Rear wing flex and FIA regulatory test 2021

[peaty]

The problem is the current design is not bypassing the FIA test. That's what people don't get their head arround and that's why the FIA is changing the test and not directly imposing a penalty.

But the problem with that is, that by changing the tests, FIA is also changing the tolerances and hence design criteria.
Time was invested and resources were spent into designing a wing that meets the criteria, and then all of a sudden, while the season is already running, the criteria are changed. In that case, I would be rather... upset... as an engineer, to put it nicely. And this detail is why the 'speed camera' analogy doesn't work. It's not adding more cameras, or more accurate cameras to check whether everyone is staying within a certain margin at all times - it's changing the margins which are being tolerated themselves in this case, to new margins that existing designs were not based on.

I know. I don't want to repeat myself but, this has nothing to do with the technical regulations. This is politics.

[El Scorchio]

The problem is the current design is not bypassing the FIA test. That's what people don't get their head arround and that's why the FIA is changing the test and not directly imposing a penalty.

But the problem with that is, that by changing the tests, FIA is also changing the tolerances and hence design criteria.
Time was invested and resources were spent into designing a wing that meets the criteria, and then all of a sudden, while the season is already running, the criteria are changed. In that case, I would be rather... upset... as an engineer, to put it nicely. And this detail is why the 'speed camera' analogy doesn't work. It's not adding more cameras, or more accurate cameras to check whether everyone is staying within a certain margin at all times - it's changing the margins which are being tolerated themselves in this case, to new margins that existing designs were not based on.

I guess you can blame the FIA for that for (allegedly) doing nothing when this was (allegedly) put to them by Mercedes last year.

[Pany]

Yessa, just economic interests

The problem is the current design is not bypassing the FIA test. That's what people don't get their head arround and that's why the FIA is changing the test and not directly imposing a penalty.

But the problem with that is, that by changing the tests, FIA is also changing the tolerances and hence design criteria.
Time was invested and resources were spent into designing a wing that meets the criteria, and then all of a sudden, while the season is already running, the criteria are changed. In that case, I would be rather... upset... as an engineer, to put it nicely. And this detail is why the 'speed camera' analogy doesn't work. It's not adding more cameras, or more accurate cameras to check whether everyone is staying within a certain margin at all times - it's changing the margins which are being tolerated themselves in this case, to new margins that existing designs were not based on.

I guess you can blame the FIA for that for (allegedly) doing nothing when this was (allegedly) put to them by Mercedes last year.

[SmallSoldier]

It will be interesting what the position of the FIA will be in the event of a protest next week.

The issue in my opinion is in regards to potential “additional flex” from the rear wings.

If the rule is that the parts need to be rigid, understanding that the parts can’t be infinitely rigid the FIA allows certain tolerances as described on the tests for the Rear Wing.

The problem arises if teams are engineering additional flex to the parts, therefore the argument that the parts need to flex because they can’t be absolutely rigid becomes problematic for those that are using “X” method(s) to induce additional flex on the Rear Wings.

If the FIA finds that indeed, the flex from the Rear Wings under suspicion is indeed engineered or designed into the parts, they will have grounds to apply penalties since those teams will be “intentionally” adding Flexing to their parts, beyond what is inherently expected from Flexing under load.

That’s what I believe will be the ultimate deciding factor one way or another, there is a rule that requests rigidity, there are tests that contemplate certain amount of flex... If a team is purposely inducing additional flex into the parts that isn’t a by product of the materials used, then the FIA can rule against them based on the teams purposely not meeting article 3.8 criteria... That’s why, one of the key questions that will be asked is how and why the amount of flexing is produced and whether the observable flex is linear or not... If linear, the FIA won’t be able to take much action, if non-linear or if the deflection is induced in parts not considered in the test (like the end plates buckling to allow the flex) then it wouldn’t be surprising for the FIA to rule against those wings, due to the intention to circumvent 3.8.


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[SmallSoldier]

We quite literally have a legal tolerance in speed enforcement, yes it's there to cover the margin of error of the equipment, but it's explicitly written into the law and it's 3kph below 100kph and 3% above, irregardless of the measurement device. I know that there's even higher values in other countries but elsewhere there might be none, of course.
So the law dictates a limit, but only enforces limit+x.

But that is quite a different situation - whether there is some margin of error applied in enforcement or not, the limit in this case is 100 kph, unconditionally, regardless of other factors. In case of flexible bodywork, the limit is conditional: X mm under load Y, A mm under load B, etc. There is no unconditional limit that can be enforced - all that can be enforced are whether the specifics of the prescribed tests are met.

Oh c'mon cut me some slack man, it's a sh**y analogy not a comparison of law enforcement ...

Actual speed limit = rigid bodywork ... that's what is written in the rules/law
Enforced speed limit via cams = enforced limits of bodywork flex via test

Maybe the drug analogy would have been better

You are analogy is not way off, but I think a better way to use it would be to say that the speed limit is 100 kph and you engineer a device that will trick the radar gun and make it read 10 kph below your actual speed.

You are going at 110 kph, but the radar is still showing 100kph... Are you braking the law?


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[Just_a_fan]

You are going at 110 kph, but the radar is still showing 100kph... Are you braking the law?


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Oh that's easy. Yes, you're breaking the law.

Actually, in that case you're breaking two laws. You're speeding and you're perverting the course of justice/impeding a law officer.

[DChemTech]

You are analogy is not way off, but I think a better way to use it would be to say that the speed limit is 100 kph and you engineer a device that will trick the radar gun and make it read 10 kph below your actual speed.

You are going at 110 kph, but the radar is still showing 100kph... Are you braking the law?


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You would be breaking the law, but there is still one critical difference: there is the unconditional, quantitative limit of 100kph that is defined. So, as an engineer, it is 100% clear what you need to design for. You can decide to cheat, but there is no ambiguity.

In the rigidity case, that limit is not there, as I stated before. There is no quantification how much 'flex' you can 'add', so it is not clear to design for. Or well, it is clear what to design for, since that is in article 3.9. But those are conditional limits, not unconditional, quantitative limits that describe on-track behavior. Still, it's all the engineers have, and all they can realistically aim to meet (and they are meeting it).

I don't think the 'speed limit' analogy very much, because there is one other major difference with the speed limit: you can always stay below it. If you know the speed limit is exactly 100 kph, and strictly enforced, you can always decide to drive 95 kph if you know there is a 5 kph uncertainty in your own reading. There is no such option when it comes to rigidity - if the limit is exactly no movement, what is 'safely staying below the limit'?

If you are adamant to stick to speed, the analogy would be that the speed requirement is set to exactly 100 kph - you can't go over or under. When it comes to tolerance, there is an article that specifies how close to 100 kph you have to be on specified test-bench conditions, but not for 'real world' conditions where there may be hills, wind and different road surfaces. There seem to be qualitative tolerances for real-world situations, but they are never quantified - so how could one possibly design for them? That's the absurdity.

[SmallSoldier]

You are going at 110 kph, but the radar is still showing 100kph... Are you braking the law?


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Oh that's easy. Yes, you're breaking the law.

Actually, in that case you're breaking two laws. You're speeding and you're perverting the course of justice/impeding a law officer.

And that was actually my point in regards to “intention”... The law (rule) is that body parts have to be rigid, there is a test in place to measure that rigidity, but you “engineer” your parts to pass the test but deflect / flex beyond what would be the expected flex if the load would keep increasing (flexing in a linear way)... If in fact, the teams have induced additional flex either passed the point of the test or by means that can’t be measured by the test (for example, the current test grabs both end plates to measure, the test itself could be stiffening the parts while under load instead of showing flex)... Then you will be found in breach of the regulations.

It is clear with 3.8 that the FIA’s aim is to have rigid body work, while allowing certain amount of compliance / flex, if you design pieces to flex, then they could rule against you.


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[Just_a_fan]

You would be breaking the law, but there is still one critical difference: there is the unconditional, quantitative limit of 100kph that is defined. So, as an engineer, it is 100% clear what you need to design for. You can decide to cheat, but there is no ambiguity.

In the rigidity case, that limit is not there, as I stated before. There is no quantification how much 'flex' you can 'add', so it is not clear to design for. Or well, it is clear what to design for, since that is in article 3.9. But those are conditional limits, not unconditional, quantitative limits that describe on-track behavior. Still, it's all the engineers have, and all they can realistically aim to meet (and they are meeting it).

The rule is "no flexing", not "no flexing in excess of the limits defined by a test". Thus there is an absolute limit. The limit is zero.

[nzjrs]

You would be breaking the law, but there is still one critical difference: there is the unconditional, quantitative limit of 100kph that is defined. So, as an engineer, it is 100% clear what you need to design for. You can decide to cheat, but there is no ambiguity.

In the rigidity case, that limit is not there, as I stated before. There is no quantification how much 'flex' you can 'add', so it is not clear to design for. Or well, it is clear what to design for, since that is in article 3.9. But those are conditional limits, not unconditional, quantitative limits that describe on-track behavior. Still, it's all the engineers have, and all they can realistically aim to meet (and they are meeting it).

The rule is "no flexing", not "no flexing in excess of the limits defined by a test". Thus there is an absolute limit. The limit is zero.

This is all so tedious. If I were to now to agree with the definition you gave "indeed, Mercedes is also in breach of the rule" then I would not be wrong, however my uninsightful comment would call the appropriate people to this thread and we would be off for another 10 pages.

[diffuser]

You are going at 110 kph, but the radar is still showing 100kph... Are you braking the law?


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Oh that's easy. Yes, you're breaking the law.

Actually, in that case you're breaking two laws. You're speeding and you're perverting the course of justice/impeding a law officer.

Right but not in a way that can be proven.

Just like Ferrari and the fuel Sensors. There was a theory that they were circumventing the senors but they were never caught. A sensor never caught them using more fuel than was allowed. Yet in the end they were going 110 and registering 100.

[diffuser]

You would be breaking the law, but there is still one critical difference: there is the unconditional, quantitative limit of 100kph that is defined. So, as an engineer, it is 100% clear what you need to design for. You can decide to cheat, but there is no ambiguity.

In the rigidity case, that limit is not there, as I stated before. There is no quantification how much 'flex' you can 'add', so it is not clear to design for. Or well, it is clear what to design for, since that is in article 3.9. But those are conditional limits, not unconditional, quantitative limits that describe on-track behavior. Still, it's all the engineers have, and all they can realistically aim to meet (and they are meeting it).

The rule is "no flexing", not "no flexing in excess of the limits defined by a test". Thus there is an absolute limit. The limit is zero.

This is all so tedious. If I were to now to agree with the definition you gave "indeed, Mercedes is also in breach of the rule" then I would not be wrong, however my uninsightful comment would call the appropriate people to this thread and we would be off for another 10 pages.

It just a wait and see thing. We've learned the last few years that there is all kinds of negotiations going on in the background. Where this ends is anyone's guess.

[codetower]

The "we meet the test so we're legal" argument is interesting. If you drive down the road and there is a speed camera and the speed camera doesn't activate, you then speed up and exceed the speed limit well out of range of the speed camera, are you still legal? No. You're breaking the law, it's just that the test (the camera) isn't seeing you do it.

What the FIA is doing is saying is the equivalent of the police saying "we know that people are speeding after the camera so we're going to put up some other cameras too".

I disagree. Speeding is quite a black-and-white issue; there is a fixed limit at a certain location, and either you break it or you don't.
Flexing is something that always happens to some degree, and as such there is some grey area between what is considered flexing and what is considered rigid. Which means you end up with standardized tests that state "under a load X, maximum displacement is Y" - in other words, the limit is implicit in the test. So, in changing the tests you actually change the limit (which is not the case when you add more cameras on a stretch of road). It would be a more similar case if the rules stated "the wing cannot displace/rotate more than Y under any condition" - just like with speeding, that makes it a black-and-white issue.

Wouldn't the flexing issue be the same as speeding? If you are allowed X amount of pull resistance on the wing, as long as your wing meets that criteria, isn't the wing legal then? Same with speeding (If the speed limit is 50, as long as you are below that you are good).

This seems more like the speed limit being 100kph, but the neighbors are complaining that the 100 is too fast, so the police dept saying "we will reduce the limit to 80 starting next month". It's an odd move midseason, in my opinion.

[SmallSoldier]

The "we meet the test so we're legal" argument is interesting. If you drive down the road and there is a speed camera and the speed camera doesn't activate, you then speed up and exceed the speed limit well out of range of the speed camera, are you still legal? No. You're breaking the law, it's just that the test (the camera) isn't seeing you do it.

What the FIA is doing is saying is the equivalent of the police saying "we know that people are speeding after the camera so we're going to put up some other cameras too".

I disagree. Speeding is quite a black-and-white issue; there is a fixed limit at a certain location, and either you break it or you don't.
Flexing is something that always happens to some degree, and as such there is some grey area between what is considered flexing and what is considered rigid. Which means you end up with standardized tests that state "under a load X, maximum displacement is Y" - in other words, the limit is implicit in the test. So, in changing the tests you actually change the limit (which is not the case when you add more cameras on a stretch of road). It would be a more similar case if the rules stated "the wing cannot displace/rotate more than Y under any condition" - just like with speeding, that makes it a black-and-white issue.

Wouldn't the flexing issue be the same as speeding? If you are allowed X amount of pull resistance on the wing, as long as your wing meets that criteria, isn't the wing legal then? Same with speeding (If the speed limit is 50, as long as you are below that you are good).

This seems more like the speed limit being 100kph, but the neighbors are complaining that the 100 is too fast, so the police dept saying "we will reduce the limit to 80 starting next month". It's an odd move midseason, in my opinion.

No, it’s more like:

- The speed limit is 80 kph
- You know where the speed camera is
- You go at 80 kph or less until the speed camera
- Your neighbors notice that as soon as your past the camera, you go WOT and exceeding 100 kph
- The police comes in and put additional Speed Cameras to make sure you stop speeding


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[codetower]

I disagree. Speeding is quite a black-and-white issue; there is a fixed limit at a certain location, and either you break it or you don't.
Flexing is something that always happens to some degree, and as such there is some grey area between what is considered flexing and what is considered rigid. Which means you end up with standardized tests that state "under a load X, maximum displacement is Y" - in other words, the limit is implicit in the test. So, in changing the tests you actually change the limit (which is not the case when you add more cameras on a stretch of road). It would be a more similar case if the rules stated "the wing cannot displace/rotate more than Y under any condition" - just like with speeding, that makes it a black-and-white issue.

Wouldn't the flexing issue be the same as speeding? If you are allowed X amount of pull resistance on the wing, as long as your wing meets that criteria, isn't the wing legal then? Same with speeding (If the speed limit is 50, as long as you are below that you are good).

This seems more like the speed limit being 100kph, but the neighbors are complaining that the 100 is too fast, so the police dept saying "we will reduce the limit to 80 starting next month". It's an odd move midseason, in my opinion.

No, it’s more like:

- The speed limit is 80 kph
- You know where the speed camera is
- You go at 80 kph or less until the speed camera
- Your neighbors notice that as soon as your past the camera, you go WOT and exceeding 100 kph
- The police comes in and put additional Speed Cameras to make sure you stop speeding


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I see it differently. Saying that they go the speed limit when ONLY when the camera is there is not what's happening here. The teams aren't "inflexible" when they get tested, then all of a sudden become flexible during the race. There is a standard set during testing... they adhere to the standard.

This is the way I see it:
- No flexing = No speeding
- Definition of Speeding = Exceeding the Speed limit.
- Definition of flexing = Falling outside the flex test.

If the rule states that no part of the car that affects aerodynamic can move... then every team, including mercedes, is "Cheating". From the rear wing, to the front wing, to the shark fin. Every aerodynamic part on every team should be scrutinized equally.