might be using, which has the metal in a polymer like state that they extrude through a nozzle

[izzy]

Teams have been using additive manufacturering even before I started watching F1. The same technologies you see in the Video have been around since maybe the eighties. So i don't get the excitement either. It is more Materials science and maybe faster processing that would advance the application of additive manufacturing in F1 i would say.

There are already many 3d printed parts on the F1 cars. In testing especially. Sometimes the simplest shapes give the best performance.

in 2017 Ferrari were trying to make a step and AM their pistons in steel: https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/ferr ... 08/870008/

apparently it wasn't working and they sacked Lorenzo Sassi who was in charge, and Mercedes snapped him up. Then now there are these new rumours about what Ferrari are doing with AM on the heads as well and perhaps even the block, and how it's aimed at enabling higher temperatures in the combustion chamber. So it's not all brand new obviously but it could be exciting, if your socialisation allows mature guys to be childishly excited

[saviour stivala]

Mature guys do get genuinely childishly excited when they dive into speculation mode.
Lorenzo Sassi was not sacked from the F1 team by FERRARI.

[Tommy Cookers]

there's a technique called Bound Powder Extrusion that they might be using, which has the metal in a polymer like state that they extrude through a nozzle

BPE seems (to me) to involve metal mixed with an actual polymer (which is then burned off ?)

and regarding your idea that they 'mix the correct alloy as they go' .....
maybe the material performance given by a century of pre-AM alloy metallurgy isn't available when using AM techniques ?

[izzy]

BPE seems (to me) to involve metal mixed with an actual polymer (which is then burned off ?)

and regarding your idea that they 'mix the correct alloy as they go' .....
maybe the material performance given by a century of pre-AM alloy metallurgy isn't available when using AM techniques ?

yes, and they shrink a bit and have to be re-flowed to bond fully. And who knows exactly what Ferrari are doing obviously but it sounds like they're still working on it, they couldn't do it 3 years ago, and they want at least to make parts (including pistons) that they can't make with casting, involving steel alloys

[saviour stivala]

BPE seems (to me) to involve metal mixed with an actual polymer (which is then burned off ?)

and regarding your idea that they 'mix the correct alloy as they go' .....
maybe the material performance given by a century of pre-AM alloy metallurgy isn't available when using AM techniques ?

yes, and they shrink a bit and have to be re-flowed to bond fully. And who knows exactly what Ferrari are doing obviously but it sounds like they're still working on it, they couldn't do it 3 years ago, and they want at least to make parts (including pistons) that they can't make with casting, involving steel alloys

So speculated Franco Nugnes back then. But who really knows or can't tell with certainty what FERRARI were or are doing (inside their engine), that's the real point.

[izzy]

So speculated Franco Nugnes back then. But who really knows or can't tell with certainty what FERRARI were or are doing (inside their engine), that's the real point.

the fun is embracing uncertainty and trying to join the dots we have. Ferrari themselves don't depend on what we think

But btw Motorsport.com think Lorenzo was sacked :

Lorenzo Sassi, who was fired by Ferrari boss Sergio Marchionne last summer, will start work soon at Mercedes. Lorenzo Sassi, who was fired by Ferrari boss Sergio Marchionne last summer, will start work soon at Mercedes. He will be following in the footsteps of chassis designer Aldo Costa, who was chucked out of Maranello, but has enjoyed great success since with the three pointed star.

It was part of the old Ferrari style, and he must've taken a lot of engine secrets with him! But hopefully now Mattia is doing it better and keeping the genius engineers as engineers not promoting them into managers and then sacking them for not being great at it. And now possibly they have these AM techniques that'll give them more efficiency, so live the moment and be excited not

[saviour stivala]

Sorry for the repeat but Sassi was not fired.

[gruntguru]

Regarding the "greenness" of metal AM tech.
A major factor is that the melting energy need only be applied to enough metal to make the pre-finished part. Cast or billet parts usually require melting of much larger quantities of metal than contained in the actual part.

[MarcJ]

Metal 3Dprinting is different. Usually the material is a powder in a bed and a lazer sinters the desired details as fresh layers of powder are laid.
Multiple materials would be tricky.

there's a technique called Bound Powder Extrusion that they might be using, which has the metal in a polymer like state that they extrude through a nozzle

There's also a kinetic fusion process, you accelerate the material powder at supersonic speed and plastic deformation provides the heat energy for the fusion process, producing large and small objects is possible even large rockets in Titanium.
See the Australian Titomic kinetic fusion printer here, it can print using various metals, alloys, super alloys and onto polymers; And it's real fast, like wow fast.

https://youtu.be/PIcNGPjQTWM4

[izzy]

There's also a kinetic fusion process, you accelerate the material powder at supersonic speed and plastic deformation provides the heat energy for the fusion process, producing large and small objects is possible even large rockets in Titanium.
See the Australian Titomic kinetic fusion printer here, it can print using various metals, alloys, super alloys and onto polymers; And it's real fast, like wow fast.

https://youtu.be/PIcNGPjQTWM4

oh cool, pity he had to use a rifle barrel to demonstrate it in a way, but the 5-metre AM rocket is impressive, and that hybrid part. So now we just need Ferrari to tell us what they're actually doing!

[saviour stivala]

Just wait for FERRARI or any of the other three to tell you what they are doing inside their engines.