Exhaust energy use 2011 (without FFE)

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marekk
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Joined: 12 Feb 2011, 00:29

Exhaust energy use 2011 (without FFE)

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Seems like it will be one of main areas of development this year, and just after 1st race it is already hard to follow this topic on separate threads.

We have already separate thread for Renault's FFE, so maybe we can start to track and discuss in this thread all other developments.

Short summary of assumed exhaust properties at 18,000 rpm from other threads:

mass flow: 0.44 kg/s
total energy of gases: 600 kW
exhaust temp: 800-1000K

Winners first, so let's start with RBR's solution:

Image

Where do you see main gains with this solution ?

shelly
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Joined: 05 May 2009, 12:18

Re: Exhaust energy use 2011 (without FFE)

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I think the advanatges of this solution are:
-stronger and diffuser tip vortices
-acceleration of the flow in the diffuser by viscous entrainement by the exhausts
-insulation of the diffuser from rear wheels wake
twitter: @armchair_aero

Sayshina
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Joined: 04 Mar 2011, 21:58

Re: Exhaust energy use 2011 (without FFE)

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I think it's mostly a bunch of nonsense over very little. The law of competition says there will eventually be a single solution, and that solution will be worth slightly more time than the other options, but I can't help but think we're talking about hundreths rather than tenths.

Renault have gone with a radical departure from everyone else and wound up pretty much exactly where they were last year. In fact with 2 exceptions it would seem the entire grid is pretty much exactly where it was last year. I don't really count the experiences of Williams, Mercedes or Sauber as out of the ordinary.

Ferrari had a bad weekend and clearly didn't show what they can really do. And while it might be tempting to say McClaran gained a big chunk of time by changing exhausts the evidence points to them fixing a problem that was costing them. This is not the same thing.

I know nearly everyone around this forum has been focused on exhausts and pullrod rearends, but I've seen nothing to make me believe either or them are a true difference maker.

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ringo
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Joined: 29 Mar 2009, 10:57

Re: Exhaust energy use 2011 (without FFE)

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Are you suggesting that lack of floor blowing is just as acceptable?

Remember how much mercedes and mclaren have benefited. These 2 teams gained a second of lap time with an exhaust change almost in isolation of the other upgrades.

William will testify to it when they slap on theirs.

It's basically free rear end downforce; which is harder to come by than the front.
For Sure!!

marekk
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Joined: 12 Feb 2011, 00:29

Re: Exhaust energy use 2011 (without FFE)

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At the start of Melbourne both cars (RBR and Ferrari) blowing directly under floor got off the line very well - RBR without KERS!
This may suggest, that downforce generated by exhaust gases going through diffuser when stationary and at low speed is significant. Other teams start with no downforce at all.

The most outer section of RB7's diffuser is also extremely wide (just 2 fences, all other teams have 3) and curved more in horizontal plane then any other. It's also well separated form main section under crash structure, due to fence's hight:

Image

Almost as they run 2 separate diffusers, optimized for different flow speeds.

I'm wondering also, if blowing some of the hot gases just behind rear tyres, directly in the low pressure area, known to be source of strong vortex, helps with drag reduction.

shelly
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Joined: 05 May 2009, 12:18

Re: Exhaust energy use 2011 (without FFE)

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marekk wrote:At the start of Melbourne both cars (RBR and Ferrari) blowing directly under floor got off the line very well.
(I am quite convinced that) both ferrari and mclaren follow the same redbull idea of blowing under the floor. The idea is: blow sideways between the floor and the rear wheels, and let the diffuser suck exhausts inside.

Look at the detail of the small footplate under the diffuser lateral wall: it is not horizontal, but inclined to guide the flow taht has rolled around tha external edge. We will see a lot of evolution of this small detail, which becomes crucial in exploiting exhausts.

Look also how little green paint is left on the two fences that shed the strongest vortices (the most internal and the most external): the middle fence has a weaker vortex, paint is still all over it.
twitter: @armchair_aero

Sayshina
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Joined: 04 Mar 2011, 21:58

Re: Exhaust energy use 2011 (without FFE)

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ringo wrote:Are you suggesting that lack of floor blowing is just as acceptable?

Remember how much mercedes and mclaren have benefited. These 2 teams gained a second of lap time with an exhaust change almost in isolation of the other upgrades.

William will testify to it when they slap on theirs.

It's basically free rear end downforce; which is harder to come by than the front.
Actually, with most cars rear downforce is easier to come by than front, it just normally has a much higher drag penalty associated.

I think perhaps we should wait until Williams actually does something before we make claims as to what the effect may be. I point you toward their DDD.

As I mentioned above, I'm pretty sure Mclaren's performance jump has much more to do with fixing a problem than any outright gain. Over the last 30 years of F1 it's been the very rare part that could give a second in isolation.

I haven't payed any attention to Mercedes, partly because I think Schu is the most overrated driver since Hunt and partly because the one and only time in the teams history that it's been competitive it sold the farm to manage. That said, I'd expect it to be for the same reason as above.

I haven't come across anything since teams began blowing the diffuser again, but when they used to do it they were fairly open about what was going on. There's not enough energy to "blow" the diffuser. What there is enough energy to manage is to help the flow stay attached to the bodywork at a steeper angle of attack.

This allows the diffuser to work harder and also helps prevent the disasterous handling issue where the working diffuser causes the flow to separate, stalling the diffuser which then allows the flow to reattach. Newey's bouncing March cars suffered from this for other reasons, and you could see the cars hop down the straights with the naked eye.

Cars are running more rake now. That's what's making the downforce. A second? Not a chance. Rumor was that actually blowing into the diffuser was worth a bit less than 1/2, and that is clearly the most efficient method. Blowing over the top, or around the sides or from way up in front would obviously give a greatly reduced effect, otherwise we would have seen these solutions before.

The idea of generating significant downforce while stationary just from blowing the exhaust is silly. If it was possible to get even 5% of the benefits you're talking about no team would have ever abandoned the concept in the first place.

Whenever a team abandons a concept in order to reduce the sensitivity of the car, and in this case only slightly reduce it, that means the concept wasn't all that amazing to begin with. If it had been amazing, they'd have sucked it up and lived with the consequences.

marekk
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Joined: 12 Feb 2011, 00:29

Re: Exhaust energy use 2011 (without FFE)

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Sayshina wrote:There's not enough energy to "blow" the diffuser. What there is enough energy to manage is to help the flow stay attached to the bodywork at a steeper angle of attack.

This allows the diffuser to work harder and also helps prevent the disasterous handling issue where the working diffuser causes the flow to separate, stalling the diffuser which then allows the flow to reattach. Newey's bouncing March cars suffered from this for other reasons, and you could see the cars hop down the straights with the naked eye.

Cars are running more rake now. That's what's making the downforce. A second? Not a chance. Rumor was that actually blowing into the diffuser was worth a bit less than 1/2, and that is clearly the most efficient method. Blowing over the top, or around the sides or from way up in front would obviously give a greatly reduced effect, otherwise we would have seen these solutions before.

The idea of generating significant downforce while stationary just from blowing the exhaust is silly. If it was possible to get even 5% of the benefits you're talking about no team would have ever abandoned the concept in the first place.

Whenever a team abandons a concept in order to reduce the sensitivity of the car, and in this case only slightly reduce it, that means the concept wasn't all that amazing to begin with. If it had been amazing, they'd have sucked it up and lived with the consequences.
Actually total energy of the external flows around the car is about 500kW minus all the loses from rolling resistance, skin drag, induced drag... And only part of whats remaing is converted to downforce.

Total energy of exhaust is more then 600 kW. Of course you can only use small percent of it to work for you, but i wouldn't say it's insignificant. Even if it's just used to prevent diffuser stall or fill the void behind rear wheels, it's real gain. And 1/2 of a second is eternity in terms of F1.

Thinking about how silly my idea of direct downforce generation from blowing into diffuser when stationary is, i'm wondering why is 70m/s external flow good enough to generate some serious downforce in diffuser, and > 70m/s flow from exhaust is worth nothing.

@shelly: im quite convinced that diffuser do suck part of exhaust gases in ferrari and mclaren solutions (i still belive it's the case in R31 to) - but not until the car is at speed, so no big gains in slower corners and off the line.

In regard to the flovis - i think this lack of paint on the outer part of outside diffuser wall is rather proof of flow's separation - and shows there is still something to work on.

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ringo
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Joined: 29 Mar 2009, 10:57

Re: Exhaust energy use 2011 (without FFE)

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Sayshina wrote: Actually, with most cars rear downforce is easier to come by than front, it just normally has a much higher drag penalty associated.
The reason why i may disagree with that point of view is that you use the words "come by" which suggest teams can add a whole load of rear down force easier by some kind of upgrade to the floor.

The thing is that the floor regulations are so strict and the fact that DDD are banned, makes it almost impossible to add any substantial rear downforce to the floor by itself.

There is nothing a team can do to the floor worth a second. It is too simple and basic a part to be changed substantially. It has its limits when taken by itself.
So i wouldn't say that floor down force can come by easier than a front wing or exhaust.
It's basically fixed throughout the season this year if there is no intervention from exhausts. A new single diffuser floor wont be worth a second. It's too simple a part and it's geometry will be pushed to the limit by all teams. So it's not a differentiator.
I think perhaps we should wait until Williams actually does something before we make claims as to what the effect may be. I point you toward their DDD.
Well you have Mclaren who definitely gained performance mostly because of the exhaust. Lewis mentioned 1.5s of improvement.
The floor with exhuast were the main upgrades.

As I mentioned above, I'm pretty sure Mclaren's performance jump has much more to do with fixing a problem than any outright gain. Over the last 30 years of F1 it's been the very rare part that could give a second in isolation.
what problem?
If you say an exhaust problem it goes to show how big an influence it has.
I haven't payed any attention to Mercedes, partly because I think Schu is the most overrated driver since Hunt and partly because the one and only time in the teams history that it's been competitive it sold the farm to manage. That said, I'd expect it to be for the same reason as above.
exhausts
I haven't come across anything since teams began blowing the diffuser again, but when they used to do it they were fairly open about what was going on. There's not enough energy to "blow" the diffuser. What there is enough energy to manage is to help the flow stay attached to the bodywork at a steeper angle of attack.

This allows the diffuser to work harder and also helps prevent the disasterous handling issue where the working diffuser causes the flow to separate, stalling the diffuser which then allows the flow to reattach.
you are talking about something completely different to 2011 regs, with shallow diffusers and no blowing on the inside.

Cars are running more rake now. That's what's making the downforce. A second? Not a chance. Rumor was that actually blowing into the diffuser was worth a bit less than 1/2, and that is clearly the most efficient method. Blowing over the top, or around the sides or from way up in front would obviously give a greatly reduced effect, otherwise we would have seen these solutions before.
No the rake makes it easier for the diffuser. Nice try but it's still the exhuast allowing you theory to work if it's true.
Rake make makes things easier for the diffuser.
The idea of generating significant downforce while stationary just from blowing the exhaust is silly. If it was possible to get even 5% of the benefits you're talking about no team would have ever abandoned the concept in the first place.
I am not deffending that, i don't think the exhaust will work by themself. The need moving air to enhance.
Whenever a team abandons a concept in order to reduce the sensitivity of the car, and in this case only slightly reduce it, that means the concept wasn't all that amazing to begin with. If it had been amazing, they'd have sucked it up and lived with the consequences.
You are talking about a different era.
It has no relation to the modern F1 car and team, and the technology the teams have today.
Mclaren abandoned the blown diffuser in silverstone in 2010, it would be wrong to suggest the concept does nothing for the car because they removed it. They introduced it after proper analysis and it gave them a whole load of time.


I would say the blown diffuser adds s huge percentage of floor down-force, maybe 10 or more. More than a new non blown floor by itself can add.
For Sure!!

Sayshina
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Joined: 04 Mar 2011, 21:58

Re: Exhaust energy use 2011 (without FFE)

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Ringo, you can easily crank up the rear wing to give 10 extra counts of downforce. This will have very little if any effect on other systems, and will only effect front downforce by the lever arm of pushing down behind the rear axle. You'll also gain significant drag.

If you crank up the front wing to gain 10 counts, you have effected cooling flow as well as much of the flow to the rear downforce producing elements. So you've lost rear downforce through the lever arm, but also directly by the change in flow. You've gain very little drag, though, because you haven't changed the frontal area at all.

Increasing the rake of the chassis makes the entire floor act as a diffuser, and since it increases the angle of attack of the diffuser itself makes that part work harder. That is, until that part begins to stall. The diffuser will do more work than the floor, but the floor is doing work by itself.

I keep seeing tons of comments about the exhaust energy available, mostly based on the fact that at the combustion event we know engineers are throwing roughly 1/3 of the energy out the exhaust valve.

Try this. Take a handgun, loaded with blanks, place it within 6" of your head and pull the trigger. An actor did exactly that a few years ago. He didn't survive. That is energy that is still capable of doing real work.

Now place a thermal barrier over your hand, and cover the exhaust outlet with that hand. If you still had anything remotely close to 600 kw you'd do some serious damage to your hand. There is obviously still energy there, but nothing remotely close to some of the estimates around this forum.

You keep insisting on claiming McClaren "gained" performance. There really is a difference between gaining and no longer losing. Okay, let's call the RB solution 100% effective. Now, let's assume the original Mc solution was actually worth 110%. That's right, it worked better, at least in the lab. Hard as this might be for the Newey worshipers to believe, this is actually very likely to be the case. The McClaren people are not stupid, there has to have been a good reason for them to persue that solution.

Now, let's assume on track their solution is STILL worth 110%, but every so often it's only worth 90%. Could be any number of causes, perhaps it's more pitch sensitive. If you have a part that is faster much of the time but occasionally slower, you actually have a part that is slower in reality. The problem is with the inconsistancy. The driver WILL drive that part to 90% everywhere. He'll do this because he does not want to die. There have been very few drivers in history willing to ignore that rule, and they have tended to have short careers, and often short lives.

I am claiming that whatever was wrong with the McClaren was an inconsistant performance. It seems likely that this involved the exhaust and floor, possibly in their working relationship with each other. This does NOT mean that the problem was costing them a full second. It only means that the drivers were driving a second slower in order to avoid the problem.

You can drive around some pretty serious problems, as long as the problem acts the same way every time. You really can't drive around a problem that shows up for no aparent reason and with no warning.

Whenever you see a car gain massive performance overnight, especially at a level like F1, it's almost always a matter of fixing a problem. Something was destroying driver confidence, and now it's gone. Even if the fix is slower than the original, as long as it's predictable and not too much slower, the car will be faster, often much faster.

You ask what problem, and I don't know. It almost doesn't matter, except for the guys who have to fix it. It could be a sudden transition between understeer and oversteer. It could be any number of things, but in this particular case it seems likely that the team thought the problem was coming from the front aero.
You are talking about a different era.
It has no relation to the modern F1 car and team, and the technology the teams have today.
I dislike this whole argument. It assumes that way back then humans were just too primitive to understand our modern ways. It's like french aristocrats complaining about stupid supersticious farmers thinking their hot air baloons were demons. I'm pretty sure those stupid farmers could see the aristocrats and were just pretending to think they were demons so they could get away with taking a few shots.

We're talking about a couple of years. The only technology that could be said to have massively improved is computers. This does allow many more cfd solutions to be tried, but that only really gets you closer to 100% the first time out. The wind tunnels are nearly identical, manufacturing techniques haven't changed in any radical way, where is this amazing new technology?

McClaren abandoned the blown diffuser at Silverstone. Why? Because a slow car is better than an inconsistant car. If a diffuser is very close to the stall condition during everyday life, it can get your car into a cycle that is extremely nasty. When the diffuser works it forces the car into a condition that stalls the diffuser, which in turn allows the car to return to a condition where the diffuser starts working again. I'm not kidding, you could watch Newey's early designs bounce down the track.

It doesn't matter if the part adds performance unless it can do so every time. If it's unpredictable it will shatter driver confidence.

Blowing the diffuser has obvious negative side effects. If this were not so they would never have abandoned the concept. It was never outlawed. It was considered, universally I might add, to be no longer worth it. That also tells you there was never anything close to a full second to be gained.

Rumor and logic tell us that teams have made serious efforts to limit the negative side effects. We can assume the idea is both more effective and more consistent than before. But it's unlikely that it is massively more effective. The technology has NOT in fact improved THAT much. Yes, obviously it allows the diffuser to work harder than it could by itself, otherwise there'd be no reason to do it. How much more is debatable, and I feel very confident predicting that it will be abandoned again, for exactly the same reasons it was the first time.

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ringo
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Re: Exhaust energy use 2011 (without FFE)

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You make a lot of assumptions about what the drivers are doing.
I don't know so i can't say.
I am just going off what Newey has said about them copying him, and also what hamilton and whitmarsh have said about the effect of the new exhaust and floor.

It added performance,and it can be demonstrated as well.
Whenever you see a car gain massive performance overnight, especially at a level like F1, it's almost always a matter of fixing a problem. Something was destroying driver confidence, and now it's gone. Even if the fix is slower than the original, as long as it's predictable and not too much slower, the car will be faster, often much faster.
why allude to driver confidence when it is really the car's ability to hold a corner that is the problem?
The problem was with grip that they did not have. The upgrades gave the car that missing grip.
Jenson mentioned that the rear is more planted now than before, i have to believe him on that specific detail.
More planted meanse there is more force on the rear end, and it had nothing to do with rear wing angles, since he would have had this feeling in testing if the car's wing was all that could fix the problem.
Blowing the diffuser has obvious negative side effects. If this were not so they would never have abandoned the concept. It was never outlawed. It was considered, universally I might add, to be no longer worth it. That also tells you there was never anything close to a full second to be gained.
the side effects are not the issue here. I was wondering if you believe that blowing the floor with the exhaust is a gimmick and does nothing to increase down-force at the rear.

There are more positive side effects than negative. And by todays engine maps and the fact that the exhausts aren't in the throat of the diffuser but on the outside, the negative effects of the past can't directly apply to the 2011 or 2010 cars.

1 second of performance is very possible with an upgrade that directly increases grip. I think in Australia Vettel went through 2 corners almost 20kph faster than the next fastest car. Those turns alone gave him 8 tenths gap in the last sector, where as in the other 2 sectors he was slightly more than a tenth up on the closest car.
That excess level of grip just needed 2 critical corners to give such a large gap.
It's hard to overlook that benefit.
I know the exhuast directly increase force on the top of the floor in mercedes case and also by driving the diffuser either at the top or sides.
I can't see why it would be a gimmick.
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Sayshina
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Joined: 04 Mar 2011, 21:58

Re: Exhaust energy use 2011 (without FFE)

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First off, if your upgrade theory were true the cars would be gaining 15-20 seconds per lap during the season.

You're also misunderstanding the meaning of "planted". No serious racing vehicle is planted the way you define it, ever. There is a cliff edge on every corner. Go right up to the edge and you're fast, go 1mm over and you crash. The only way the car could be planted the way you're thinking of it is if it lacked the performance necessary to get to that edge.

From the drivers perspective the car can still be planted while it's sliding. It's about the car talking to the driver, and doing exactly what the driver tells it to, every time. The driver is okay with a transition from understeer to oversteer, he's even okay with a violent transition, as long as the car warns him, does it at the same places and in the same way, and responds to his corrective measures the same way every time.

Remember that testing gear on the nose of the McClaren? What's your explanation for that? The obvious conclusion is that they were trying to figure out a problem that they thought was coming from the front aero. The fact that they then changed the REAR aero should tell you something. This is actually fairly normal with handling problems. They often mask themselves, and seem to be coming from someplace else.

The drivers are not engineers. They report something going wrong out on the track. They use words like "planted" and "stuck". The engineers then attempt to translate. McClaren was desperately trying to find a handling problem. Something was going wrong.

You're constantly proposing that everyone just copy Newey and they'll instantly be competitive. Leaving alone the fact that the only way anyone else could do that would be using industrial espianage, you're also silently saying that every other engineer in F1 is just plain stupid.

Yeah, I read that article where Newey claimed McClaren copied them too. Frankly, I'd be a lot more impressed had I not seen an F-duct running on an RB last year. McClaren had a problem with some part of their car. Given what parts they changed, it seems logical to assume their problem had something to do with the floor and exhaust.

The fact that they took RB's solution does NOT mean that RB's solution is the best one on the grid, or even that it's better than McClaren's. Again, you're assuming that McClaren got it wrong. That has yet to be determined. It is entirely possible that McClaren may be able to fix whatever went wrong, and entirely possible that their solution will be superior once fixed. It is also possible that McClarens solution is better, but not enough better to justify fixing. If it's only a small improvement, and would require a lot of work to fix, they would most likely spend that energy improving some other part of the car instead.

I should have known as soon as I wrote "rear wing" that you'd focus on that part literally. All I was saying was that it's easier to get rear downforce than front, because if downforce were the only concern you could always just run a Monaco spec.

I also never claimed that blowing the diffuser would not result in an improvement, or that it was just a gimmic. I said I predict it WILL stop being used at some time in the future. The fact is we've seen in recent history that if you can produce the downforce numbers you want without it then you don't use it. That makes it a marginal tech by any definition.

Once again, I would point out that McClaren are not stupid. Blowing the diffuser is not some mystical black tech that they had to be shown the way. They would have looked briefly at the concept while they were drawing their '10 car, just like everyone else did. It was a known area. They would have looked at it, probably done some quick cfd to check their assumptions, and dropped it as not worth the penalties. Then, after another team made it work and showed that it could be worth the penalties, they'd have had to recheck their math and see which of their assumptions were wrong.

They're not stupid, none of the guys drawing F1 cars are. But these things are so complex that you have to pick and choose which concepts you're going to explore. You'll take a quick look at as many of them as you can, but if that quick look doesn't give you anything you're going to drop it in favor of something else.

Renault shows us that the exhaust in and of itself doesn't have that much of an effect. They're about as far away from everyone else as it's possible to get, and they've ended up exactly where they were before. Having 2 nearly diametrically opposed solutions that both give massive laptime and both work nearly equally just about never happens.

marekk
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Joined: 12 Feb 2011, 00:29

Re: Exhaust energy use 2011 (without FFE)

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M.Withmarsh: "I believe we need to unlock the exhaust-blowing potential and we have some very creative ideas, some of which could have worked spectacularly well, but in order to work spectacularly well, they have to be sufficiently durable to be race-able. And, frankly, some of our solutions werent and thats why I think we had to go back a little bit."
They know there is significant potential in exhaust blowing idea - they'll just haven't time and resources to overcome reliability problems.

We will know better after next few races on proper tracks, but just looking at Melbourne i don't think Renault are exactly where they were before.
2010 Petrov was out in Q1, with +3 sec to pole time, and Robert (used to be quite good on street tracks) qualified 9th, behind RBR, Merc, Ferrari, McLaren and Williams, just 0,05s ahead of Sutil in FI.

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ringo
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Sayshina wrote: The drivers are not engineers. They report something going wrong out on the track. They use words like "planted" and "stuck". The engineers then attempt to translate. McClaren was desperately trying to find a handling problem. Something was going wrong.
You are not more credible than Button, Hamilton, whitmarsh, Newey.
Planted simply means the car has more grip to allow it to meet a certain lap time target. If the redbull was much slower and closer to the mclaren, Jenson or Lewis may not need to go to the edge to match the lap time, so they would not complain about grip.
But as it is, to get to where the redbull is both have to push and discover that where they want to put the car, it simply doesn't have the grip to stay on the track to attain the lap time.
The upgrade gave them that increase in grip.
I understand what you are saying about driver feeling, but i think it's the lap time goal more than under or oversteer that makes them realize the car is deficient in certain areas.

You're constantly proposing that everyone just copy Newey and they'll instantly be competitive. Leaving alone the fact that the only way anyone else could do that would be using industrial espianage, you're also silently saying that every other engineer in F1 is just plain stupid.
There is only one optimal solution for the 2011 regulations. Redbull don't necessarily have it, we don't know, but they are closer to it.
the other engineers are not stupid, they just don't know what Newey is doing when he draws a car. They also have their habbits and style of designing, which may not be to the level of Newey's design style. There are many little factors that separate redbull from the other teams.
It's like writing code, 2 different engineers can write code to do the exact same process. One engineer may write his more robustly and with lesser words, simply becuase he has better understanding and foundation in what he is doing.
I am of the opinion Newey is on another level with his design philosophy and doesn't depend on traditional shapes or rules of thumb to design his cars. He knows what the goemetry is doing, unlike the others who just know that "F1 cars have this shape lets just draw our like that".
Copying the Redbull would reveal certain things to them.


The fact that they took RB's solution does NOT mean that RB's solution is the best one on the grid, or even that it's better than McClaren's.


Yes it is better. They would not have it on the car if it was not.
Again, you're assuming that McClaren got it wrong. That has yet to be determined.
They are human beings, they get things wrong sometimes. They got the 2009 car wrong and also the 2010 suspension.

It is entirely possible that McClaren may be able to fix whatever went wrong, and entirely possible that their solution will be superior once fixed. It is also possible that McClarens solution is better, but not enough better to justify fixing. If it's only a small improvement, and would require a lot of work to fix, they would most likely spend that energy improving some other part of the car instead.
It could be better theoretically, but if it can't do a race distance and can't give the car the lap time that was predicted, you can't assume it's better in reality. If it was better mclaren would be going slower now with the rb exhuast, giving up speed for reliability.

I also never claimed that blowing the diffuser would not result in an improvement, or that it was just a gimmic. I said I predict it WILL stop being used at some time in the future. The fact is we've seen in recent history that if you can produce the downforce numbers you want without it then you don't use it. That makes it a marginal tech by any definition.
I didn't get that from what you were saying.

Once again, I would point out that McClaren are not stupid. Blowing the diffuser is not some mystical black tech that they had to be shown the way. They would have looked briefly at the concept while they were drawing their '10 car, just like everyone else did. It was a known area.


we don't know if the are not stupid and we don't know what they have looked on. We only know that the amended a solution to the redbull's and what took them months to develope was blown away by what took them 10 days to copy. So i think they simply missed the boat.
They would have looked at it, probably done some quick cfd to check their assumptions, and dropped it as not worth the penalties. Then, after another team made it work and showed that it could be worth the penalties, they'd have had to recheck their math and see which of their assumptions were wrong.
This is wishful thinking, because they would have seen the improvement from the get go. And going back to winter testing, they had the pipes pointing backward (not the octo) and there were no shrouds over them. So evidently they did not have the rb exhaust as an alternative.

They're not stupid, none of the guys drawing F1 cars are. But these things are so complex that you have to pick and choose which concepts you're going to explore. You'll take a quick look at as many of them as you can, but if that quick look doesn't give you anything you're going to drop it in favor of something else.
They're not stupid, but their not as bright or wise as the competition. Engineering is like any other proffesion, some are more practical and can apply themselves better than even the ones who get the top honours. I think mclaren have a bunch of geniuses but they aren't experienced enough or have the foundation like newey has.
Another thing to look at is the design team leadership.
Redbull can have the dumbest engineers with the brightest leader, and Mclaren have the brightest engineers with a dull leader.

An army of sheep led by a lion is more fearsome than an army of lions led by a sheep.

Renault shows us that the exhaust in and of itself doesn't have that much of an effect. They're about as far away from everyone else as it's possible to get, and they've ended up exactly where they were before. Having 2 nearly diametrically opposed solutions that both give massive laptime and both work nearly equally just about never happens.
You can't compare renault solution becuase it's not blowing the floor in the same way. It's also harder to tune.
I wouldn't consider beating Ferrari with petrov to be where they were before.
For Sure!!

Sayshina
1
Joined: 04 Mar 2011, 21:58

Re: Exhaust energy use 2011 (without FFE)

Post

You don't target a speed through a corner. Unless you're leading or so far behind as to be out of chances, you aproach any series of corners backward, starting with the exit onto the straight and working back to the beginning. You go as hard as is possible without destroying your exit or your car. You're ALWAYS chasing that cliff edge, you chase it so hard that when your team tells you to slow down you very often crash. And yes, this applies even to F1 drivers.

Because you've mentioned it way too many times now, I'm going to address the whole copying RB concept. You can't do it. Period. Yes, copying goes on all over F1, and the rest of motorsport as well, but you're talking about copying the entire solution. You're talking about Ron Dennis picking up the phone in June of the year before, and saying "Say chap, remember when you used to work for me? How about being a good lad and sending over your technical data so we can get on with building our car?".

You can't just copy an entire car in the last couple of weeks of winter testing. You can manage a front wing, or an exhaust obviously, but even that would seem to be a lot of work. There's pretty good evidence that McClaren only managed the changes by the first race because of Bahrain. And out of the entire grid, McClaren and Ferrari are clearly in a class of their own as far as resources available to make changes like this. Anybody else would most likely need significantly more time.

If you're seriously going to just copy RB's entire design you're going to have your car ready by round 8 or so, and even if that somehow magically handed you the fastest car on the grid who cares? Your season is over by then.

You completely misunderstood what I was talking about when I mentioned cfd checks, ect. You mentioned how long it took McClaren to get their exhaust blown diffuser working last year, and I was talking about that. I stand by it. They most certainly did check out the concept, just as they most certainly did run at least some preliminary checks on pullrod. That's not about missing the boat, it's about how profoundly stupid they'd have to be to not at least glance at the ideas.

I have no idea what McClaren was up to when it comes to exhausts this year. You've mentioned a couple of things that are pure rumor, but there exists no hard data anywhere I am aware of. I say again, it is far too early to simply assume they got it wrong. The results of 1 race in isolation are meaningless.

You point out that Renault beat Ferrari as some sort of evidence that they've progressed up the grid. There's nothing to support that. Ferrari clearly had a very bad weekend, and some sort of problem they never encountered in testing and aparently are still trying to figure out. You seriously believe that 1 race is representative of where they'll be this season? Based on what? I'm not saying it can't be, and it's possible they've done something wrong, but it's also entirely possible they'll end up being the 2nd team next race. It's even possible, yes it really is, that they'll end up being the team to beat this year. Your personal faith in the mighty Newey notwithstanding. I certainly hope not, as I dislike Alonso passionately, but my dislike does not effect their ability to build a car, unfortunately.

We've had Newey's in this sport before. There's always some sort of "god" who's hands down the most clever guy anybody could ever think of, and then invariably they're gone. Barnard was Newey times 2, until he wasn't anymore. The fact is nobody today is as clever as you think Newey is, not even Newey. You're really insulting the several dozen highly trained, highly skilled people who design and produce the Red Bull cars. Adrian Newey is by all acounts a very talented aero guy, who apears to have morphed into an effective leader of men. That's impressive, especially to someone like me who remembers his early designs. He's not a god, and your pronouncements concerning him being simply more clever than all the rest are your personal religeous beliefs.

There is only 1 optimum solution for the 2011 regs. History shows us that the fastest car in race 1 is by no means always the closest to that solution. We have seen seasons where cars have dominated out of the box, but we have seen other years where the dominant car was terrible through the first 1/4 of the season.

Once again, the fact that McClaren have adopted Red Bulls solution for now does NOT mean the RB solution is better than the McClaren one. You're commiting one of the fundamental errors in scientific study. Just because B follows A does NOT mean A caused B. It doesn't mean A DIDN'T cause B either. You don't know. You need to do more testing. In this case you need to wait and see what McClaren does from here.

Copying the RB solution only means, ONLY MEANS, that the RB solution is working better than the McClaren solution RIGHT NOW. By the way, it doesn't even mean that other teams could copy the RB solution and gain any time at all. It in no way means that the RB solution is flat out better than the rest. Even if McClaren abandons their solution forever, that STILL does not necessarily mean the RB solution is better, it may only mean the RB solution is close enough to make the McClaren solution not worth fixing.

You're not going to take my word concerning driver conficence, which is fine. There's plenty of literature available. I'd suggest Eddie Lawson's "A Twist of the Wrist" for one. He was a bike champion, but if you do a little research you'll find racing is racing. In fact, one of the most interesting conversations I've ever had was with a F18 pilot who found out I raced bikes. Even there, the mental aproach is pretty much the same.

Since you've dropped your "refueling is always better" argument in another thread I can only hope you've taken my suggestion and looked some thing up and discovered you were in fact in error. Perhaps you'll do the same here.

Whenever you see a vehicle gain huge chunks of time overnight, this is almost never the result of simply adding performance. Clearly, in order to gain huge performance that way you have to add, well, huge performance. On the other hand, if you had a problem that was causing the vehicle to behave unpredictably, even a tiny problem would cause a massive slowdown. This is based on the survival instinct. Even F1 drivers would rather live than not. It is incredibly dificult to add massive performance to any vehicle overnight, but it is relatively easy to fix a small problem and make a more stable platform.

I'll say this again, and please do look it up for yourself, no need to take my word for it at all. Whenever you see a vehicle make a huge leap forward overnight, or a huge step back as Ferrari and Webber seem to have done, this is almost invariably the result of some problem, NOT a result of outright performance.

Ferrari's problem? I'm only guessing here, but I'd bet something about their setup didn't get along with the very different tire performance than was expected. Webbers problem? If I were tuning his car I'd be looking for something tiny like a damper that was only occasionally sticking, something able to effect driver conficence out of proportion to it's actual impact.

There once was a car so evil handling that it killed perhaps the best driver this sport has ever seen. Even then it was fast enough to be put on pole, though god only knows what risks he took to put it there. By the end of the year it was hands down the best car on the grid.

Your personal religeous belief in the great Newey notwithstanding, the teams don't yet know which solution is closest to the ideal, and you and I certainly don't know.

You can make no intelligent claims as to which car will prove fastest this season.