F1 2010: Ride height adjustments during pit stops

[ringo]

I have a better idea. Coming up!
I should patent this next one before i even put it up . That last one looks primitive to the next, but it's a similar principle.
I guess it's my intellectual property if I can prove it's mine right?

It takes money and time to get a patent, and it has to be obtained for many countries for protection in those countries. Proof of ownership should be able to protect an idea for a while I suppose?
Where's Autogyro, I want to hear his opinion.

[autogyro]

I have a better idea. Coming up!
I should patent this next one before i even put it up . That last one looks primitive to the next, but it's a similar principle.
I guess it's my intellectual property if I can prove it's mine right?

It takes money and time to get a patent, and it has to be obtained for many countries for protection in those countries. Proof of ownership should be able to protect an idea for a while I suppose?
Where's Autogyro, I want to hear his opinion.

Difficult question ringo. Without seeing it I cannot judge.
However most variations on controlling suspension have been done.
I have recently been studying all the relevent Ferrari patents on hybrid technology and this has made me laugh on a number of points. They seem to think they can patent the fact that the car has four wheels.
You should look at some of these, the words rarely make any sense to me. Might be better in Italian I suppose, who knows.
In the UK ringo you can get a patent on line for just over £100 if you study the project enough to write most of it yourself.
Having read your posts on here for a while, I can confidently say that you would do a better job than the clown who writes the Ferrari patents.
Also ringo, you can talk to anyone under a non disclosure agreement.
In my case, I have someone connected with some of my projects who I have no doubt would sue the ass off anyone who tried to rip me off, no matter where in the world. Difficult if you are not that confident.

[autogyro]

Another thing ringo. This ride height thing depends on the base line, which is that money talks and not ideas no matter how clever.
The teams are very narrow focused. If what you have suits them at the moment they will pay for it. If they are focusing on something else they wont want to know.
With the limiting budgets getting even more controlling this is getting worse.
There are a million brilliant ideas out there and as I have already said, most things have been done more than once in the past anyway.
It is the FIA that has the huge responsibility to encourage this on going development that the whole world of transport relies upon.
The big manufacturers have already stagnated the whole thing by years.
Todt needs to establish someone to run F1, someone with the experience the ability the wealth and the balls to do it.
There is only one logical person but I am not saying who just yet.

[bill shoe]

How about this, legal?

So proud of it i put my name on it, though it's simplistic in how the shock itself operates.



No external power and directly linked to fuel weight, very simple and needs no adjustment by mechanics. The internals of the shock were simplified by me; i am not very knowledgeable on F1 shock technology so ignore that.

Tank and valve are lightly spring loaded. Realistically the needle valve should be implemented in a way that the shock force is not acting back on the tank piston. Maybe if it was threaded and moved via hydraulic motor motion and supported by torsional spring. This way only torque can move it and not pressure force.

edit: feel free to criticize and correct. It's only an initial thought, it's possibly not visually accurate in terms of holding a specific ride height, but the restriction could limit shock motion. Any F1 team should be able to make the proper corrections too.

This is roughly a Nivomat damper. The details are not all there, but if it were fleshed out more I think it would asymptotically approach a Nivomat. I.e. the fuel mass pushing on the sensing spring can be thought of as the overall chassis mass pushing on a Nivomat damper via a pushrod.

Edit: Ringo, I think my response above is a little too negative. You have a good idea, you put it into a functional diagram, and shared it. It made me think and understand something better. I do appreciate that. This is much better than claiming a radical improvement in some area of automotive engineering without being able to give any functional description of how it might work.

[bill shoe]

There has been much speculation about Red Bull using simple gas pressure changes to preload the ride height to different levels for qualifying vs race. I am not buying this concept yet.

When the RB6 sits in parc ferme after the race it develops the ride height of a Paris-Dakar super truck. If Red Bull were simply doing a single adjustment to ride height between qualy and race via compressed gas then the post-race ride height would look like any other car that had finished the race. The only difference would be a lower ride height during qualy. Slightly softer springing philosophy would not explain the post-race Paris-Dakar ride height that scrapes the undertray against the rear tires.

Edit: A Nivomat is a plausible explaination for the oddly high post-race ride height because: The un-Nivomated ride height is high and the Nivomat simply pulls the car down to the desired dynamic ride height as it gets energized by suspension movement. Stop driving, Nivomat decompresses and lets car back up. This is opposite the traditional direction of action in passenger cars but there is no particular reason why this would be a problem.

Also on an unrelated note there is a current controversy in IndyCar racing about "ride height control". As far as I can tell this involves the sanctioning body's ban on conventional 3rd springs. The Penske team effectively created a third spring by using a flexing anti-roll bar. I don't think this is relevant to F1 because F1 allows 3rd springs. If anyone has better/other info on this then please share.

[autogyro]

Nivomat damper, yep, near enough but no coconut.
A nivomat damper would not do the job on an F1 car.

[bill shoe]

Back to the topic under discussion. I think your "Nivomat" solution to compensate for varying fuel weight would introduce a couple of problems. Its weight would, in most cases, increase the vertical height of the centre of gravity, and it would be difficult to control its tendency to "hunt" by changing pressure whenever the mean load supported by the suspension changed. My comment about the ratio of fuel load compared with aero load is relevant here, I think, because you would be requiring the system to operate accurately with a signal/noise ratio of around 0.1. I could imagine it actually increasing the mean ride height through corners following long straights, for example. I can't think that would be an easy problem to solve.

DaveW,

My intuition is that the CG increase would not be a big problem because modern F1 performance is dominated by aero. This is a weak response on that point but it's all I can do.

I can do better with the hunting and signal to noise issue. The key is that a Nivomat adjusts slowly. Very slowly. It may take several minutes of driving to restore a couple inches on a production car.

Try this example. Assume a typical F1 car with no fancy ride height control. Early in the race you electronically measure the ride height 10 times per second for 5 minutes and figure the average. Late in the race you do the same thing. The maximum suspension movement will be large compared to the difference between the two averages, but there will be a clear difference between the averages. So it is easy to do 0.1 signal to noise if the measurement time is long relative to the noise frequency.

If the Nivomat's high and low pressures bleed back and forth very slowly then they are essentially averaging ride height over a long time like in the example. This allows the extreme signal to noise you mentioned and also prevents hunting.

The key tuning point is to make the system work fast enough to pump up on the warmup lap and slow enough to not bleed down while you're stopped on the grid for a minute waiting for the race to start. Don't know the details of this. Perhaps Red Bull has a system with a very slow response time in combination with some clever way to store energy after qualifying so the full pump-up does not have to occur on the warm up lap. It's interesting that the Red Bull system appears to pull the car down to a dynamic ride height unlike most production Nivomat systems that push the car up to a dynamic ride height. This Red Bull reverse direction may have something to do with getting to dynamic ride height most efficiently on the warm up lap. Or maybe it's just a practical matter where you can't push the damn car around the pits if it has lowered onto the plank...

[Ganxxta]

When the RB6 sits in parc ferme after the race it develops the ride height of a Paris-Dakar super truck.

Has anyone a pic of it?

[pgj]

Back to the topic under discussion. I think your "Nivomat" solution to compensate for varying fuel weight would introduce a couple of problems. Its weight would, in most cases, increase the vertical height of the centre of gravity, and it would be difficult to control its tendency to "hunt" by changing pressure whenever the mean load supported by the suspension changed. My comment about the ratio of fuel load compared with aero load is relevant here, I think, because you would be requiring the system to operate accurately with a signal/noise ratio of around 0.1. I could imagine it actually increasing the mean ride height through corners following long straights, for example. I can't think that would be an easy problem to solve.

DaveW,

My intuition is that the CG increase would not be a big problem because modern F1 performance is dominated by aero. This is a weak response on that point but it's all I can do.

I can do better with the hunting and signal to noise issue. The key is that a Nivomat adjusts slowly. Very slowly. It may take several minutes of driving to restore a couple inches on a production car.

Try this example. Assume a typical F1 car with no fancy ride height control. Early in the race you electronically measure the ride height 10 times per second for 5 minutes and figure the average. Late in the race you do the same thing. The maximum suspension movement will be large compared to the difference between the two averages, but there will be a clear difference between the averages. So it is easy to do 0.1 signal to noise if the measurement time is long relative to the noise frequency.

If the Nivomat's high and low pressures bleed back and forth very slowly then they are essentially averaging ride height over a long time like in the example. This allows the extreme signal to noise you mentioned and also prevents hunting.

The key tuning point is to make the system work fast enough to pump up on the warmup lap and slow enough to not bleed down while you're stopped on the grid for a minute waiting for the race to start. Don't know the details of this. Perhaps Red Bull has a system with a very slow response time in combination with some clever way to store energy after qualifying so the full pump-up does not have to occur on the warm up lap. It's interesting that the Red Bull system appears to pull the car down to a dynamic ride height unlike most production Nivomat systems that push the car up to a dynamic ride height. This Red Bull reverse direction may have something to do with getting to dynamic ride height most efficiently on the warm up lap. Or maybe it's just a practical matter where you can't push the damn car around the pits if it has lowered onto the plank...

Wouldn't this method fall foul of the reglation that states ride height must be adjusted while the car is moving?

[spelling]

[marcush.]

three points in the FIA tech regs have to be respected:


10.1.2 response results only from changes in load applied to the wheels are allowed

10.2.3 no adjustment in motion is allowed

10.2.2 any powered device altering the configuration or performance of the
suspension is forbidden

my rudimentary english and non availablity of the french original of the text (?)

let pop up the following questions:

10.1.2 decidedly allows for responses due to load ( fuel load changes?) to the wheels so a self adapting functionality is ok .

10.2.3 any adjustment in motion is forbidden ..in the sense of actively changing
by means of a lever ,knob or whatever triggered by the driver or events as well??
this one is the mushy bit...

10.2.2 powered bits forbidden to alter the configuration or performance.so you can´t put in a motor or pump or anything to rise the car .

also unclear.. what is performance? spring rate ? or bump travel? you cannot say performance really as the fuel weight will alter the performance of the car so the car weight is excluded from this obviously..

so i come back to my piston in pushrod... it is not altering the performance or the configuration of the car it just sags .,no change in springrates or wheel travel there,no power apart from gravity ..wich has to be excluded anyways..

[RockAgain]

I have made some back of the envelope numbers and I am going to put forward a theory. Then surely I will be ridiculized in one hour by the systems in the RB and the Ferrais being outlawed, but until then, let's leave reality aside and think crazy.

I think that the two fastest teams have no ride height control in their cars out of the ordinary, all that they have is more donwforce than the opposition.

My first point, the 160Kg of fuel are irrelevant when the car is stationary. I don't want my car to be fast while stationary (ta-da!), but in the corners and when braking. It is the ride height in the corners and while braking that is important.
Now I'll put forward some very rough numbers. Feel free to change them, they are not particualrly accurate, but I hope they are in the right ballpark:
A typical empty tank lap is something like 4Km and lasts something like 80sec. Average speed is 4000/80=50m/s or 180Km/h.
A full fuel lap is 5 seconds slower, now 85 seconds, resulting in 47.06m/s and 169.4Km/h.
I'll assume that at 180Km/h downforce is 1200Kg. Admitedly, just a ballpark. This speed is representative of many corners and braking areas, but not all.
Downforce does, in a first approximation, vary with the square of the speed. 169.4Km/h is 0.941*180; squared, downforce at 169.4Km/h is now 88.6% of the downforce at 180Km/h or 1063Kg.
Hence, at the beginning of the race, the vertical force pushing the car down is 1063Kg downforce + 160Kg fuel= 1223Kg.
At the end of the race or in qualifying, it is 2Kg of fuel (to make it back to the pits) + 1200Kg of downforce = 1202Kg.
I only get 21Kg of difference, not so dramatic.
If the downforce is a tad higher, the numbers would cancel out and your car handles beautifully the same at all fuel loads. With less downforce, the difference gets larger and one has a ride height issue, which surely contributes to reducing downforce even more.

Of course all of that is a crude approximation, and some corners are taken with much more speed, ejem, downforce! than others. Also, the average corner is surely slower thanthe average lap. My point is that current F1 cars must be close to a situation where fuel weight is not an issue, and maybe that the fastest teams simply have one problem less to deal with. Then the effect of carryng fuel around is only extra inertia, and not variations in ride height.

Just an idea, likely wrong.

you made one failure:

simplified:
downforce via aerodynamics increases your traction
"downforce" via weight decreases your traction

this is because the tires of a heavier car have to handle higher side forces. because of the degressive chracteristic between normal force and side force you lose more "traction" because of the higher need for side force than you win because of the higher normal force

[marcush.]

I won´t argue this valid point too much ,but I always maintained that you will not see any difference at high speed and high downforce.

and you will not see any difference eat the start of the race .

a setup that is better in the slow or slowish stuff of the lap maybe up to 140/160 kmh
the difference will be where you are in the aeromap for a given speed ,that is the difference.If you manage to be near optimum ositioned in the aeromap for a longer time this is the benefit not what the car does at 180+ ..

[hollus]

.

you made one failure:

simplified:
downforce via aerodynamics increases your traction
"downforce" via weight decreases your traction

this is because the tires of a heavier car have to handle higher side forces. because of the degressive chracteristic between normal force and side force you lose more "traction" because of the higher need for side force than you win because of the higher normal force

Downforce via weight is the same as downforce via aero load. Force applied downwards on the car, and channeled to the wheels via the suspension. More force, more grip. The problem is that force via downforce comes at no inertial cost, hence making you car faster, while force via weights means more inertia. With a heavy car, at the same speed, the wheels have more grip (as in newtons), but would need even more to compensate for the now higher lateral acceleration needed to make the corner at the same speed.
It is the weight via inertia and the extra damands put on acceleration that make the car slower. Not the weight per se as a force pointing downwards.

[autogyro]

It is in roll and pitch that a ride levelling system has to react to deal with extra weight rather than DF.

[RockAgain]

.

you made one failure:

simplified:
downforce via aerodynamics increases your traction
"downforce" via weight decreases your traction

this is because the tires of a heavier car have to handle higher side forces. because of the degressive chracteristic between normal force and side force you lose more "traction" because of the higher need for side force than you win because of the higher normal force

Downforce via weight is the same as downforce via aero load. Force applied downwards on the car, and channeled to the wheels via the suspension. More force, more grip. The problem is that force via downforce comes at no inertial cost, hence making you car faster, while force via weights means more inertia. With a heavy car, at the same speed, the wheels have more grip (as in newtons), but would need even more to compensate for the now higher lateral acceleration needed to make the corner at the same speed.
It is the weight via inertia and the extra damands put on acceleration that make the car slower. Not the weight per se as a force pointing downwards.

isnt that exactly what i said in the second part of my post?
the first part was just a simplified conclusion