McLaren MP4-29 Mercedes

[Lurk]

I agree that it is kept very light though (mass very far away from C.o.G. so it adds a lot to yaw inertia) and in higher speed impact the part starting at the FW mounts will do most of the work.

I agree it is designed to be part of the impact structure and is doing an important job, I was just trying to compare it to the main impact structure behind which will take far higher loads. I just worded it badly ! As you say those stiffeners will be important in the failure mode of the tip in a crash.

One more reason for that construction (apart from 10g rule & C.o.G) is that the nose tip is always designed to be easily repaired. It is not unusual to damage the tip on a small contact and if it was part of the main crash structure, it would require to rebuild the whole crash structure. With that construction they only have to repair the tip.

For those asking about the legality, all team build "light" nose tips since several years so there is no reason for FIA to forbid it (remember the highly movable nose tip on Vettel's car after he damaged it at Abu Dhabi 2 season ago)

[Per]

I agree it is designed to be part of the impact structure and is doing an important job, I was just trying to compare it to the main impact structure behind which will take much higher loads. I just worded it badly ! As you say those stiffeners will be important in the failure mode of the tip in a crash.

I meant that the top half of the nose tip appears thicker than the base so will be more of a structural part than the base, if it is thinner. Obviously together it forms a tube shape which gives it a lot of its strength, I just thought it interesting that the top half is a thicker composite than the base. If you look at the sides, the far side has broken off forward of the near side and still appears thicker than the section under.

I thought it may be a honeycomb structure when I first looked in the bottom half, not sure though, if you look at the original photo there is an indent which I have followed in green, where the lower half meets the top and appears to be thinner composite. A kevlar weave rather than honeycomb would make more sense for stiffening this part? It looks thinner to me and kevlar weave would be that colour and leave those 'fluffy' yellow bits sticking out which doesnt happen at the top.
It appears to have failed differently to the top half, tearing more, whereas the top part looks to have cracked with the laminate layers separating from the honeycomb centre. There is far more of the bottom section remaining. This would indicate to me that the bottom part is more flexible and tear resistant than the top, which is what would happen if it were thinner and had a kevlar weave rather than honeycomb. It is a pity the photo is not a better resolution. anyway...

Yeah, I grumbled at the low resolution too. Hi-res would be extremely interesting.

I looked very closely again and still I don't see kevlar. All I see is nomex honeycomb all around. Kevlar would be yellow/greenish in colour. I don't know if kevlar would make sense. Its specific stiffness is way lower than carbon , specific tensile strength is better but then again the compressive properties aren't so impressive as far as I know. Because of the low stiffness it only makes sense to use them if you can keep them loaded in-plane as long as possible which is quite difficult in a thin structure like this.

Honeycomb on the other hand does miracles for the buckling load, which is exactly what you are looking for in this application.

About the different failure modes, don't forget that we don't even know exactly what happened. Might be that the jack hit the tip from the side.

[Owen.C93]

What are those smaller panels kept between the sidepod panels? Did the MP4-29 have TAG Heuer logos during testing?

That's a Headrest. And yes they rand the TG Heuer Logo at the Tests.

@Livery: I really like it. The lack of Red makes it even better imho.

Edit: Melbourne Thursday Pictures via AMuS

http://img4.auto-motor-und-sport.de/McL ... 763722.jpg

Really weird radiator layout. Still trying to make sense of it.

[akshat21]

The sidepods look more rounded than in testing. Maybe they re-packaged the radiators to improve the coke bottle shape??

[mertol]

They should have painted it mclaren orange. Why do they keep advertising mercedes with that silver?

[PhillipM]

Really weird radiator layout. Still trying to make sense of it.

I'd imagine it's just to get the hot air up and out of the rear exits above the butterflies, air in the sidepod goes around the outside (which is probably why they look so much bigger around the front than other teams) in through the radiator and down the side of the power unit to the rear hot air ducts (or cannons as they've been called, if you prefer)

[ThumbsUp]

Please remove, Thanks Thunders

[Thunder]

Im not sure it should be in the car or team tread.
But this is the new liviry for just one race
https://twitter.com/McLarenF1/status/44 ... 17/photo/1

Team Thread is the right Place. It's been posted there already.

[Shakeman]

Jenny Gow's Twitter.

[6 of 12]

Here it is:

http://www.motorsport-magazin.com/forme ... melbourne/

It says copyrigth by Mclaren...

[Thunder]

Can we stop Posting the same Picture over and over again?

[SidSidney]

http://img4.auto-motor-und-sport.de/McL ... 763721.jpg

Is that a venturi around the exhaust exit?

Edit:
Actually it reminds me of the air acceleration devices called aspirators used to rapidly fill airline emergency slides (those use an HP air source to accelerate ambient air into the bag in a similar venturi-esque arrangement).

In this case what are they doing? Using the energized air from the exhaust to pull a larger volume of (hot) air from underneath the engine cover into the wake? Is it an exhaust amplifier?

[dren]

Odd how the duct goes around the side of the inlet to the pod and exits at the side of the driver's head exhaust holes.

[Pup]

Really weird radiator layout. Still trying to make sense of it.

Obviously a good bit or ducting in there heading to specific parts - interesting that the radiators are pretty much parallel to the car. Either we'll see some copious shrouding to get the airflow redirected through them or they're managing to make them work perpendicular to the airflow.

Side note - thinking about testing, I wonder if McLaren chose to concentrate most of their mileage on engine configuration rather than aero, knowing that sooner or later they're going to get cut out of the loop with Mercedes. Best to gather as much info on the engine as you can while Merc are still being open about it.

[Pup]

Odd how the duct goes around the side of the inlet to the pod and exits at the side of the driver's head exhaust holes.

Looks to me like that the air will run the other direction, entering at the side pod and heading into a missing duct on the left, alongside another duct just below it.