Regenerative systems (KERS)

[xpensive]

Agreed, but imagine a small independent team, by today's standards anyway, footing the entire bill for a more or less ground-breaking technology? I have my doubts.

[Belatti]

@ scania, boristheblade, safeaschuck, everyone in general:

Flywheel is (as the posted diagram shows) a pure mechanical system. The problem with that system to be used in F1 is how to control the amount of power the rulesbook state has to be delivered in those 6 secs. In case that a full mechanical system would be used, we would need a KERS clutch capable of transmitting the desired power and usually clutches are designed to work in an on/off permanent state, I mean: its engaged or not.

Thats were electricity appears. If F1 rulebook would state: all the power you can get, I would go for a 100% mechanical, robust and simple KERS, with no cooling needs no heavy batteries and no safety risks beyond the high rpm confinated flywheel.

[Belatti]

I would imagine that attaching the KERS to the trans would be a better solution. You would have the dampening provided by the clutch to protect the KERS. The torsional vibration environment at the crankshaft can be quite severe, especially with a low inertia (low flywheel mass) racing engine. The large peak-to-mean instantaneous torque variations (and angular acceleration/deceleration) throughout a crank rotation would cause havoc with a high rotational inertia device like a kinetic flywheel.

Something like the start/stop system, but without the stops?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Start-stop_system

[safeaschuck]

@ scania, boristheblade, safeaschuck, everyone in general:

Flywheel is (as the posted diagram shows) a pure mechanical system. The problem with that system to be used in F1 is how to control the amount of power the rulesbook state has to be delivered in those 6 secs. In case that a full mechanical system would be used, we would need a KERS clutch capable of transmitting the desired power and usually clutches are designed to work in an on/off permanent state, I mean: its engaged or not.

Thats were electricity appears. If F1 rulebook would state: all the power you can get, I would go for a 100% mechanical, robust and simple KERS, with no cooling needs no heavy batteries and no safety risks beyond the high rpm confinated flywheel.

Fair enough Mr Belatti, I just re-read my own post and for clarification, where I said 'no electrical systems at all on the Flybrid' I was talking about no power storage by electrical means, oops.
The C.V.T. is going to need some input power to control it's ratio, yes?. From the picture on the flybrid website it looks like hydraulic's will be used to actuate the mechanism.

I always assumed that this control mechanism would be used to force the CVT to increase the RPM's of the KERS flywheel shaft to greater than the RPM's coming out of the cluster thereby feeding power back into the driveline.
The reverse would be true for charging and when the Flywheel reached full charge I assumed that the C.V.T. would simply run at 1:1, no need for a clutch, but you are right. There the clutch is in flybrid's own diagram...

[Scania]

@ scania, boristheblade, safeaschuck, everyone in general:

Flywheel is (as the posted diagram shows) a pure mechanical system. The problem with that system to be used in F1 is how to control the amount of power the rulesbook state has to be delivered in those 6 secs. In case that a full mechanical system would be used, we would need a KERS clutch capable of transmitting the desired power and usually clutches are designed to work in an on/off permanent state, I mean: its engaged or not.

Thats were electricity appears. If F1 rulebook would state: all the power you can get, I would go for a 100% mechanical, robust and simple KERS, with no cooling needs no heavy batteries and no safety risks beyond the high rpm confinated flywheel.

Fair enough Mr Belatti, I just re-read my own post and for clarification, where I said 'no electrical systems at all on the Flybrid' I was talking about no power storage by electrical means, oops.
The C.V.T. is going to need some input power to control it's ratio, yes?. From the picture on the flybrid website it looks like hydraulic's will be used to actuate the mechanism.

I always assumed that this control mechanism would be used to force the CVT to increase the RPM's of the KERS flywheel shaft to greater than the RPM's coming out of the cluster thereby feeding power back into the driveline.
The reverse would be true for charging and when the Flywheel reached full charge I assumed that the C.V.T. would simply run at 1:1, no need for a clutch, but you are right. There the clutch is in flybrid's own diagram...

on belt type CVT, clutch is not needed, but they use this type CVT, so it need a clutch

[Ian P.]

KERs in the F1 racing world will die a death wrapped in regulations and steward's decisions.
A flywheel system will run provide a gyroscopic anti-roll benefit which will permit some really impressive cornering capabilities. Since Williams seems to be the only team Heading (pun clearly intended...) down that road it will be interesting to see the tyre performance of the Williams chasis to the other teams. If it is successful, it will surely be banned.
For the electrical KERs systems, the added benefit of using the energy storage system to provide anti-lock braking or a limited form of traction control will be too atractive a feature for the teams to miss out on.
This may not be used at first as the teams adjust to the new technology, but once they get on top of the initial development....look out.
When can KERs be used....not at the end of a high speed straight, there is a rev limit to stick to. Not out of slow corners, there is a traction limit to work within. Only in mid-speed corners and acceleration onto long straights.
I don't like it. It is expensive and carries no benefit to road cars but I can't wait to see how it all plays out.
Roll on 2009.

[alexbarwell]

Still is a little more forward thinking than the ACO attitude for LeMans series where their declared intent is to not allow a practical advantage to be drawn from energy recovery systems. Or that was how it read in RaceTech, sounded like a fairly considered article.

[safeaschuck]

Scania, on Torotrak's own webpage they demonstrate an epicyclic gear set which negates the need for a clutch on exactly this type of set up, HOWEVER, the diagrams we see from the Flybrid website all over here seem to show this plate clutch in there.
I'm lost amidst all the P.R., Never mind.

Amen to that Ian.

[Astro1]

Could the peltier principal be used to cool KERS batteries?

[pipex]

Good idea Astro1, one of the problems with the Peltier devices is how to power them. I think it could be powered from the same generator that uses the KERS. The other is the reliability of the system. I don't know how reliable are that devices for the kind of power that needs to be extracted...

[Conceptual]

I would say that one set of peltiers on the exhaust manifold changing the heat into electricity could be used to run a separate set of peltiers to cool the batteries.

And since they are very light, and can be ordered in pre-wired grids, they could become a very large part of F1 in the future... Especially when AWD KERS recovery hits... I imagine that the peltier industry will need to do some development to be able to harness the front brake calipers (upper limit of peltier is about 285C).

I am actually working on a car for the British 24+ series that incorporates peltiers in a push-to-pass fashion. Hopefully, the race team that it is for will dominate, and then be able to sell this item to the other teams...

[xpensive]

The result of giving incentive to the minds of F1 engineers to recycle the vast amount of energy wasted through exhaust and cooling would indeed be something to behold.

As well as potentially far more beneficial for road-car use than KERS, when there is very little breaking-energy to recover on the Autobahn. Unless there are very frequent "stau" of course.

[Conceptual]

The result of giving incentive to the minds of F1 engineers to recycle the vast amount of energy wasted through exhaust and cooling would indeed be something to behold.

As well as potentially far more beneficial for road-car use than KERS, when there is very little breaking-energy to recover on the Autobahn. Unless there are very frequent "stau" of course.

I say give them the engines from F2, and allow ANY recovery/reuse systems that the teams can come up with.

450HP engine + 250+HP regeneratives could lead to some killer on track battles...

[safeaschuck]

From BBC News. 19th Jan.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsp ... 837431.stm

One significant difference with the Williams is that the team are testing a flywheel kinetic energy recovery system, the device that stores energy under braking.

All their rivals have chosen the alternative battery option, which Williams have also explored, but the team have yet to decide whether they will begin the season with either on the car.

[xpensive]

In part continued from the FW31 thread.
See, this is where I loose the plot, please bear with me and correct me where I go wrong;
1) A mechanically driven/driving flywheel seems like a gearing nightmare to me, when at charging, the driving shaft (gearbox-out?) is decreasing its speed at the same time as the driven (flywheel) is increasing. At discharge, the driving (flywheel) is decreasing speed when the driven (gearbox-out?) is increasing. Not to mention the huge difference in Rpm between the two, 64 000 to...what?
And I cannot see a slip-coupling in such a position, terribly low efficiency there.

2) The electrical flywheel, as it has been described, is as ingenious as intriguing. But is such a challenge of development-work likely to be chosen by one, and only one, of the poorest teams on the grid?