FRIC Could Be Banned As Soon As Germany

[ringo]

IMO it is part of formula1 to have some kind of technical controversy that rears it's head during the year.
In fact it might even be part of FOM requirements to have such things.
This year is fric and next year will be something else. F1 starting to look like professional wrestling, but i'm not complaining as i kind of like having these dramas throughout the F1 year.

[SiLo]

If it's all about domination they why haven't they simply banned Mercedes altogether?

This ban is silly, almost all the team are running a system in some form, and it maintains a stable ride height for the car, something that is beneficial for looking after the tyres (and would probably be beneficial to road cars too).

FIA = utter stupidity sometimes. The racing isn't bad, so don't fix it.

[Harsha]

FIA = utter stupidity sometimes. The racing isn't bad, so don't fix it.

Sorry frankly the racing been bad since artificial gadgets came to F1 , Since 2011 its all about nursing than racing, FIA is making it even worse now

[DaveW]

Dave, I've also noticed that some cars appear to have pro-dive on the front axle. I wonder if they are using the dive movement on the front to cause a squat movement on the rear (using the fric system) in order to stop the diffuser lifting too high under braking...

I read your earlier post with interest, Tim. Whether it would help control the rear ride height would depend on rear geometry and on the precise circuit used for the FRIC system, I guess.

[Andres125sx]

If it's all about domination they why haven't they simply banned Mercedes altogether?

Maybe because they didn´t break any rule?

As Williams with active suspension, Renault with Mass Dumper, Brawn with double diffusers, Red Bull with EBD....

They only take advantage of a loophole, but once that advantage is too high and the audience is falling down, they re-write the rules to ban that technology.



Also, if you ban a team for taking advantage of a loophole, you´ll have an empty grid in few months.

[theloniousmonk]

As mentioned a few posts back, we have technical shake ups every year. It's the development and exploitation that makes the technical side of things interesting.

Wings on stilts to water cooled brakes, f-ducts etc. Have all been banned, but we still have interest in investment.

F1's problem isn't the sporting regulations (although they could be improved), its how the sport interacts with its viewers. But that's for another thread.

[PlatinumZealot]

They aren't accomplishing the same with hydraulics.

You can add all the logic you want but unless you have an externally powered actuator physically moving the suspension you will not be able to have the same behaviour as an active system.

The differences between what electrical brain does to the suspension and mechanical brain does might be small come to think of it....
The electronic processors are known adjust ride height, damping and stiffness based on inputs like wheel slip, lateral acceleration, steering angle, the attitude of the car (pitch roll yaw), and the position of the suspension arms and even upshifts and downshifts. Modern cars such as the Koeniggseg One:1 even have GPS inputs. But anyways, what I am saying is that most of these inputs can be gained mechanically....

In fact there might be a very blurred line between what is active and what is passive.

[Andres125sx]

They aren't accomplishing the same with hydraulics.

You can add all the logic you want but unless you have an externally powered actuator physically moving the suspension you will not be able to have the same behaviour as an active system.

The differences between what electrical brain does to the suspension and mechanical brain does might be small come to think of it....
The electronic processors are known adjust ride height, damping and stiffness based on inputs like wheel slip, lateral acceleration, steering angle, the attitude of the car (pitch roll yaw), and the position of the suspension arms and even upshifts and downshifts. Modern cars such as the Koeniggseg One:1 even have GPS inputs. But anyways, what I am saying is that most of these inputs can be gained mechanically....

In fact there might be a very blurred line between what is active and what is passive.

No, they´re not.

The electronic processors "think" about what´s the best setup at each ms considering all those factors, then they send the signal to an actuator/pump/motor/whatever element that is what actually change the suspension stiffness/height, what makes it an active suspension. Processors only process, they can´t change anything by itself

- Active-> it reacts before the input thanks to any powered device that change the behaviour according to the processor´s signal before the input (bump/compression)
- Pasive-> it reacts after the input. It´s the bump or compression itself what makes the valves/bypass to work/not work, what makes it a pasive suspension

[PlatinumZealot]

Predictive controls can still be done mechanically.

In fact Mechanical controller's are quite common in industry. Mechanical controller's exist for just about everything.

So I do not put it past the F1 engineers...

[jz11]

what would you call a system that:
1) has the car sit higher than normal ride height while stationary;
2) while driving at high speed on straight accumulates energy as the suspensions 3rd spring (either or both) is being compressed to optimal ride height;
3) stores this energy in an accumulator(might be the 3rd spring itself);
4) releases this energy under braking as adding accumulated hydraulic fluid "on top" of front suspension damper valve block thus preventing the suspension compression;
5) same as 4, except this time fluid is added "under" rear damper valve block thus pushing the suspension up to prevent rear of the chassis from lifting.

thus the 3rd spring at each end basically becomes an energy storage, and the fluid added over/under the damper valve block is your "actuator" from the active suspension definition, such system could be tuned to store enough energy on straights to do the job of adjusting ride height during braking, when the car stops, the 3rd spring naturally lifts the car to higher-than-normal-driving height

effectively you have a system that with no power added directly from engine or battery and can do what true active suspension would do, not preemptively as true active suspension would do, but milliseconds later, when the "normal" dampers are starting to generate required pressures to operate pretuned hydraulic valve logic

and then you read this:
10.1.2 The suspension system must be so arranged that its response results only from changes in load applied to the wheels.
and this
10.2.2 Any powered device which is capable of altering the configuration or affecting the performance of any part of the suspension system is forbidden.

and realize that this automatic ride height adjustment doesn't really contradict these 2 rules, that ban true active suspensions, but have been given an order to figure out a way to make FRIC illegal...

[Tim.Wright]

Predictive controls can still be done mechanically.

In fact Mechanical controller's are quite common in industry. Mechanical controller's exist for just about everything.

So I do not put it past the F1 engineers...

Yes, everyone agree with this. Its possible to make a mechanical controller output theoretically any signal you want.

The point you are missing is that converting that "signal" into a force big enough to move the body is impossible unless you have a powered actuator.

If you imagine a suspension is a series of mechanisms strung together with each degree of freedom having a state defined by its force and velocity (its instantaneous power). A passive system, by definition, can only work with each degree of freedom having opposing signs of force and velocity because it can only dissipate power. In simpler terms each moving part can only transmit forces in the opposite direction to the way its moving - i.e. if you apply a compressive force to a spring, it will only compress, not extend.

An active system can do what it wants. It can dissipate energy like a passive element and it can provide energy from its power source. If you apply a compressive force to a hydraulic cylinder it will still extend if the controller is telling it to. Like the honey badger, it doesn't give a ---.

An active system can work in all 4 quadrants of the force-velocity plane. A passive system can only work in quadrants 2 and 4. This effectively halves your capability to move how you want under a given load.

You can't make a passive suspension move up when you push down on it. That would be a perpetual motion machine.

[NTS]

You can't make a passive suspension move up when you push down on it. That would be a perpetual motion machine.

Longer term you can't, but if you accumulate energy in a damper or spring you can use a passive system to open a valve that releases it. For a short time that means you can make a part move up while there is a downward pressure on it. So you're not adding new energy (which only an active system could) but you can slightly delay the release of energy you accumulated just before.

[PlatinumZealot]

Predictive controls can still be done mechanically.

In fact Mechanical controller's are quite common in industry. Mechanical controller's exist for just about everything.

So I do not put it past the F1 engineers...

Yes, everyone agree with this. Its possible to make a mechanical controller output theoretically any signal you want.

The point you are missing is that converting that "signal" into a force big enough to move the body is impossible unless you have a powered actuator.

If you imagine a suspension is a series of mechanisms strung together with each degree of freedom having a state defined by its force and velocity (its instantaneous power). A passive system, by definition, can only work with each degree of freedom having opposing signs of force and velocity because it can only dissipate power. In simpler terms each moving part can only transmit forces in the opposite direction to the way its moving - i.e. if you apply a compressive force to a spring, it will only compress, not extend.

An active system can do what it wants. It can dissipate energy like a passive element and it can provide energy from its power source. If you apply a compressive force to a hydraulic cylinder it will still extend if the controller is telling it to. Like the honey badger, it doesn't give a ---.

An active system can work in all 4 quadrants of the force-velocity plane. A passive system can only work in quadrants 2 and 4. This effectively halves your capability to move how you want under a given load.

You can't make a passive suspension move up when you push down on it. That would be a perpetual motion machine.

Yes I understand what you mean.

[PlatinumZealot]

You are correct in that Active systems add forces to the system from an external energy store to act against the motion of the system or add to it...

But

What if you treat the front suspension and rear suspension as two separate systems? Energy coming into the front suspension system from the rear suspension is an external energy source and it can be used to push down or up the front of car independently. So using your analogy this is not the reaction from compressing a spring, but some one adding another external force to the spring.

This is really my question of where are the lines drawn? Do you take the front and rear of the car as one? or two separate systems?

[GSBellew]

If the Austin / Mini Metro could have what basically was FRIC why can't a supposedly cutting edge 2014 "F1" car