Honda Power Unit Hardware & Software

[Postmoe]

Vibration issues with the crank is too easy to sniff out and solve contrasted against the worry that Hasegawa expressed. I think us westerners seriously underestimate Honda's technical level. A crank balance problem? for an F1 engine maker who made 20k rpm engines in the past? I don't think sooo..

I don't think it is the technical level that is lacking - it's the experience.

F1 is a completely different discipline and knowing where to cut corners and when to pay special attention is not something that is learned from a book nor from designing road engines.

Very little in an F1 engine runs to published parameters (temperatures, factors of strength, bearing limits, mass flows etc) but it is the experience that dictates where 0.9 will work instead of the 'book limit' of 1.2. Honda have to rediscover all these by themselves with very limited resources.

It is also easy to forget that in EU there is a massive engineering base - for example in UK you have Merc, Ilmor, Cosworth and Mahle that literally share the same postcode and there is a massive supply chain built around them. They have access to specialized suppliers that have been in the motorsport business for a very long time. Engineers are much more inclined to move around and share their knowledge whereas in Japan it is common for engineers to spend their entire career at a single company.

Honda does however, have a great deal of MotoGP/Superbike/MX racing engineering expertise, as
well as a long history of building high performance production cars, which are also regularly raced.

Those engineers are rotated through the Honda organisation which also extends through marine, aviation, agricultural & industrial power unit research - development, & production, so they are no - 'small beer'...

I don't think Honda MotoGP is in the same framework or event talks to Honda F1. Completelly different parent companies within the conglomerate.

Obviously, correct me if I'm wrong.

[Tommy Cookers]

Long shot but a possibility, and at any rate something to think about...
Crank dynamics can be affected by driveline resonances (driveline is shafts, gears, etc. downstream of engine). The driveline in an F1 car (mostly the transmission) will have its various vibration modes. An engine dyno will have a different driveline (coupling shaft) with different vibration modes. I've seen cases in production engines where different dynos will yield radically different crank torsional vibrations. ......

Interesting...
Towards the end of the test we started noticing gearshift quality degradation, there's videos everywhere... It was also mentioned previously that Stof and Fernando complained of harsh upshifts...........

bill's is good point and important testimony

the textbooks like to assume there's a 'flywheel' and that anything beyond the 'flywheel' has no effect
(btw the main motive for engine tuners lightening the flywheel was to raise the crank's natural frequency and so allow raised engine rpm)
this may be an inadequate representation of our system (having no actual flywheel but significant inertia in the slaved MGU-K)
certainly it was inadequate eg for systems comprising an aircraft engine and propellor, but manufacturers only learned this the hard way

there is of course a limit to the rotational acceleration/deceleration that even this special purpose MGU-K can stand without damage
manufacturers of such machines eg intended for control purposes or other arduous duty design to and specify such limits (trust me)
in a brutal shift etc because of the gearing driving the K its rotational acceleration will be even higher than the crankshaft's
but adding a simple 'cush drive' would tend to degrade and destabilise the response of the K and potentially increase the shift time and lap time
to shift the K is run to maximal dynamic response, ie coordinated pulses of full generator mode in upshifts and full motor mode in downshifts
and a passive K would be just parasitical inertia dictating longer shift cycle time and/or degraded shift quality
a cush drive could have a drastic effect (good or bad) on crankshaft torsionals behaviour of the crankshaft, these could anyway destroy a cush drive
protection done instead by a 'weak link' eg a shear type frangible coupling is unpredictable and unsuited to critical applications eg F1 or aerospace

the millions of good shifts that we see are something of a miracle of complex control

[honda_fun]

Mineoki Yoneya, Japanese f1 journalist, reported us in his site about HONDA RA617H precisely.
Honda made an effort in improvement of the combustion and the low center of gravity of the PU introduced by split turbo-compressor.

[Craigy]

http://i.imgur.com/SrLYfF3.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/fO2hCQZ.jpg

Mineoki Yoneya, Japanese f1 journalist, reported us in his site about HONDA RA617H precisely.
Honda made an effort in improvement of the combustion and the low center of gravity of the PU introduced by split turbo-compressor.

Are my eyes lying to me, or are those cam covers carbon? They look dull black to me in that photo.

[Mr.G]

Looks like they checking a lot of temperatures inside the PU (I've counted ~18 pcs). Those blue connectors looks like for thermal probes data logger...

[Dimi]

http://papermodelers.sk/download/imgpl. ... 2b50c01ce6

Looks like they checking a lot of temperatures inside the PU (I've counted ~18 pcs). Those blue connectors looks like for thermal probes data logger...

Or maybe for insulation resistance measurements at various points

[Dimi]

As glenntws mentioned the mguh stator is casted together with the block inside the v. Because of the excessive heat in this area of the engine, the mguh's insulation starts to deteriorate quickly and after some laps fails and electrocute the engine. Thats why they was always stopping after exactly 30 laps...
And all these probes are coming from this specific area.

[ziggy]

As glenntws mentioned the mguh stator is casted together with the block inside the v. Because of the excessive heat in this area of the engine, the mguh's insulation starts to deteriorate quickly and after some laps fails and electrocute the engine. Thats why they was always stopping after exactly 30 laps...
And all these probes are coming from this specific area.

Do we know what temperature we are talking about? I doubt temperatures in the vee exceed 200 degree celsius. From experience I can tell, that the winding insulation starts to deteriorate at a much higher temperature, so maybe the vibrations cause the insulation to fail. Can be a cooling problem also, otherwise they would have that exact problem on the dyno.

Thermal ratings of insulation classes
These are the highest allowable stator winding temperatures for long insulation life.
Temperatures are total, starting with a maximum ambient of 40° C
Insulation class Maximum winding temperature, C
A 105°
B* 130°
F* 155°
H 180°

http://www.leeson.com/TechnicalInformat ... topic.html

[Dimi]

As glenntws mentioned the mguh stator is casted together with the block inside the v. Because of the excessive heat in this area of the engine, the mguh's insulation starts to deteriorate quickly and after some laps fails and electrocute the engine. Thats why they was always stopping after exactly 30 laps...
And all these probes are coming from this specific area.

Do we know what temperature we are talking about? I doubt temperatures in the vee exceed 200 degree celsius. From experience I can tell, that the winding insulation starts to deteriorate at a much higher temperature, so maybe the vibrations cause the insulation to fail. Can be a cooling problem also, otherwise they would have that exact problem on the dyno.

Thermal ratings of insulation classes
These are the highest allowable stator winding temperatures for long insulation life.
Temperatures are total, starting with a maximum ambient of 40° C
Insulation class Maximum winding temperature, C
A 105°
B* 130°
F* 155°
H 180°

http://www.leeson.com/TechnicalInformat ... topic.html

Ok but in this case we have not 40 degrees of surrounding air but much much more, also vibrations could affect to

[godlameroso]

http://papermodelers.sk/download/imgpl. ... 2b50c01ce6

Looks like they checking a lot of temperatures inside the PU (I've counted ~18 pcs). Those blue connectors looks like for thermal probes data logger...

Or maybe for insulation resistance measurements at various points

Those are thermocouples?

The MGU-H itself, due to it's nature produces quite a bit of heat, are they using water jackets in the block to cool it?

[diffuser]

McLaren explore Mercedes option....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/39290908

Wow someone gave you a -1 for this ? Talk about "shoot the messenger?"

[BosF1]

McLaren explore Mercedes option....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/39290908

Wow someone gave you a -1 for this ? Talk about "shoot the messenger?"

I think it had more to do with the number of times that article was being quoted. I quoted it in the team thread earlier (which was actually off topic, oops) and Thunders quoted it in the 'Should McLaren change back to Mercedes'-topic (which was on topic ). So this is the third thread it is quoted in. I personally wouldn't give him a -1 for it, though.

[HPD]

http://papermodelers.sk/download/imgpl. ... 2b50c01ce6

Looks like they checking a lot of temperatures inside the PU (I've counted ~18 pcs). Those blue connectors looks like for thermal probes data logger...

This reminds me of this news:

さらには、テストデータ収集のための何十本というセンサーの配線もある。６時間以上を要する大作業となってしまったのは、そのためだった

。
Furthermore, there are dozens of sensor wires for collecting test data. That was why it was a big work that took more than 6 hours.

Link: https://sportiva.shueisha.co.jp/clm/mot ... ndex_3.php

[dren]

I don't think it is the technical level that is lacking - it's the experience.

F1 is a completely different discipline and knowing where to cut corners and when to pay special attention is not something that is learned from a book nor from designing road engines.

Very little in an F1 engine runs to published parameters (temperatures, factors of strength, bearing limits, mass flows etc) but it is the experience that dictates where 0.9 will work instead of the 'book limit' of 1.2. Honda have to rediscover all these by themselves with very limited resources.

It is also easy to forget that in EU there is a massive engineering base - for example in UK you have Merc, Ilmor, Cosworth and Mahle that literally share the same postcode and there is a massive supply chain built around them. They have access to specialized suppliers that have been in the motorsport business for a very long time. Engineers are much more inclined to move around and share their knowledge whereas in Japan it is common for engineers to spend their entire career at a single company.

Honda does however, have a great deal of MotoGP/Superbike/MX racing engineering expertise, as
well as a long history of building high performance production cars, which are also regularly raced.

Those engineers are rotated through the Honda organisation which also extends through marine, aviation, agricultural & industrial power unit research - development, & production, so they are no - 'small beer'...

I don't think Honda MotoGP is in the same framework or event talks to Honda F1. Completelly different parent companies within the conglomerate.

Obviously, correct me if I'm wrong.

In Honda's last F1 stint, one of their heads, Nakamura, came from the Moto GP side.

[Postmoe]

Honda does however, have a great deal of MotoGP/Superbike/MX racing engineering expertise, as
well as a long history of building high performance production cars, which are also regularly raced.

Those engineers are rotated through the Honda organisation which also extends through marine, aviation, agricultural & industrial power unit research - development, & production, so they are no - 'small beer'...

I don't think Honda MotoGP is in the same framework or event talks to Honda F1. Completelly different parent companies within the conglomerate.

Obviously, correct me if I'm wrong.

In Honda's last F1 stint, one of their heads, Nakamura, came from the Moto GP side.

That doesn't mean they are the same company. How's the budget being allocated? Do they share their ERP framework?
That would tell us if they can be considered close business units able to share information.

No company shares information that is under one macro line of budget to another division.