USF1 -- F1's All-American Challenger

[djos]

This photo was posted on another forum and is rumored to be USF1's work.

You're a bit slow, go back a couple of pages.

[Confused_Andy]

Dunno about anyone else but for me that front end doesnt really look that impressive, the front wing mounts look like its going to be hanging quite high...

[Mystery Steve]

[...] the front wing mounts look like its going to be hanging quite high...

What makes you say that? There is at most only a few inches between the bottom of the mounts as shown and the bottom of the tub. Maybe the contour of the mounts continues into the wing. Perhaps they have some anhedral angle. Who knows...

I don't know how anyone can look at this picture and deem it "unimpressive," or even consider it "impressive" from the other perspective. It's just a piece of CFRP right now and nothing more. Until they are able to shakedown a car and run some laps (or at least attach a wing to it), then no one can say beyond conjecture if this is a decent front end design or not.

[xpensive]

In all honesty, after comparing the the above picture with the image of the Falcon project, which Anderson was previously involved with, I'm not sure if it's a finished carbon-fibre tub. While admittingly not being up to date on modern composite manufacturing, I believe it is what some people would call a "buck", used to make the molds for the carbon-fibre piece itself.

Moreover, you make the tub from top and bottom halfs, but I doubt you would bake the top without opening for the driver?

Please correct me if/where I went wrong on the method of carbon-fibre manufacturing.

[xpensive]

did something wrong here, sorry.

[walter]

It may well indeed be a buck as xpensive pointed out however it wouldnt make much sense to punch out holes for the suspension and the steering... looks like they grabbed the tub out of the worker's hands for a quick panic pr shoot.

the gaint black keel is obviously a makeshift support for the picture while the nosecone looks to be a genuine component.

Check out the engine... it looks like there is a yellow cloth covering the air intake manifold, underneath a cap. It looks to be a real engine not just a mock-up block.

[xpensive]

The more I look at it, the top section is definately not the finished carbon-fibre, not with a closed cockpit.
By the finish, it looks more like pure resin, don't know what they make the bucks from?

I think you are right on the engine w, doesn't look like a mock-up and if that's a CA2010, Windsor is full of crap.

[cooper-climax]

http://www.youtube.com/user/USF1Team

That's more like it, better late than never.

[marcush.]

obviously the top half of the monocoque is laid up with the cockpit opening closed..
as can be seen in the youtube video.
From my experience I´d say they kept the mould simple and need the stiffness of the
closed cockpit area to arrive at a good dimensional tolerance for final mating top and bottom halves....

to refer to the cosworth lumpü on the pic ...Of course the main castings will be available at this time ...but what we don´t know is about necessary changes that were not performed and of course all the layout of electrical connections to the electrics electronics,water oil systems and hydraulics systems -but here I´m not sure -is the pump driven by gearbox input shaft or engine ,of course when on gearbox side you needed a big pressure vessel to not suffer from declutched mode ...so I guess all have this on the engineancillary layout.

[xpensive]

Great stuff coop, rock'n rolla car-building, I love it! It almost gave me an epileptic seizure though.
Will be in mind when I watch Disney's "Christmas in Santa's workshop" together with my son this afternoon.

Merry Xmas everyone!

Btw, admittingly I was wrong on the cockpit opening, but there must be some structure inside the two halves, no?

[marcush.]

Great stuff coop, rock'n rolla car-building, I love it! It almost gave me an epileptic seizure though.
Will be in mind when I watch Disney's "Christmas in Santa's workshop" together with my son this afternoon.

Merry Xmas everyone!

Btw, admittingly I was wrong on the cockpit opening, but there must be some structure inside the two halves, no?

have to admit I had started to write a comment on the closed cockpit opening as well
but chose not do so thankfully..
Of course there will be some bulkheads into the structure .You will not really need the opening for doing that,as you could position the bulheads before joining the two halves.As we have learned in other composite threads ,F1 guys do actually perform a lot of blind fabrication anyways....

[chrys]

http://www.youtube.com/user/USF1Team

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2JwQn2c ... re=related[/youtube]

[scarbs]

http://www.youtube.com/user/USF1Team

The front upright and the front bulkhead elevation suggest the car will have amid placed steering rack and a conventional cross nose section (i.e. not the Red Bull shouldered shape).





The rack position appears to be a development since the early Cad rendering which do not show the steering arm in that position. However the images do support the nose\front pylon design, with a large curved leading edge reaching down the regulated narrow front wing mounting.



There was a curious shot of wishbone end with a clevis holding a spherical bearing. This looks like a front upper wishbone mounting, so it seems that the front suspension will not run all flexures, perhaps unique in F1! Equally the wishbone appears to an H-section, which is odd too, but may be a temporary part before the carbon wishbone is designed.



A large Aluminium machined part is in fact the structure to mount the front torsion bars, this will sit in the upper front of the monocoque, It places the torsion bars all but horizontal. Most teams use the convention of a carbon bulkhead to mount these parts and position the torsion bars pointing steeply upwards.






The carbon lay up sequence is interesting; a lot of the work is carried out on a large open workshop area. This is on contract the clean rooms other teams use, I don’t fancy a primary crash structure being laid up with possible contamination.
As the buck was made from tooling board, we can conclude that the carbon cockpit-less tub we saw will be the actual race chassis. Be in a pre-machined state.



The two halves being test fitted on top of a dust extraction workbench. The tubs shape is highly conventional, as already mentioned with the front bulkhead shape. Also the front section is not excessively raised above the 550mm high cockpit opening and lack undercuts around the drivers hips. this leaves less space under the raised part of the cockpit, proven to be critical for the 2009 aero regs. At least it lacks the long keel like splitter under the raised section as seen in the first pics we saw of the tub.



Rear suspension

[donskar]

=D>

Thanks, Scarbs. Interesting and valuable as always. Nice to see someone with something worthwhile to say in this thread.

Merry Christmas to all!

[Pup]

So, have they nixed the wind tunnel, a la Manor?