How can teams resolve tyre issues?

[autogyro]

Surely the responsibility is with the tyre manufacturer.
They should know enough to produce data for the teams that allows a fairly accurate design to be undertaken.
If not then they cannot be doing their job properly.
This technology reminds me a lot of the guess work and smoke and mirrors in aero design.
I thought all the theorists that keep raving on about how clever they all are in the 21st century laughed at how crude us old engineers did things.
Seems a little different in reality IMO.

[timbo]

They should know enough to produce data for the teams that allows a fairly accurate design to be undertaken.
If not then they cannot be doing their job properly.

1) Tyre testing is greatly reduced
2) Rig testing can give only so much
3) Even if they provide a lot of data, it is designer's work to sort it and create an optimum solution

Or are you insisting it must be textbook-engineering job for the teams to sort out tyres?
Would be boring.

[marcush.]

They should know enough to produce data for the teams that allows a fairly accurate design to be undertaken.
If not then they cannot be doing their job properly.

1) Tyre testing is greatly reduced
2) Rig testing can give only so much
3) Even if they provide a lot of data, it is designer's work to sort it and create an optimum solution

Or are you insisting it must be textbook-engineering job for the teams to sort out tyres?
Would be boring.

I can´t see rig testing, apart from what bridgestone does for validating structural integrity of their product.
The tyre supplier will only give as much information as is required for safe operation...I had times with Pirelli guys negating any possible positive influence on tire performance when treating the tire differently to their recommendations ...when our back to back testing gave us a huge performance increase on certain (abrasive) tracks.
there was no information whatsoever available apart from safe(mandatory) cold pressures for dry and for wet tire and luckily they were lazy enough not to check
on the grid..but moisture content or anything you would not get from them...as JT said it was up to myself to try and find and ask the right people to fish for some useful information ,which could be unearthed (see above).not F1 of course ...

[747heavy]

@ Marcus

I´m not sure I understand 100% what you want to say here:

>>>> a car that works the tyres independantly from those parameters you cannot influence
eg a wide operation window of peak performance is needed for tracksurface and tracktemperature as a development goal, right? <<<<

This would be a goal for the tire company, having a tire with a wide temperature band.
You can only optimize your car design for the tire you have, and try to keep the tire
as long as possible, as close as possible to his optimum operation point. At least when
you are in a single tire category.

Otherwise, if you have the money and the chance, you can go to the tire company and say,
this is my car, please make me a tire which works best with what I have here.
And the tire company will do so.

@ autogyro

I see your point, but you can turn this argument upside down and say.
It´s the teams job to design the best car, with the infomation´s they have.
As long as the information´s are the same for everybody, some teams seem to have
drawn better conclusions from the data then others.
Or they were just plain lucky.

Also it will depent from what we define as the "job discription" of the tire supplier.

I would say:

- provide safe tires with as little as possible variations in quality to the teams
- the tyre should be able to meet the conditions seen in the series. ( in terms, of load
temperature and speed)
- provide tires in sufficient quantities
- ensure fair treatment of all competitors in terms of service, data and support
- pay for trackside advertising and help to promote the brand ( in this case F1)
- maximize brand (F1) exposure via your own marketing campains.

Therefor, as long Bridgestone has not tricked some people/teams, by providing wrong data, I
don´t think they are to blame for the current situation.

I do think, that they provide design data and characteristics of their tires to the teams.
More than just saying the tyre is black and round and it will have this dimension.

Let´s put on the Bridgestone hat for a moment. They have the supplier contract, they pay all the money to Bernie, so they are in business.
Now, they need to make sure the get as much return for their investment. They know that one
car will win on their tire. So they don´t really care, if this is a Red Bull or Ferrari or whatever. They just print the winning car on their prospects - job done.
If anything, they would most probably like to see a "manufacturer" (like Renault,Mercedes)
win, than Red Bull. Because Red Bull does not buy their (road car) tires.

They give the data they feel are nessesary to the teams, and that´s it.
Do the best job you can. Bridgestone (any tire manufacturer) is not in the business to design or run an F1 car.
This is thejob of the teams.

If they carry out more tests and provide more data, it´s just going to cost them more money.
Their money. For what??, to be a nice guy - it´s unlikely IMHO.

It´s about 16/17 years ago, that I last saw some real data of an F1 tyre.
At this time it was Good Year supplying the controlled tires.
The tire data, where in an A4 sized folder which contained something like 1000-1100 pages. It was quit comprahensive.
But at this time, there still where just 2 teams dominating the championship.

So making more data availible, is not allways going to help.

If you really wanted to bunch up the field, you would need to make different tires for the different cars. Like in a tire war situation.
Then the tire manufacturer could make a "magic" tire for any car, and make it competetive.
You have seen this when Bridgestone/Arrows almost won in Hungary. The tire made that car
competitive. And I have seen this in Touring cars very often.

Tires are by far the most important factor. As a race engineer you would work very hard during a test day, and find a 0.2 sec gain. You are happy, was a good test.
Then 30 minutes before the end of the test day, the engineer from the tire manufaturer may come along and say " we have this test tire here, we would really like to try it, just for 5 laps. Can I put them on your car please?"
O.K. - no problem, but we are allmost finished, and can not change much on the car. The tire
engineer would smile, and say "don´t worry - it´s o.k."
So you put on this test tires, go out, do 5 laps and go 1,5 sec quicker, than you ever have
on this track. (and we talking about a car, which won the last race on the track)
Now, you wonder what you are doing here anyway and if you are in the wrong profession (as a race/suspension engineer).
Tires are important !!!

I think Bridgestone is not to blame in this situation, it´s down to the teams. I think they do a resonable/creditable job and as long as there is only one tyre, there will be teams, getting it more right then others.
If the tires and the regulations stay constant, the field will come closer together, as people will learn from their mistakes and do a better job next time.

[DaveW]

I can´t see rig testing, apart from what bridgestone does for validating structural integrity of their product.

I presume, from the context, that you don't think rig testing can help to resolve tyre issues, Marcus. With respect, & admitting that my views are biased, I disagree. I help to rig test between 70 & 100 customer vehicles a year using Multimatic's test rigs. Many are fairly regular visitors, so I guess they might disagree too.

Tyres are part of the suspension of a race vehicle, & tyre properties affect suspension set-up. Rig tests can a) identify some tyre properties & b) help to select tyres that "work" well with a vehicle. They can even be (& have been) used to identify unacknowledged tyre construction changes & to update suspension settings that will work with the revised tyres.

I think that, whilst rig tests cannot provide the whole solution, they can be an important and economical technique to assist race engineers in all categories of motor racing.

[Jersey Tom]

I thought what Marcus was saying is that Bridgestone doesn't have much reason to do extensive testing on their tires, beyond durability tests. Not value in it for them as a sole supplier.

[marcush.]

I can´t see rig testing, apart from what bridgestone does for validating structural integrity of their product.

I presume, from the context, that you don't think rig testing can help to resolve tyre issues, Marcus. With respect, & admitting that my views are biased, I disagree. I help to rig test between 70 & 100 customer vehicles a year using Multimatic's test rigs. Many are fairly regular visitors, so I guess they might disagree too.

Tyres are part of the suspension of a race vehicle, & tyre properties affect suspension set-up. Rig tests can a) identify some tyre properties & b) help to select tyres that "work" well with a vehicle. They can even be (& have been) used to identify unacknowledged tyre construction changes & to update suspension settings that will work with the revised tyres.

I think that, whilst rig tests cannot provide the whole solution, they can be an important and economical technique to assist race engineers in all categories of motor racing.

Dave ,sorry there was a misunderstanding , I was unclear with my words.I wanted to say two things:Brigestone has not much reason to do anything else on their Tyre testing rigs as making sure their tyres will survive.
And that rig testing of the tyre only is not really allowed with the current set of rules to the teams:

FIA sporting regs.:

25.5 Testing of tyres :
a)Tyres supplied to any competitor at any time may not be used on any rig or vehicle (other than an F1 car on an F1 approved track, at the exclusion of any kind of road simulator), either Team owned or rented, providing measurements of forces and/or moments produced by a rotating full size F1 tyre, other than uniquely vertical forces, tyre rolling resistance and aerodynamic drag.
b) Tyres may be used on a test rig providing forces control and monitoring by F1 rim manufacturers for the sole purpose of proof testing their products.

so in effect you can reverse engineer the tyre data from the car rig and get some or even a lot of useful tire data by doing this .

so please forgive me ,it was for sure not my intention to be ignorant towards a potentially very useful tool.

[747heavy]

o.k. - I will risk to make a complete foul of myself, and try (my best) to explain a thing or two about the tires and the current problem. This is aimed at the interested general public,
not at race or tire engineers. I will explain it as simple as possible and try to use plain English not engineerish English. I´m not a tire engineer, so if I do a blunder or say something wrong, I hope Tom or some other knowledgeable people will come to my rescue and right the wrongs. I don´t think that I know it all. There are many ways to skin a cat.

There was the question in the forum what people mean with:

"getting the tires to work" and "working the tires"

"getting the tires to work"- refers to bringing the tire into his optimum operation range,
and keeping it there for as long as possible. It refers (in this context) mainly to temperature.

"working the tire" refers to transfering load/force into it, this will lead to deformations
of the tire which in turn will heat-up the tire. In this context, it means people try to increase the deformation of the tire, let the tire do "more work". As you know for yourself
when you work harder/more you get hot/start to sweat. The aim is to increase the temperature in the tire.

Now. Why do we need to do that????
For this it is important to understand how a tire generates grip, and what are the factors involved. For the purpose of this explaination let´s say that tire grip/friction has 3 main
components.

To illustrate the three components we will make a little experiment, you can do it at home for yourself if you like. We need two matchbox sized pieces of rubber (eraser), a mirror or glas plate, some weights (around 100 gr each) and a piece of K80 (rough) grinding paper.

Component 1

Sliding/surface friction: To illustrate sliding friction, take a the eraser and put it on the mirror/glas plate which you lay flat on the table. Now put one of your weights on top of the rubber piece and try to move the rubber with your fingertips accross the mirrir/glass surface. You will see, that you need a certain amout of force to move the rubber. There is no mechanical interlock between the rubber and the glass.
Now increase the weight and do the test again. You will see/feel that you need more force to
move the rubber around.

So we can say, that the amount of grip/force to move the rubber is depending from the vertical load/force we apply to the rubber. More vertical load/force = more grip

Component 2

mechanical interlock between the rubber and the surface on which it slides.
repeat what we have done in step 1 but this time we try to move the rubber on the grinding paper. We will need much more force to move the rubber around, and the rubber will maybe
also leave some rubber particle on the grinding paper. You can repeat this experiment with
different kinds of grinding paper if you like.
This gives you an idea, about the influence of different track conditions, why some tracks have more grip then other tracks.

Component 3

intermonocular bonds between the rubber monecules / chemical grip

Now fix one piece of rubber on the table and put the other one on top.
Try to move on piece of rubber against the other. Try this with different weights/vertical loads.
You should see that it is much more difficult to move one piece of rubber against each other, then it was to move it over the glass/mirror surface or over the grinding paper.

This component is very strong and provides the largest portion of overall grip.

So far we can conclude, that grip is depending from (assuming we have a controlled rubber/tire) vertical force and the characteristic of the surface (component2).

As all teams racing on the same track and using the same rubber, we are left with the vertical force component to make the difference.
More vertical force (down force if you like) = more grip.

So what about temperature???? - Good question
Repeat the tests (be carefull, don´t burn your fingers) with an eraser/rubber piece
that you have put in the freezer overnight and with one you have heated up to ,
let´s say 60°C (to stay safe). You will see, that the warm/hot rubber will provide much
more grip, then the cold one - espacially in step 3 when used against the other rubber.
If you take it to the extreme and warm up your rubber untill it melt´s you lose, and in the
extreme case that your rubber become fluid, you don´t have any grip at all.
There is an optimum temperature.

too little/low temperature = less grip
optimum temperature = optimum grip
too much/high temperature = less grip

So now we have vertical force and temperature to make a difference in terms of overall grip.

What has all that to do, with the problems the teams have??
I will follow up in part 2, but we needed to establish some basics first.
Stay tuned.....

[DaveW]

Apologies, Marcus, My misread.....

I await 747's part 2 with anticipation...

[ringo]

Me as well, and i hope you can go a little into why 2 teams can have the same downforce, but one may not be able to get the temperature in the tyre (if this scenario is possible).

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Me as well, and i hope you can go a little into why 2 teams can have the same downforce, but one may not be able to get the temperature in the tyre (if this scenario is possible).

+1
Very good Post 747 =D>
Although I would personally say "getting the tyre to work" invariably encapsulates "working the tyres".
The two are intrinsically linked. Symbiotically I would say, Just splitting ball hairs .
Thank you for your insight.

[mep]

speedsense:
I was told by a good friend at Pirelli, that there are two reasons for a tire company to be in racing. One is to make a name for the company, the other is to make money selling racing tires.

How about a third option: Doing research?

I don't know what tire companies are like in Germany, but here in the USA, many are tight lipped about their tires, even the spec'd ones. Not so much on construction aspects, but compound info is like pulling teeth.

Nor am I asking for construction aspects neither I want to know the compound. What I do want is the tire's performance, behaviour, characteristics or how ever to call it. Something like friction coef, lateral vs vertical forces, slip angles, chamber angles, temperature, pressure or even figures about water displacement on a wet track. Something which might be a super selling argument for road tires.
Lets compare it with a engine. You get data’s about power output, revs, torque and fuel consumption but this does not enable you can copy that engine. You can even get design figures like displacement, cylinder amount, V-angle, compression ratio, bore-stroke ratio and many more things but you can still not do a competitive copy.

Another argument I don't really agree is costs.
The tire company has the rigs anyway and the staff who needs some work. They don't need to test one tire all the time. For F1 its Ok when they collect the data’s for a special tire once and then produce this tire over a long time. How many different compounds we currently have? Around 5 or so and front and rear tires. Not much tests to do when you keep in mind that they can use the tire for several years because there is no competition and therefore no need to improve the tire.
On the other hand teams love to blame the tires when the team is unable to do well in a race. Tire supplier could counter that with public data’s how good the tire performs.

Jersey Tom:
You might be surprised. Depends on the tire company and the "engineer" you find (many at the track are techs). I will say that the company I work for (should be obvious which) is typically super open with tire data.

Really?
What do I have to do to get a few graphs about the parameters I mentioned above?
Not even 1000 pages just some basic stuff.


at 747heavy:
Welcome to this forum, its nice to see that we first of all got this discussion running and even attracted somebody like you to join in. Especially during the recent time.

[autogyro]

Hang on a minute.
If tyre companies design a tyre say for F1, how do they do the tests needed to finalise the design of the tyre.
If they do enough tests, then they know enough to give worthwhile data to the car designer.
If they do not then how can they be meeting the demands of the customer?

[747heavy]

@ autogyro
just quickly, to give you a consideration in respect to your last question/statement.

The teams are not the customers in this situation.
The customer is the FIA or FOM, the teams are just the end user.

The deal is between Bridgestone and FIA/FOM and they may have their own agendas.
Now these end users have maybe different needs/wishes, it´s unlikley that the teams
would agree on one tire. Because they all would like to have the "perfect" tire
for their car, keeping or gaining an advantage against the other teams.

I know, that this is a bit simplified. But it´s like your company buying a CAD system.
Well, you as the guy who need to work with it day in day out, whould maybe have wished for
another computer/software, from the end user perspective.
But your company has their own considerations towards the deal, mainly economical.
I think you understand what I want to say.

[Jersey Tom]

Hang on a minute.
If tyre companies design a tyre say for F1, how do they do the tests needed to finalise the design of the tyre.
If they do enough tests, then they know enough to give worthwhile data to the car designer.
If they do not then how can they be meeting the demands of the customer?

How? You build some tires.. you bolt em on a car.. and you see how they do. Try enough tires and see which one's the best, and there ya go. Doesn't necessarily imply detailed lab measurements.

Really?
What do I have to do to get a few graphs about the parameters I mentioned above?
Not even 1000 pages just some basic stuff.

Talk to the trackside tire engineers for your particular series.