Red Bull exceed fuel flow limit, Ricciardo DSQ at Australian GP

[munudeges]

The FIA's sensor is the umpire - right or wrong, when it calls a ball, it's a ball.

The problem is the wrong decision is the wrong decision, and to compare apples with apples, you'd expect the same decisions to be made in all cases, all circumstances, in all matches for all teams.......because then the sport would just become a whacky races, tin pot farce wouldn't it?

You can't do anything but laugh about that kind of mental gymnastic lunacy, but then I suppose the FIA cannot possibly be wrong, eh Gunther? Anything else just doesn't compute.

[ChrisM40]

The offset was the sensor calibration, it didnt change! Why is this so hard to understand?? The problem from Friday was that interference was making the results inconsistent.

When you have to apply an 'offset' to anything, to put it in polite terms, it doesn't bloody work.

EVERY LEGALLY COMPLIANT SENSOR HAS A CORRECTION VALUE. Its impossible to make every sensor exactly the same, especially when measuring tiny values, be they temperature, light, weight, flow or anything else. All sensors are calibrated against a standard, some like ultra accurate scales are re-calibrated every single time they are used.

[ChrisM40]

The FIA's sensor is the umpire - right or wrong, when it calls a ball, it's a ball.

The problem is the wrong decision is the wrong decision, and to compare apples with apples, you'd expect the same decisions to be made in all cases, all circumstances, in all matches for all teams.......because then the sport would just become a whacky races, tin pot farce wouldn't it?

You can't do anything but laugh about that kind of mental gymnastic lunacy, but then I suppose the FIA cannot possibly be wrong, eh Gunther? Anything else just doesn't compute.

No one is saying its a perfect system, but thems the rules. All the other teams accepted the limitations and complied, RB did not. End of story.

[Redragon]

I am starting to be a great fan of Magnussen, maybe it has something to do that he liked one of my instagram pictures and nothing to do with his great opening weekend.

[munudeges]

EVERY LEGALLY COMPLIANT SENSOR HAS A CORRECTION VALUE. Its impossible to make every sensor exactly the same, especially when measuring tiny values, be they temperature, light, weight, flow or anything else. All sensors are calibrated against a standard, some like ultra accurate scales are re-calibrated every single time they are used.

Which never works and can never possibly work to the kind of accuracy needed in this case. Even small differences represent quite a bit of lost or gained power here in a sport where hundredths of a second cost quite a bit of money. The fact that they're applying offsets after-the-fact tells you this system is absolute amateur hour.

I think you explained the problem right there, perhaps completely unintentionally. Anyone who has looked at a flow measurement system before knows they have absolutely horrific margins for error. Putting the phrase 'LEGALLY COMPLIANT SENSOR' in capitals, as if that makes everything alright, is really quite laughable.

[ChrisM40]

EVERY LEGALLY COMPLIANT SENSOR HAS A CORRECTION VALUE. Its impossible to make every sensor exactly the same, especially when measuring tiny values, be they temperature, light, weight, flow or anything else. All sensors are calibrated against a standard, some like ultra accurate scales are re-calibrated every single time they are used.

Which never works and can never possibly work to the kind of accuracy needed in this case. Even small differences represent quite a bit of lost or gained power here in a sport where hundredths of a second cost quite a bit of money. The fact that they're applying offsets after-the-fact tells you this system is absolute amateur hour.

I think you explained the problem right there, perhaps completely unintentionally. Anyone who has looked at a flow measurement system before knows they have absolutely horrific margins for error. Putting the phrase 'LEGALLY COMPLIANT SENSOR' in capitals, as if that makes everything alright, is really quite laughable.

You're completely missing the point.

The sensor is dumb, it doesn't know what it should be reporting. At a true 100kg/h the computer its attached to might interpret its output as 234Kg/h. That doesnt matter, as long as the sensor is consistent. If it is then the software can be programmed with a correction value that means the computer then interprets it as 100kg/h. This is calibration.

There is no correction after the fact. The correction the teams are told in the race is how much they are over the measured limit, not by how much the sensor is 'out' by. That is already known and corrected.

Whether the system is perfect or not is not the point, the other teams accounted for known error, which was very well discussed by the teams and the FIA before the racing started. RB pushed their luck and lost out. Too bad.

[Redragon]

About the sensor, I supposed there is a margin for error. If speed limit on a town in Uk is 30 mph there is a margin of error of 1 or 2 mph before being penalised. In the case of Redbull and everyone else, the sensor must have a margin of error, 101 or 102. I supposed FIA warned them because they passed those margin errors big way. Then they played smart and ignored the punishment like a child, now they crying because the have been punished. Like a child without dinner. Really mature.

I am guessing they are trying to do similar propaganda as last year with the 2013 tyres where they were the first one to protest as it didn't suit them. Later proved they were dangerous and right. But this year their case is lost, faulty or not the sensors are equal to everyone, no dangerous, so if you are underpower within restrictions it is your own problem. Cheeky players have always been bad losers.

[ChrisM40]

RB knew the margin of error, and decided to push to the absolute limit anyway and risk exclusion. They can argue the rule isn't very well considered, but either way, they broke it when others did not.

[kalinka]

The offset was the sensor calibration, it didnt change! Why is this so hard to understand?? The problem from Friday was that interference was making the results inconsistent.

When you have to apply an 'offset' to anything, to put it in polite terms, it doesn't bloody work.

EVERY LEGALLY COMPLIANT SENSOR HAS A CORRECTION VALUE. Its impossible to make every sensor exactly the same, especially when measuring tiny values, be they temperature, light, weight, flow or anything else. All sensors are calibrated against a standard, some like ultra accurate scales are re-calibrated every single time they are used.

Chris is right. Every high precision instrument have to have it's error map. I work with high precision CMM's ( Coordinate Measuring Machines ), which can often measure with less than 1micron precision. This precision however could be reached only because about 20-25years ago they applied digital error mapping. Which is in fact a 3D correction map. Every few years you have to recalibrate that map even though the machine is a multiple ton hard granite and steel construction sitting in a controlled climate room on vibration-absorbent legs. So it's not at all unlikely that you sometimes have to add correction factors to such a small instrument working in harsh environment.

[example]

Even the most expensive measurement equipement needs to be calibrated. As Chris said, offset doesn't matter, uncertanity is what matters most.

[dans79]

About the sensor, I supposed there is a margin for error. If speed limit on a town in Uk is 30 mph there is a margin of error of 1 or 2 mph before being penalised. In the case of Redbull and everyone else, the sensor must have a margin of error, 101 or 102.

it does and its pretty small.
Uncertainty is +/- 0.25% from one reading to the next.
overall accuracy is -1% plus nothing. So actually it's erroring on the safe side. thus you could technically use more than 100kg/h and still be legal.

http://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/ ... eter_0.pdf

[jz11]

I can see the unit having a correction factor, but why would it be known to the user? Why is the unit not correctly calibrated at delivery?

DYNAMIC correction???? Now this sounds like SB. How in the world do I calibrate an instrument after installation? What is your baseline and how is it measured????

Brian

at the factory sensors of various types are calibrated against a known standard. for real world use however they need to be calibrated for the work they are doing. Off the top of my head i can think of several calibration constants they might have.

1. one for fuel manufacture since the rules can be different.
2. one for temperature since it plays a significant impact on density.
3. they probably have one per engine manufacture as well to minimize interference specific to that engine.

my guess is that the pulsating manner of the fuel supply (affected by high pressure and variable timing of injection cycles) creates a "standing wave" effect in the fuel supply rail, and if you put an ultrasonic flow meter to monitor the flow, this standing wave will create "pockets" of high and low pressure fuel that is then targeted by the flow meter - that might be the "signal noise" they are referring to and the main reason for the sampling rate change (which is also a weird solution to me)

FIA also are monitoring fuel pressure, temperature and injection cycles to estimate the same thing - flow rate, and if this projection is different than the value reported by the flow meter - they call the team and say - here, use this correction value to estimate your allowed fuel flow rate - this is the "dynamic calibration" of the fuel flow meter

and here is the tricky part, the "standing wave" is affected by fuel supply line volume, the rpms where the engine is being operated in, this can make the reading of the flow meter inaccurate and untrustworthy - what, in my opinion, RB was thinking, off course this is "wrong" if you read the fuel flow meter rule, but it is also correct if you read the MAIN rule - which states that the max flow rate must be 100kg/h

this is the argument

and if it is like this, it boggles my mind why in the world would they put that ultrasonic flow meter there in the first place, and why it isn't using such a slow sampling rate (afair it could take samples in kHz range) and not calculate the average "on-board" (from the kHz range) and give that number to stewards, why the 5 and 10 Hz rate, which is way too slow to be anywhere near accurate for the current application

just too many shenanigans with this whole electronically monitored fuel flow restriction, which can result in an unwanted and unintended "fixing" of the race, or intended, if you're into conspiracy theory

p.s. for mechanical fuel flow restrictors, it is very easy to make "go" and "no-go" pins, and define usable materials, and test measurement procedures, which include material temperature and so on, or supply the team with a restrictor even and have anti tampering seal on it... much cheaper, lower tech and much much safer way of dealing with this whole nonsense - and it was about getting the cost down, or maybe not any more...

edit: I'm not even sure if the flow meter is measuring the high pressure line, if it doesn't, then this whole idea is out of the window, somewhat

[Pup]

FIA lap chart, for anyone interested in something other than fuelflowgate...



Can someone tell me what happened to Hulkenberg at the 2nd pitstop? Button came out of that round ahead by quite some margin.

[beelsebob]

Can someone tell me what happened to Hulkenberg at the 2nd pitstop? Button came out of that round ahead by quite some margin.

The undercut worked for Button, I don't think anything more specially happened.

[langwadt]

Any word on what happened to Vettel? Tuned in a little later, but 16 seconds off the pace before he retired seemed utterly ridiculous.

I'm more interested in how the team could be so seemingly oblivious to the problems.

When he started the warmup lap the car made a weird jumpy and stuttering start. On the warmup lap he complained
about lack of power and it sounded like it wasn't firing on half of the cylinders, but the team kept telling him everything
was normal.