The relative benefits of a pull rod suspension

[marcush.]

oh boys...
still we had a period of pushrod only cars in F1 and now a certain Mr.Newey has found his love for pullrod suspension quite late in his design career and just lets see who will retain pushrod for 2011...
The quote of :it depends on the concept surrounding it has no real value to me as you are reversing the reality..The concept of an optimised car will lead to either one or another solution and the choice is not just pull or pushrod ,unless you are prepared to narrow your perception this much.
So you grow your little baby and suddenly realise that you are able to position those two torsionbars,dampers,arb and linkage somewhere nobody else would find sufficient space and NOT compromise the design by this.Or your imagination stops at putting all that junk on top of what your collegue from the transmission design has handed over to you last week...a bit simplified but in reality the advantage of the Newey concept in the area of the top wishbone mounts is more than obvious.

[mep]

This is a very strange topic.

-60% is offtopic with improper comparisons.
- then there is one guy fighting against the rest
- there are two guys talking about the same fact but one persists to speak about a-arms/whisbones when he does indeed mean push/pull rod and tries to let the other look like a fool because he seems not to figure that out. Whereas (probably) both start to feel pissed by this.
- this drama goes over 11 pages with hardly any technical input but more and more insults.

[ringo]

Round 11, going for 12 rounds.

They agree with me, but they wont say it. Let's just wait till the cars come out and hear what the teams have to say. Ferrari already made it obvious what their intentions are; win at all costs even it means copying.

[Giblet]

High nose?

YEAH HIGH NOSE!!!!

We all must have high noses!!!! We can't win without them!!!!

Whaddya mean the Brawn BGP001 just won the championship, it doesn't even have a high nose!!!

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Zero keel??

YEAH ZERO KEEL!!!

We all must have zero keel!!!! We can't win without it!!!!

Whaddya mean the Ferrari F2004 just won the championship, it doesn't even have a zero keel!!!

Hold on, it's 2005 now, and Renault just won with a V-Keel, but I was told that Zero Keel was the best!!!

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I'm just trying to make a point, that the others have been constantly making. The pull rod is the best option, but a team with a poorly functioning pull rod is worse of than one that properly understands and has mastered the push rod.

Yes the pull rod is the better technical solution for some teams car package, but it's not like an f-duct or kers that is almost guaranteed to give you 3/10ths or more per lap.

I don't think anyone is arguing with Ringo as to the merits of it, but are arguing to the fact that it is not the best solution for everyone at this juncture.

[myurr]

Oh no, the new Ferrari has push rod suspension! They're so going to lose!! How stupid are their engineers!!!11!!

[ubrben]

can you give me any numbers to demonstrate?
We all know the force in the upper wishbone is higher, so what?
If you tell me by how much, and how it affects the construction of the wishbone, then we have ourselves a disadvantage.

If after sizing the wishbone, there is only any increase in thickness of 1 carbon skin, where's the problem?
You can't just look a design and conclude that becuase it's not popular it must have a disadvantage.
Why were American cars continuing to use push rod 2 valve per cylinder engines? Surely the engineers were aware that 4 valves are better?
Why were the cars all over 4 thousand pounds with ladder frames?
They can't continue to do those things again, the European and Asian competition is simply too strong to be ignored.
In the same way the redbull team cannot be ignored. If you want any hope of competing, you need to analyze the car and compare it to yours and find out what components are making the difference, then re-adapt.

Evidently the engineers never considered it seriously before 2010, you have no proof that they did. I have proof that they didn't; you can't seriously consider something advantageous then toss it away.
All were complacent with the pushrod being the standard for many years and never saw any reason to look outside of that. There is an article in this thread explaining how that happened.

Come on. Lots of F1 cars in the 80s had pullrod suspension. How old are you? Clearly F1 engineering is only the last 10 years to you when it would be true to say that pushrods have been the dominant solution.

Pullrods aren't new. They have advantages and disadvantages. As with all engineering it will be a case by case basis what the optimum in any given case is.

Ben

[ubrben]

http://www.gurneyflap.com/formule180%27s.html

The first three cars on this page of 80s F1 cars have pullrod rears...

Ben

[PlatinumZealot]

That was over twenty years ago.

[ubrben]

That was over twenty years ago.

Exactly - if you study the history of the sport as a whole you'll see that 99% of what Autosport or this site, etc, call "innovative" has been done in some form before.

If you realise this it's easy to filter the PR BS.

Ben

[ubrben]

http://scarbsf1.files.wordpress.com/201 ... idepod.jpg

2011 Ferrari avec pushrod rear end. Care to comment on their clear stupidity :-p...

Ben

[ringo]

Keep cool.

A race has not run yet, and ferrari's suspension seems to be pushrod, but doesn't seem to be run off the mill. The parts could be on top, down low, in the middle, who knows?

I would like to see more of ferrari's solution, it looks interesting.

I asked for factors, everyone was tight lipped. Now when one car is out, people start hollering. True politicians, only talk when they think it's safe to do so.


Stay cool. So many things that are yet to be revealed this year.

[Jersey Tom]

I asked for factors, everyone was tight lipped. Now when one car is out, people start hollering. True politicians, only talk when they think it's safe to do so.

No, people were not tight lipped. The same, 100% accurate explanation was given. You haven't been listening, and haven't gotten the point.

[PlatinumZealot]

That was over twenty years ago.

Exactly - if you study the history of the sport as a whole you'll see that 99% of what Autosport or this site, etc, call "innovative" has been done in some form before.

If you realise this it's easy to filter the PR BS.

Ben

No I am saying that so much has advanced since then. Look at diesel engines; 15 years ago you wouldn't think a diesel engine has a rightful place in a hatchback.. look at diesel engines now...
Modern Computer aided engineering tools have given new life to so many things, you just can't compare the crude pull-rods of decades past to what Newey has on the redbull, its just "whole nother level" of refinement.


The Ferrari suspension is very interesting when you look at how swept forward the pushrod is. There is an impression that there are no normal rocker arms at top end of them... almost no space there. I think there is something really different about what is under those body panels.

[ringo]

Jersey Tom, I have said both solutions can win, one has direct aero and cog benefits, which all agree to.

However I would personally go pull rod for the stated reasons. Whichever solution is clearer to me i would chose.

So far ferrari have a very neat package, I'll wait for some races, a few engine and gear box shots and wait for comments. I'm not biased towards one or the other, that's what you don't get.

If i am presented with the facts of both, which are yet to be listed here, i can chose either one based on relative benefits. The thread's tittle is the relative benefits, it's not a versus thread. So far one has known benefits.

The season is long and i'm sure this thread will evolve as we learn more about the impact of KERS, and other factors.

I'm not a politician, if i say something, i have no fear of a backlash.

If garnished with the relative benefits during the 2011 year, anyone should be able to form their opinion. Maybe it's KERS packaging competing for space near the lower gear box area, Interconnected suspension works best with a certain system, and so on.

The point of the thread is to list them, not to bemoan the fact you possibly can't know what they are.

[myurr]

Ringo, you said that the teams should all implement pull rod, no questions asked, it has NO disadvantages. You even held Ferrari up as a team that were definitely going to be using it.

You've just been proven wrong - push rod clearly holds an advantage with Ferrari's design. Any clever links between the front and rear suspension could have been made to work with either design - their choice was likely based on packaging requirements and aero. The push rod is narrower but taller, helping with their tight rear end.