Virgin Racing VR-01 Cosworth

[horse]

With the team not wishing to take any risks, it is flying out new parts to strengthen the front wing to ensure that there will be no repeat.

This is admission of a design flaw, surely?

[xpensive]

How does anyone know if this is an error in estimating aero load (CFD), or the dynamic loading, or combining those, or material behaviour assumed in the FEA, or carbon manufacturing defect, or a resin defect, or a kiln defect, or contamination, or a post manufacturing bash (dropped it!), or something else. Also, it could be a combination of many of the above, none of which was deemed a failure in isolation?

I'm not saying that the wing-failure necessarily was down to a CFD-error Richard, but try this logic for a Moment;

- Virgin CFD-calculates a certain front wing DF and distribution at a suggested top speed.
- The wing is designed for strength according to DF, by FEA, with a given margin for error.
- As the responsible Tech boss Wirth is, Virgin applies a load-test on each wing produced, all for good measure.
But only to the load calculated by the CFD-analysis, plus margin.
- The irl loadcase is far more than estimated by CFD above and the mid-section collapses.

Just thinking outloud.

[Roger the knife]

Noticing that Glock says he ran over a kerb, so I wonder if they underestimated the maximum load case for a upward vertical load (non-aero direction) and this caused a buckling failure in the top skin, which then caused the collapse which you can quite clearly see on the video through turn 1 .

[RacingManiac]

Given that unlike an existing team they have little data to go by(especially something like vibration or other load caused by road profile and curbing(something gathered from tens of thousands of miles of running in the years of data logging), it could just be an underestimated load cases....This is F1 afterall, you can't go conservative everywhere.

At the end of the day thats what testing is for. It validates and corrects your design. Wind tunnel or not its just an intermediate step. If their economic does not allow it, they can't use it, simple as that. Breaking stuff here is better than doing it at Bahrain...

[Richard]

Given that unlike an existing team they have little data to go by(especially something like vibration or other load caused by road profile and curbing(something gathered from tens of thousands of miles of running in the years of data logging), it could just be an underestimated load cases....This is F1 afterall, you can't go conservative everywhere.

At the end of the day thats what testing is for. It validates and corrects your design. Wind tunnel or not its just an intermediate step. If their economic does not allow it, they can't use it, simple as that. Breaking stuff here is better than doing it at Bahrain...

+1

[myurr]

Good call hawk-eyes myurr, and smik'. Bottom line good thing it happened here and not in Bahrain. which to me brings up an interesting point.
--- happens Bulk is coming back from an injury that was caused (arguably IMVHO) by a slightly under-funded that happened to win the whole shooting match team. There is no way in hell they can let META, USF1, or any other Stefan into a world championship race weekend without testing extensively beforehand.
Here me now, and understand me later. Max would not let this go unchallenged. He brought a very real and pragmatic view (when it came to safety) to the table. Start three races into the season, with only passing a crash test and procedural qualifications super license for drivers, & etc into a dogfight?
Not on his watch! No freakin’ way He was set-up by Bernie!
Am I acting paranoid

Thanks for the compliment, but I'm now going to repay it by saying you're wrong about Max.

Max chose the new teams that are looking so poorly funded that they're struggling to make the grid. Max was the driving force behind the reduced testing in the name of cost savings. And Todt is Max's man with Max still acting as an adviser in the background.

So frankly I don't think Max would have done anything differently, and is at least somewhat directly to blame.

[ringo]

I think it is a manufacturing fault and not a design failure.
Design failure would suggest the wing would fail in the same way it did again. Wirth would also design with a safety factor more than unity, meaning it would take more than the design load to fail the part, and that is just failing to plasitic deformation. This thing more than failed, it passed the UTS and ruptured.

Designing a component is one thing, but manufacturing it as close a possible to the assumptions of the model used in the design is another. Similar to designing a casting with the assumption it will be uniform then it is eventually manufactured with a bunch of defects such as holes, pores and flash, misalignment of molds etc. affecting the performance.

I think the layup was bad and what ever adhesives they used was poorly applied. An employee could have also have been confused with Fahrenheit and Celsius and turned down the autoclave temperature.

[Raptor22]

I believe the front wing failure was due to an improperly cured component. They did rush construction to meet the launch deadline .

[marcush.]

when it comes to Max ,one should keep in mindf that Nick Wirths SIMTEK company (designing and producing F1 cars for BMW,Sasetti and Bravo then under the simtek banner ) was started up by Max Mosley and nick Wirth....sure a good entry ticket...

With the front wing failure ,Id say wirth is burned as much as one can be ,loosing Roland Ratzenberger in simteks debut season with a wing failure after a off course excursion a lap before...so he will be double alert when something is breaking and will never again let a car go out he is in any doubt of safety.Only natural to step back analyse and have things sorted before taking to the track again.
The Simtek guys seemed to have terrible luck back then ending the whole story auctioning off their assets for peanuts in the end...

[zgred]

[myurr]

Pretty good times from Virgin today - maybe 3 - 4 seconds off the ultimate pace, which at this stage of their life cycle isn't too bad. I'd expect Lotus to be similar with maybe the other two (whoever they end up being) being a little bit behind them.

[SZ]

Around 2.3 secs off MS who ran dry to get his time with a young driver with zero experience.

Very good showing, we probably won't get to hear 'a Virgin is leading us at Monaco' over commentary but here's hoping

[noname]

Given that unlike an existing team they have little data to go by(especially something like vibration or other load caused by road profile and curbing(something gathered from tens of thousands of miles of running in the years of data logging), it could just be an underestimated load cases....This is F1 afterall, you can't go conservative everywhere.

even experienced teams can do it wrong. few years back Sauber was loosing his back wings due vibrations caused by Interlagos' bumps... even McLaren was able to lose the wing on the straight due manufacturing error.

Virgin is on the really steep learning curve and I have to say they are doing quite well. so far I see them as #1 from the new entrants.

[horse]

Launch front wing:


Strengthened front wing:


Looks like the central section now has an extra step of thickness and the bolts as well as the ends of the pillars have also been thickened.

Has the tip of the nose been cut off and reattached, also?

Final Edit: From the discussions below, this may be a completely new nose-cone (or a modified pre-release version) as the sponsors have changed on the top (inclusion of Bridgestone). This would also explain the less shiny finish. In addition, as the access plate in centre section of the wing itself has been reinforced with the access panel there being permanently closed, the tip could have been removed to add ballast within the pillars themselves (which was originally placed in the wing) although this may have also been done to replace the pillars on an existing nose-cone.

[SZ]

Good pickup. So they're running slightly illegally, and might have cut the nose off to get some ballast in (the access panel they'd normally use in that section being bonded over).