Physics in Formula One

[Miguel]

Did you forget to mention quantum dynamics? I would like to see the physics of a wave model of the car... perhaps you can work a little from 2 am to 5 am (it's your "free time", I imagine ).

No, I didn't. When one applies Ehrenfest's theoren to quantum mechanics one gets the (average) Newton's law. This reminds me of a lecture I was given a few years ago. The sentence the professor said was something like "No one with a sane mind would try to desing an antenna using Quantum Electrodynamics". So with this sentence I have to admit I didn't do my homework and thus decided to go to bed

By the way, has the original poster found anything useful here? Ciro posted some great links and riff_raff said it as it is: an F1 car is a complex system product of many areas. Of course, all this stuff has been simplified. Now you only need good PR in order to get the "good" McLaren ECUs

[Ciro Pabón]

Well, riff raff summed it up pretty well.

I was joking about a quantum model of an F1 car. Perhaps when nanocars start to race they have some hope.

About the Pacejka model, Miguel, what I humbly see in it is a steady state curve fit, with a thing called relaxation length to include dynamics. It's what I would call a semi-empirical model.

If you want something a little better, there you have the MF version 5.1, Swift (Short Wavelength Intermediate Frequency Tyre) or Ftire models. There is an new MF model, 5.2 version, that adress the problem to handle frequencies above 8 hz (something that the Swift model also attempts to do).

They also don't stand a chance to model dynamics in an accurate way. Tyre companies use FEA models, but I've never ever read a complete description of them. I've heard you need a Cray computer to run them, even today, but you never know if what you hear is true.

Swift tyre model pdf 657 Kb. It talks a little about differences between MF and Swift models.

Another paper on Swift applications pdf 1.5 Mb

Ftire site. This model assumes the tyre to be a non-rigid ring, so the tyre can flex, something like in Swift and MF.

I'd be happy to get some info on FEA models.

[HVS5b]

Dunno if this is too late to be of any interest, but..

http://phors.locost7.info/contents.htm

has been my bedtime reading for a couple of weeks now