Red Bull RB5

[ISLAMATRON]

How can you tell how reliable a car will be by looking at it?

That is what makes a good engineer... if the suspension parts are paper thin and being heat blasted by the exhaust than it's fragility becomes more appareent but the further one goes into one's engineering career you start to recognize more and different modes of failure. And thus can see much less evident fragility.

The short answer to your question is experience.

do you not think that the highly skilled engineering and design minds in F1 would not make such a simple mistake as to be spotted by people looking at pictures of the car on the internet?

I was not commenting on if the design was reliable or not, I was merely answering a good question. Now in regards to your comment, it has been stated many times that Newey often disregards mechanical and reliablity issues in his designs in favor of an aerodynamically dominant design. We've seen the problems this creates first at McLaren and further more at Red Bull, so yes it is possible that an internet engineer may spot a problem that a Red Bull engineer may ALSO have but was ignored by Newey.

[ISLAMATRON]

How can you tell how reliable a car will be by looking at it?

That is what makes a good engineer... if the suspension parts are paper thin and being heat blasted by the exhaust than it's fragility becomes more appareent but the further one goes into one's engineering career you start to recognize more and different modes of failure. And thus can see much less evident fragility.

The short answer to your question is experience.

So you think they won't have used CFD to check the flow from the exhausts against ALL the parts it could interact with such as the rear wing...

Yeah riiiight.

I'm sure Honda(& renault) used CFD to check their last 2 years cars designs and it still didnt help them that much. CFD is a tool and it must be properly used by engineers, experienced engineers. didnt Red bull have a number of suspension failures early last year?

[axle]

I'm sure Honda(& renault) used CFD to check their last 2 years cars designs and it still didnt help them that much. CFD is a tool and it must be properly used by engineers, experienced engineers. didnt Red bull have a number of suspension failures early last year?

Yes RB did, so why on earth do you think they'd make the SAME mistake again? Are you saying the engineers are too thick to learn from their mistakes and that a bunch of rank amatures like us know better?

[jddh1]

How can you tell how reliable a car will be by looking at it?

I cannot do that. But, if I p!ss on it and it breaks, then it's a fragile part. Simple as that.

[ISLAMATRON]

I'm sure Honda(& renault) used CFD to check their last 2 years cars designs and it still didnt help them that much. CFD is a tool and it must be properly used by engineers, experienced engineers. didnt Red bull have a number of suspension failures early last year?

Yes RB did, so why on earth do you think they'd make the SAME mistake again? Are you saying the engineers are too thick to learn from their mistakes and that a bunch of rank amatures like us know better?

I made no assertion that the suspension looked fragile, I merely answered a question by "bobslosak" to the best of my knowledge. And yes they could have easily made the same mistake again because it is the same people possibly using the same groupthink.

I make no asumptions that I know better than the RBR engineers, I merely look at the information in front of me and make my best guesses to the validity of their ideas. Much like the rest of you.

[tomislavp4]

Wow! This thing looks promising indeed! Interesting details here and there, the nose is quite thin, maybe they got enough DF from the beautiful front wing so they don´t need the low pressure and the ballast everyone else is using

Damn can´t wait for the season to start

[ISLAMATRON]

How can you tell how reliable a car will be by looking at it?

I cannot do that. But, if I p!ss on it and it breaks, then it's a fragile part. Simple as that.

Yes but if the suspension part is made of the same crappy toilet papper that you have once pissed on before that fell apart you can look at that suspension part and without pissing on it can deduce that it will fail upon a piss test. And you will then be an experienced engineeer... put that on your resume.

[carvetia]

I'm surprised this is the first car to use pullrods, what with the potential packaging and cooling gains under the new regs. Love this car because of its details, don't love it because i'm a BMW racing guy...

[jddh1]

How can you tell how reliable a car will be by looking at it?

I cannot do that. But, if I p!ss on it and it breaks, then it's a fragile part. Simple as that.

Yes but if the suspension part is made of the same crappy toilet papper that you have once pissed on before that fell apart you can look at that suspension part and without pissing on it can deduce that it will fail upon a piss test. And you will then be an experienced engineeer... put that on your resume.

It already is, my friend, it already is!

[kilcoo316]

That is what makes a good engineer... if the suspension parts are paper thin and being heat blasted by the exhaust than it's fragility becomes more appareent but the further one goes into one's engineering career you start to recognize more and different modes of failure. And thus can see much less evident fragility.

The short answer to your question is experience.

You obviously aren't experienced enough to know that looking at a photo means next to nothing.

We can speculate, but they will have done the tests. A decision to go with that suspension geometry coupled with that exhaust outlet is not easily reversed.

They will have looked at that in depth.

An F1 exhaust is not that hot compared to an afterburner, there are materials around that can work in such environments.

[Callum]

Could anyone please explain the basic principles of the Pullrod compared to the pushrod suspension?

What kind of advantages does one give over the other??

thanks.

[kilcoo316]

Adv of pullrods:

1. Lower c.g.
2. Better packing for gearbox and rear crash struct.
3. Composites tend to like to operate in tension rather than compression.


Disadv:

1. Other parts of the suspension load-path may not like operating in tension as much, and can induce a bit of "softness" into the system. More of a killer on front suspensions though.
2. Adjusting the settings is awkward.


There will be others...

[tk421]

What kind of advantages does one give over the other??

Discussed in this thread...

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=740&hilit=pullrod

Although it's mainly about the front suspension...

[Callum]

Thanks tk and kilcoo

[dumbdave]

I think we can safely assume *someone* at RBT bothered to run a test at temperature for those suspension components, that or they just spent £££££s on a test department which twiddles its thumbs....which do you think?