2014 Engine yin yang

[dren]

Who will be in the mix with Shell? Petronas vs Shell maybe

[xpensive]

Are you kidding, Exxon might be there for a shout but hardly anyone else.

[FW17]

I would be looking at synthetic fuel experts such as BASF

[dren]

Are you kidding, Exxon might be there for a shout but hardly anyone else.

I heard BP has a new salt water rich variant that might work wonders.

[munudeges]

And there are technical reasons why I think that way.

1. I believe that the low pressure measurement will be accurate to the level indicated by the manufacturer.

There are no technical reasons. You can believe that if you want but there is ample reason to think otherwise. Nothing like that can be accurate. It will be like the double diffuser or the Brabhams in the early eighties all over again. Pointless.

2. Manipulations behind the measuring device are prohibited by strong prohibitions in the regulations and by the option to use the SECU data of the injectors to double check.

History has told us time and again that the teams win. As simple as.

[munudeges]

Very well xplained TC, Shell could literally put together Alonso's 2014 fuel molecule per molecule if they wanted.

During the Schumacher years Shell had a lab on-site during testing doing pretty much what Bridgestone were doing.

[Richard]

You might be interested in this post from 2009 from a verified F1 source:

I don't know about how the other F1 teams work with their fuel and oil suppliers, I can only comment on the way we work with the team we support..

We have a scientist that is pretty much permanently based at the F1 factory and works day-to-day with the F1 engineers to a) understand their needs and b) advise them of what is nominally possible. Sometimes they are able to work with quite conventional fluids, and at other times novel fluid components are used in new formulations to give competitive advantage. The communication is very much a two-way process between the F1 folks and the team of scientists, engineers and technicians in our fuels and lubricants departments.

Some of the engine and gearbox technologies do require special lubricant components, especially to protect during first-fire when it's very easy to damage some of the critical mechanical parts..

We also have a small team that are on hand at every race and test, to sample and analyse the fuel and oil before and after each run. The data then gets fed back into the development model.

Finally all of the F1 fuels and oils for the team are made at the laboratory where I work and are then shipped to wherever they are needed.

http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... 01#p137801

[munudeges]

Thanks Richard. That's what really gets me about this 'homologation' nonsense. It's under a pretext of cutting costs but in reality the engine manufacturers are spending more than ever, except they're spending it on ever smaller windows of performance improvements. At the same time they act as a barrier to entry to anyone new coming in and doing something genuinely different.

[bhall]

Dr. Cara Tredget, Shell Technology Manager at Ferrari


(Cute, if you ask me.)

We can produce a report which details exactly what metals are in the oil – iron, titanium, copper, magnesium, all of which form the fabric of the engine. Because we’ve been working with Ferrari for so long we’ve been able to develop software that predicts the concentration of metal we can expect to see during all the stages of an engine’s service life. We can give them an insight into what’s happening inside the engine without them having to take it apart. It’s like doing a blood test.

[...]

Fuel can have around 200 components and some of those have low boiling points. What you can find, especially in hot countries and if the drums aren’t treated properly, is that you can lose some of your light ends [the more volatile components] and that will skew the FIA fuel test. We call it ‘weathering’ and a certain amount is allowed under the FIA regulations, because they understand that it’s very difficult to keep fuel 100 per cent the same as the original sample. But if there’s an excessive amount then you’ll be penalised. In the very hot races we’ll arrange to refrigerate the fuel.

[...]

You can affect the fuel performance through two different handles. You can either change the ratio of the base components of the fuel or you can use additives. We use both of those mechanisms to give increased performance, depending on what Ferrari needs – sometimes the priority may be for out-and-out power, at other times they may want a specific level of gravimetric or volumetric efficiency.

Volumetric efficiency is when a fuel, for a given volume, has more power, and gravimetric efficiency is a factor of the fuel’s weight. So if Ferrari are really trying to minimise the weight of the car then they will want a fuel with high gravimetric efficiency. If they want to keep the fuel tank as small as possible then volumetric efficiency is more important. Very subtle changes in the fuel can have quite a big impact. They’re very complex mixtures and the way that the different elements interact with one another can be quite significant.

[...]

Fuel developments tend to be iterations – step changes from one to the next. But for 2014, with the new engine regulations, the fuel will be significantly different to what’s currently being used. The 2014 engine will have a different fuel appetite and so from that point of view we’re in a very strong position because we’re starting from a blank sheet of paper. Working with Ferrari to co-develop the engine is quite a luxurious position to be in.

[donskar]

Some old codgers, like me and X, might remember reports in RaceCar Engineering about how a change in Shell fuel gave a Ferrari F1 engine (3.5 V12 IIRC) got 7 additional HP with no other change. And, more recently, didn't Shell come up with a blend that was a couple kilos lighter per tankful? Maybe the new formula will be more than an extended aero exercise . . .

[WhiteBlue]

I love all this speculative chemical horse power chasing. Only that they have harvested all the low hanging fruits for ages. Here is nothing in the fuel regulations that would allow something they have not already done for a decade. Good luck.

[Tommy Cookers]

the rules have never until now incentivised optimising mass-specific energy, quite the reverse
now they do strongly incentivise this
also the rules have waived the octane limit, for the first time in 55 years
so the rules would appear to allow quite a lot that has not been done in F1 fuel in the last decade (or ever)
Dr Tredget seems to be saying this

the question is how far beyond currently available techniques will the fuel companies go (and how much have they progressed recently)
certainly the rules show some intent towards restraining a fuel 'arms race' (they would, wouldn't they ?)
and there is no particularly good reason for having such
but F1 rules always show intent to restrain something
and race performance is now indisputably for the first time ever directly linked to the mass-specific energy content of the fuel

the rules cannot prevent the gathering of fruit that is not low-hanging
we have long since seen eg that fast-combusting fuel was available only to F1 (not to MotoGP and endurance racing)
until the production capacity was raised by capital spending
that high-hanging fruit was gathered only for F1, but suddenly became low-hanging and more widely available

[GitanesBlondes]

the rules have never until now incentivised optimising mass-specific energy, quite the reverse
now they do strongly incentivise this
also the rules have waived the octane limit, for the first time in 55 years
so the rules would appear to allow quite a lot that has not been done in F1 fuel in the last decade (or ever)
Dr Tredget seems to be saying this

the question is how far beyond currently available techniques will the fuel companies go (and how much have they progressed recently)
certainly the rules show some intent towards restraining a fuel 'arms race' (they would, wouldn't they ?)
and there is no particularly good reason for having such
but F1 rules always show intent to restrain something
and race performance is now indisputably for the first time ever directly linked to the mass-specific energy content of the fuel

the rules cannot prevent the gathering of fruit that is not low-hanging
we have long since seen eg that fast-combusting fuel was available only to F1 (not to MotoGP and endurance racing)
until the production capacity was raised by capital spending
that high-hanging fruit was gathered only for F1, but suddenly became low-hanging and more widely available

Indeed.

I suspect the fuel companies will be looking to work on low temperature combustion with these engines to make them more efficient. It's going to be fascinating to see who, or rather how many are able to do this with gasoline since diesel has been the main focus of LTC.

Even though I despise a lot of things about this formula to date, the advances to be made on the fuel front may make it rather interesting. If only we could have gotten less restrictions on engine development.

[xpensive]

Some old codgers, like me and X, might remember reports in RaceCar Engineering about how a change in Shell fuel gave a Ferrari F1 engine (3.5 V12 IIRC) got 7 additional HP with no other change. And, more recently, didn't Shell come up with a blend that was a couple kilos lighter per tankful? Maybe the new formula will be more than an extended aero exercise . . .

There you go Don, I wonder who Toyota would have teamed up with fuel-wise?

[vinuneuro]

XOM was Toyota's supplier.