2014 Turbos and driving style

[raymondu999]

KW? What's that?

[autogyro]

I think he means kilowatts.
It is OK all this talk about finding 'sweet' spots in energy harvesting and electric power application turbo boost etc.
Up to now I have yet to see any manufacturer in F1 or road vehicle technology actualy getting close to such an ideal.
Failures a plenty, along with lots of battery energy storage improvements but little else.
I know it can be done and that there is a whole revolution in the future opening up for development.
Few have the guts as yet to invest and in F1 the bottom line rests with the regulations and those who manipulate them for their own ends, which is seldom in the interests of future vehicle technology.

[Scuderia Nuvolari]

KW? What's that?

120,000 watts is the limit and it equals 160 hp in an f1 car.
If they would allow it you could match and exceed any boost that the turbine puts out. There is a jolt limit per lap.
Please, just send me a check for the money they will spend for equipment to just monitor all these devices.

[autogyro]

KW? What's that?

120,000 watts is the limit and it equals 160 hp in an f1 car.
If they would allow it you could match and exceed any boost that the turbine puts out. There is a jolt limit per lap.
Please, just send me a check for the money they will spend for equipment to just monitor all these devices.

It doesnt have to be that many 'devices' actualy.
That is if they wake up and look at the potential and do something about it.
The problem is not the technology it is the regulations and the reasons for them.

IMO without Max Mosley steering the F1 ship, it is heading for a huge fall very soon.

[Scuderia Nuvolari]

Even "IF" all thishappens and we get to 2014 the sad thing is that most of us will not be allowed to get even fainting glances at this incredible technology until it is old news

[raymondu999]

Does anyone know how peaky, at least in theory, these new gen turbos will be? Someone brought up to me that the old turbos were peaky and that's what made them so spectacular to watch.

Also, here's another interesting tidbit from Autosport about the old turbo days:

As ever, it all depends upon circumstance and conditions. Back in the turbo days, the oversteering Keke Rosberg could not hold a candle at McLaren to the understeering Alain Prost – and for John Barnard, the team's technical director of the time, the reason was very simple: "Alain would set the car up in a way that to any other driver would feel like it had massive understeer, but he had a way of getting the car into the corner early [with his overlapping of braking and cornering], which for a turbo was fantastic, because it meant he could get early on the power and we could give him some traction. Keke, by contrast, was last of the late brakers and really liked to turn the car very quickly. To do that you need a set-up that's a bit light on rear grip – and that just wasn't the way with these cars because it meant you didn't have the traction to use all that huge power."

[Tommy Cookers]

good and useful quote !
(but surely driving styles/setups are more standardised nowadays, after 20 years of telemetry-based analysis and critiqueing ?)

IMO very non-peaky, above 10500 rpm the fuel supply rate will not increase, so the power curve will be unusually flat
the turbo will be driven electrically as necessary to keep it up to speed
the fuel supply rate falls below 10500

so gearing will be crucial .....
currently the teams arrange (for each circuit ?) from a pool of 30 overall ratios available, the 7 best suited to the circuit
from 2014 the pool is only 8 overall ratios available, ie the same 8 overall ratios in the cars at each and every circuit
and the drivers will just use the 6 or 7 best suited to the circuit
unless this rule is dropped too, like the 2014 aero rules

[raymondu999]

MO very non-peaky, above 10500 rpm the fuel supply rate will not increase, so the power curve will be unusually flat
the turbo will be driven electrically as necessary to keep it up to speed
the fuel supply rate falls below 10500

Tommy - surely drivability vs peakiness would bear a closer correlation to torque delivery

currently the teams arrange (for each circuit ?) from a pool of 30 overall ratios available, the 7 best suited to the circuit
from 2014 the pool is only 8 overall ratios available, ie the same 8 overall ratios in the cars at each and every circuit
and the drivers will just use the 6 or 7 best suited to the circuit
unless this rule is dropped too, like the 2014 aero rules

To memory, the 2014 powertrain calls for 8 ratios, nominated at year start, which stays all the way until the last round, without change. The flat power curve makes it possible as the top speed will pretty much be drag limited and basically the same regardless of the gearing IMO. So in Monaco you might top out at maybe high 6th/mid 7th gear, and Monza you'll be knocking on (but not touching) the limiter in 8th

[WhiteBlue]

Does anyone know how peaky, at least in theory, these new gen turbos will be? Someone brought up to me that the old turbos were peaky and that's what made them so spectacular to watch.

The hybrid turbos will not be peaky at all. There will be no lag and the drivers should ideally not even realise how much torque comes from the engine and how much comes from the electric power unit (MGU-K).

5.5 Torque control :
5.5.1 The only means by which the driver may control acceleration torque to the driven wheels is via
a single chassis mounted foot (accelerator) pedal.
5.5.2 Designs which allow specific points along the accelerator pedal travel range to be identified by
the driver or assist him to hold a position are not permitted.
5.5.3 The minimum and maximum accelerator pedal travel positions must correspond to the
minimum and maximum available torque with the currently selected power unit torque map.

The regulations demand that both sources of torque are controlled by one throttle pedal. It will be 100% fly by wire like the commercial jet liners today. The throttle is fly by wire already in today's engines but it controls only one source of torque. In 2014 it will always operate in dual torque mode.

[raymondu999]

Hang on - so the MGU will be delivering torque all the way through the throttle pedal travel? Tuned, I presume, for whatever circuit you're on? (obviously the MGU will have different levels of available energy in Monaco, vs say Monza)

No lag - are they using the MGU to keep it spooled or something? So the boost will be there throughout the entire range?

[Tommy Cookers]

Does anyone know how peaky, at least in theory, these new gen turbos will be? Someone brought up to me that the old turbos were peaky and that's what made them so spectacular to watch.

Also, here's another interesting tidbit from Autosport about the old turbo days:

As ever, it all depends upon circumstance and conditions. Back in the turbo days, the oversteering Keke Rosberg could not hold a candle at McLaren to the understeering Alain Prost – and for John Barnard, the team's technical director of the time, the reason was very simple: "Alain would set the car up in a way that to any other driver would feel like it had massive understeer, but he had a way of getting the car into the corner early [with his overlapping of braking and cornering], which for a turbo was fantastic, because it meant he could get early on the power and we could give him some traction. Keke, by contrast, was last of the late brakers and really liked to turn the car very quickly. To do that you need a set-up that's a bit light on rear grip – and that just wasn't the way with these cars because it meant you didn't have the traction to use all that huge power."

IIRC the Williams Honda was a dog when Rosberg was the lead driver, but was transformed when Mansell was added
Mansell had already learned when at Lotus Renault that the engine characteristics were affecting the handling, and when Renault made the engine less peaky the car behaved much better
he identified the same problem at W H and it was cured the same way, history was then made
Rosberg had guts and was a straight arrow, after joining McL as a star and being made to look stupid by both Prost at McL and by the new star Mansell in the transformed W H, he (Rosberg) said 'perhaps W H should have picked Mansell, not me'

Boutsen said at the time that Prost started braking earlier than other drivers

[Tommy Cookers]

Tommy - surely drivability vs peakiness would bear a closer correlation to torque delivery

agreed
IMO the engine will have best efficiency, hence best power, over a rather limited rev range, and gearing will be an issue

however, the rules are made by people confident of working to those rules
(I would have said yesterday, but then the 2014 aero rules were scrapped !)

[WhiteBlue]

Hang on - so the MGU will be delivering torque all the way through the throttle pedal travel? Tuned, I presume, for whatever circuit you're on? (obviously the MGU will have different levels of available energy in Monaco, vs say Monza)

No lag - are they using the MGU to keep it spooled or something? So the boost will be there throughout the entire range?

I assume that you are aware that the 2014 cars will have two MGUs.
The one that is attached to the turbo (MGU-H) is used as a motor to spool up the turbo at low revs. When the turbine produces excess torque the MGU-H works like a waste gate and goes into generator mode. The electricity it produces is directly fed to what was used to be called the KERS. It is now called the MGU-K. The MGU-K will work as a motor during acceleration and the torque will be meshed with the ICU torque by the dual torque program. I don't think there will be much variation in that program from track to track as it primarily depends of the engine and the turbo characteristic. But the MGU-K in motor mode will also be fed by the energy storage (ES). That energy management will be a lot more track dependent. The dual torque program will have to react on the amount of recovered kinetic energy which is different from track to track. So in effect you are right that there will be a different throttle characteristic with different circuits.

I expect that such programming will be fully automatic. It is made easier by the change in regulations that do not require "electric only in the pit lane". When that regulation will become applicable in 2017 the dual torque programmer will be much busier and the throttle maps will vary much more, depending weather you are taking a pit cruise or not.

[pgfpro]

Nice info WB!!!

I was shock to hear that the Indy Turbo cars had some lag and the drivers were adjusting their driving skills to/for the change.

The BW EFR turbos are a break through in technology and I would of thought their would have been no lag at all. Being a turbo guy myself I always wonder if the lag people think of today's is just the massive vertical torque increase when the turbo kicks in. I have install a few turbo kits on stock Honda engines and the customer will say wow I thought there wasn't going to be any lag. But what their feeling is just the change of the torque curve that has almost doubled. So when they blow a charge pipe coupler they realize how much more power and torque has been made from the turbo system and really there isn't any lag it was just slow before.

So with this all said I think the new F1 system will help with the hard hit from from the turbo and the MGU will be able to control this and make the car more drivable.

[DaveKillens]

Turbo technology has come on leaps and bounds since then. Back in the turbo era, they used to be plain journal bearing turbos, where now, ball bearing cores spin up much quicker. Also, the aerodynamics of turbos are much more advanced, with broader power bands ( boost range).

Also now road and race cars used variable geometry turbos, where you get low speed response and top end power in one. Most famously, last years' Le Mans winning Audi R18's were equipped with V/G turbos, so I can't see lag being an issue in 2014...

Thanks for the info in the bearings, I always assumed that plain bearings were unbeatable in a turbo. I was wrong.


Unfortunately variable geometry turbos will not be allowed.

5.7.1 With the exception of devices needed for control of pressure charging systems, variable
geometry exhaust systems are not permitted. No form of variable geometry turbine (VGT) or
variable nozzle turbine (VNT) or any device to adjust the gas throat section at the inlet to the
turbine wheel is permitted.

I expect the drive-ability of the 2014 cars to be exceptionally comfortable for the driver. But it all will come down to who manages to integrate all these technologies into a seamless and transparent package that delivers efficiency, appropriate power levels for the conditions (including rear tire wear), and good drive-ability for the driver.