2010 Gearboxes for New Teams

[xpensive]

Do you know how 40kg compares to state of the art 'boxes from the Grandees, scarbs?

[FW17]

Thanks Scarbs, I think that clears all the teams gearboxes and cases.

Do you by any chance have any sketches of the transverse and longitudinal layout?

[marcush.]

Do you know how 40kg compares to state of the art 'boxes from the Grandees, scarbs?

I thought the current boxes are going already below 35kgs.I remember a snippet about gearbox trends in RCE in 2005 (?) when gearbox weight was stated as already at 40kg
with added detail that a typical magnesium casting would be 14kg whereas a carbonfibre equivalent could come down to 8.5kilogrammes....
so my guess would be the 2010 Mercedes box is under 35kg maybe already closer to 32??

[scarbs]

Getting gearbox weights out of teams is nigh on impossible.

I think we can assume Xtrac are going to be close to the other teams bearing in mind their close associations. But still heavier than the others as the gearbox is a production part.

I’d concur that good carbon case saves about 4Kg, which would shift weight dist 1%. Mac made an even lighter case during 2008 for weight dist improvements, so there’s clearly still scope for development.

Remember that weight distributions will be slightly more rearwards in 2010, so gearbox weight is less critical.

[scarbs]

Getting gearbox weights out of teams is nigh on impossible.

I think we can assume Xtrac are going to be close to the other teams bearing in mind their close associations. But still heavier than the others as the gearbox is a production part.

I’d concur that good carbon case saves about 4Kg, which would shift weight dist 1%. Mac made an even lighter case during 2008 for weight dist improvements, so there’s clearly still scope for development.

Remember that weight distributions will be slightly more rearwards in 2010, so gearbox weight is less critical.

[xpensive]

From the best of your xperience scarbs, what could a new team gain from developing their own 'box then?

[marcush.]

just looked up my racecar engineering collection :
February 2005 issue page 34 ,article by S.Mcbeath ,with input from Xtrac

-currently a typical transmission weighs around 40kgs or less,including hydrauklics and suspension (!).
weight reduction comes from reduced dimensions of casing and internals as well as exotic materials and production ...

[marcush.]

of course you would hope to find more reliability coming from increased stiffness
and longer servicelife coming from something like a CF gearbox like BAR/BRAWN/HONDA
did .added torsional stiffness will also benefit the performance of the car.
But going your own ways not only in casing but as well in internals when you can buy off the shelf ...is quite something for a first toe in the water.they could still bolt the xtrac thing into the back of their machine ...as the what and ifs will be sorted anyways by the other competitors using Cosworth/XTRAC combination.Maybe they
have this as a backup or for the start of the season anyways...?

[safeaschuck]

Ingram: The Race Is On At USF1
Jonathan Ingram | Senior Writer, RacinToday.com Wednesday, 20 January 2010

A glance at a full-scale, side-view drawing reveals a compact car despite the large fuel cell needed to accommodate races without pit stops. The gearbox, to be built in-house, will be transverse for the sake of packaging.

This will be first team to use a transverse layout since williams did in 1998.

'Built' is the critical word here. F1 Teams have always BUILT there own stuff (engines from cosworth maybe a possible exception this year). It is vital for building up quality control procedure's. If you can't trace the cause of a problem you cannot bring the supplier to book and begin improving procedures.
Almost every other motorsport would accept built up assemblies and sub assemblies. They might even prefer it as staffing levels can be quite modest and expertise on every component in the car and it's operation in relation to others will not always be there.
F1 teams (or at least manufacturer teams) prefer components, both for building up a knowledge base and as a way of maitaining a level of confidentiality over the finished product, even down to the lubricants, adhesives and hardware use in final build. Quite a few component manufacturers would baulk at F1 level assembly work too.
Already an example of a posible brain drain bought about by privateer teams which I hadn't considered before writing this.

'Built in House' still dosen't mean 'Made in the U.S.A.' either. It might even be 'Built' at their european facility!

I think you will find that Xtrac's put an awful lot of resources into making their gear clusters light, low friction and reliable, they are prety specialised. Compared to a small department of many within a team they must have the edge over a lot of what a team could acheive.
Privateer teams buying from them will probably have parts with the occasional weight saving/friction reduction machining/treatment op's deleted resulting in slightly heavier parts and the aluminium casing will account for the rest of the weight. A budget choice the ally case should also stand up to much more abuse and have a better lifing.

[riff_raff]

I would imagine that most teams want to build their own housings, since this would allow them to locate the rear suspension attachments where they need them. It would also allow them to tailor the torsional and bending stiffness of the housing to suit their chassis design.

However, I doubt that many of the teams actually make their gearbox internals in-house. Making shafts, gearsets, dog rings, etc. requires some very specialized and expensive machinery and processing facilities.

The only gearbox parts that suffer significant wear are clutch discs, dog rings and CV joints. Some types of limited slip diffs also may have parts that wear.

A composite housing would be optimum with regards to stiffness and weight. But a composite housing is very complex to manufacture, since it must have titanium inserts for bearings and wherever it must have a bolted attachment. So the housing usually ends up being about 60% composite and 40% titanium. It is also very difficult to make a composite housing that is oil tight and capable of maintaining strength at elevated temperatures.

Regards,
riff_raff

[xpensive]

But a composite housing is very complex to manufacture, since it must have titanium inserts for bearings and wherever it must have a bolted attachment.

I remember John Barnard making this mistake with steel-inserts on his first carbon-casing, which only goes to show that even xperienced F1 designers can make fundamental errors.

[marcush.]

the one you are referring to was alan jenkins for Stewart Grandprix.they opted for
aluminium bulkeads instead of titanium due to time constraints .the real issue back then was not only related to the material but even more related to the quality and design of the bonding surface ...these were handfinished ,and so Stewart had a real
headscratching horrendous season with multiple dnfs .
the Arrows cfbox by barnard performed flawless from day one (with titaniumbulkeads)and its routes still live on in Brawns gearbox ....if this is allowed to say.
In barnards Ferrari times the case was a steel fabricated maincase -soon replaced by a ti-fabricated maincase-combined with cf-bellhousing /suspension support +cf rearhousing7crashstructure.

[xpensive]

How could you possibly have the faintest idea as to what I'm referring to, are you clairvoyant or something?

Try to think before you post your dead-certain statements, learn how to type a readable message while you're at it.

[FW17]

With USF1 outsourcing a lot of components may be they are getting a CF casing done from one of their partners. They have listed atleast 3 of them as their manufacturing partners, but it will be first time for any of them in building a F1 gearbox casing.

[marcush.]

How could you possibly have the faintest idea as to what I'm referring to, are you clairvoyant or something?

Try to think before you post your dead-certain statements, learn how to type a readable message while you're at it.

I´m taking that in and promise to work on my typos and thinking

and as I omitted the source of my wisdom: Boxing clever - carbon gearboxes -by Peter Wright -October 2001 ,racecar engineering. Seems at least a bit creditable to me.
still I should not have schulmeistered your post ,apologies there.