[MVRC] Mantium Virtual Racecar Challenge 2023 (Grand Prix Cars)

[spacehead3]

Would it be morally wrong to exploit the fact the Vehiclebody RV goes below the Floor Body RV?

12.6 when viewed from below, the floor must be the lowest part of the car within the area defined by RS-Floor-plan

[CAEdevice]

I have doubts about rule 14.3.

Is there a minimum ground clearance?

[LVDH]

OK guys,
to address some points:
Cooling flow realistic or creativity? Well, for me it is pretty clear that keeping it realistic will encourage realism and everybody here is asking for that anyway.
Wide exit: I see a problem using the F1-reg volumes in that area and am pretty sure that the possible openings are still larger than what we see in F1. You guys need better cooling duct designs.
Front suspension: I am somewhat open to a change. But allowing you to design five sticks will not happen. The only feasible option I see, is ONE suspension you guys can design here within the next week and we agree on it.
Gear box: Again, I am open to a modification as this one slipped through. It would require a new rear suspension though.

In general about cooling: Every year, many people complain about it being hard and at the end of the season most people get it done. The C in MVRC stands for challenge. And getting aero balance and all trade-offs done including cooling is a also a real world challenge.

While I think all points so far are actually minor, I do have good news: MFlow for MVRC now fully supports rake and ride height adjustments. I think we can all agree that this will affect aero performance a lot. Now, we need the missing rules around this. Should we just set the rake and have a fixed ground clearance, or do you want to change rake and ride height? As soon as we have an idea on this, I can release the new MFlow.

[CAEdevice]

Cooling: actually never had cooling issues. The cooling flow we are using is ok, but I am not sure it is related the right car speed. In my opinion we can go on with 2.8 m3/s that is a good compromise.

Rake: I am more a parametric mind but once the morphing solution is working, it solves the problem, so ok. I think we only need to determine a minimum ground clearance of any point of the plank to avoid too narrow channel and simulation issues.

Front suspension incidence. I know: this is a raw solution. Why don't we allow to rotate a bit (+/- 2°) around the front suspension around the front wheel axis? Not exactly realistic about the anti dive behaviour, but quite negligible for a CFD race.

[yinlad]

OK guys,
to address some points:
Cooling flow realistic or creativity? Well, for me it is pretty clear that keeping it realistic will encourage realism and everybody here is asking for that anyway.
Wide exit: I see a problem using the F1-reg volumes in that area and am pretty sure that the possible openings are still larger than what we see in F1. You guys need better cooling duct designs.
Front suspension: I am somewhat open to a change. But allowing you to design five sticks will not happen. The only feasible option I see, is ONE suspension you guys can design here within the next week and we agree on it.
Gear box: Again, I am open to a modification as this one slipped through. It would require a new rear suspension though.

In general about cooling: Every year, many people complain about it being hard and at the end of the season most people get it done. The C in MVRC stands for challenge. And getting aero balance and all trade-offs done including cooling is a also a real world challenge.

While I think all points so far are actually minor, I do have good news: MFlow for MVRC now fully supports rake and ride height adjustments. I think we can all agree that this will affect aero performance a lot. Now, we need the missing rules around this. Should we just set the rake and have a fixed ground clearance, or do you want to change rake and ride height? As soon as we have an idea on this, I can release the new MFlow.
https://mantiumchallenge.com/wp-content ... rake_2.png

Talks about realism with the heavily simplified CFD model we use are frustrating but there we go. I've given my yearly opinion on the cooling and shot down as usual

As for ride height there should be a minimum and maximum value for FRH and RRH, values are free to choose but perhaps a rule stating FRH has to be less than RRH

[LVDH]

The cooling discussion will go on forever. But I did not want to shoot anyone down. But what makes you think that reduced cooling requirements will produce more realistic cars? Maybe the top teams will produce solutions with almost non-existent cooling openings? It will not make the life easier for the other teams.

Anyway, back to rake and ride height. I have released the new version of MFlow.
https://mantiumchallenge.com/mvrc-files/
Maybe, you guys can play around with these new settings, they are called pitch and ride_height_adj. in the settings. After modifying them, you have to hit apply.
End of the week, we should be able to come to a solution about how we handle this in the rules. I am pretty sure, best would be, you set the rake and MFlow automatically sets a ride height that would be the same for everyone.
The new version of MFlow is a bit faster now, as it uses VTK to load the stl files and not my self developed Python stl reader. Turns out while my solution has Python speed it was a bit better at reading binary stl files. Some files, from older submissions have caused issues. MFlow warns you about this, so do not ignore the warnings. Simplest solution is to export the file in question to ascii.

[Schifty]

First screen of my 2023 car, pretty at the basic stage of the build but i will try to adopt Ferrari sidepod style. Will look better with more vertice and plane after shaping it more !

[Schifty]

Slowly but surely

[LVDH]

Wow that is some nice progress. I also think Blender is the way to go for an MVRC car (as long as you do not take this competition as the motivation to learn a real CAD tool). And I also like seeing a Blender car as the stl files will be perfect. The 3D cursor there on the front wing might be an issue. You should pay attention to keep it in 0,0,0 when starting anew part.

[Schifty]

Wow that is some nice progress. I also think Blender is the way to go for an MVRC car (as long as you do not take this competition as the motivation to learn a real CAD tool). And I also like seeing a Blender car as the stl files will be perfect. The 3D cursor there on the front wing might be an issue. You should pay attention to keep it in 0,0,0 when starting anew part.

Yeah, i will check at it for the front wing, but the car itself for now its a whole single piece. I take this competition to learn 3d itself, not necessary CAD tool and also test my vision of aerodynamism. For the first attempt will be more focus to learn 3d and futur season focusing more on the aero

The major issue i will get, will probably the rules of the 10mm thick of the car. For now its a Cube i've shaped into a F1, mean its all full and solid. Way easier to shape a car.

[LVDH]

Yes, with Blender it is easy to shape all kinds of crazy but nice shapes. To keep track on the 10mm rule, it is good to just have a sphere and drag it to where you want to measure.

Regarding the suspension parts: One guy took the time to design CAD files and even CFD simulations. What he did looks good, so there is a chance you will get an update on them. Just do not get too happy all the bad upwash might come from your front wings or the cooling duct design. But I hope it will make some people happy.

Are there any opinions yet, on how we should deal with the ground clearance?

[beschadigunc]

Yes, with Blender it is easy to shape all kinds of crazy but nice shapes. To keep track on the 10mm rule, it is good to just have a sphere and drag it to where you want to measure.

Regarding the suspension parts: One guy took the time to design CAD files and even CFD simulations. What he did looks good, so there is a chance you will get an update on them. Just do not get too happy all the bad upwash might come from your front wings or the cooling duct design. But I hope it will make some people happy.

Are there any opinions yet, on how we should deal with the ground clearance?

Some resources online suggest real cars run with about 30 mm ground clearance so I woul set that as a maximum limit , but the fact is when they are running they get much much lower down to 5 mm between keel and ground especially with rake , I belive minimum of 10mm GC with 1,5 degrees rake sound fair , max GC 30 mm

[G-raph]

My suggestion would be :

Let us use any rake angle and ride height adjustements numbers we want, but impose a limit on ground proximity. For example, say that every part of the car must be at least XX mm away from the ground, based on what you feel is an appropriate distance to avoid CFD mesh issues (10mm? 20mm?).

The plank will be the limiting part unless someone goes negative rake, in which case it will be the diffuser edge. Or if someone goes super crazy with rake angle and the Front Wing gets closer (but I can't see that happening).

[spacehead3]

My suggestion would be :

Let us use any rake angle and ride height adjustements numbers we want, but impose a limit on ground proximity. For example, say that every part of the car must be at least XX mm away from the ground, based on what you feel is an appropriate distance to avoid CFD mesh issues (10mm? 20mm?).

The plank will be the limiting part unless someone goes negative rake, in which case it will be the diffuser edge. Or if someone goes super crazy with rake angle and the Front Wing gets closer (but I can't see that happening).

I agree, although I would also impose a maximum rear ride height of ~150mm just to prevent anybody from doing something crazy. With no center of gravity or dynamics to worry about someone might be tempted to try a crazy rake angle. (we could have ride height as a lap sim input in the future, but probably best to focus solely on aero for this competition)

[beschadigunc]

My suggestion would be :

Let us use any rake angle and ride height adjustements numbers we want, but impose a limit on ground proximity. For example, say that every part of the car must be at least XX mm away from the ground, based on what you feel is an appropriate distance to avoid CFD mesh issues (10mm? 20mm?).

The plank will be the limiting part unless someone goes negative rake, in which case it will be the diffuser edge. Or if someone goes super crazy with rake angle and the Front Wing gets closer (but I can't see that happening).

I agree, although I would also impose a maximum rear ride height of ~150mm just to prevent anybody from doing something crazy. With no center of gravity or dynamics to worry about someone might be tempted to try a crazy rake angle. (we could have ride height as a lap sim input in the future, but probably best to focus solely on aero for this competition)

from where exactly 150 mm ?