Why 1000bhp cars?

[SectorOne]

Yeah, the ERS is something like 150bhp of the total, I presumed the proposed regs were still the current ERS, plus ICE = 1000bhp, unless I missed something they aren't proposing 1000bhp ICE.

Everything i´ve read so far have said 1000 horsepower engines, and not power units.
But i´d like to know exactly what they mean here as well.

http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/3207 ... p-engines/
http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/formu ... s-in-2017/
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/117300

Maybe it´s just a communication error.

[Cold Fussion]

An increase from 650hp to 1000hp without an increase in displacement, number of cylinders or rpm would mean an increase in BMEP/torque of over 60%. This would also mean much higher pressure and thermal loads on the engine.

Power is estimated at around 850hp for the PU.

Which means about 690hp for the ICE. To get 1000hp they need to raise the ICE to 840hp - a 21% increase.

They may be 850 hp in overtake mode, but continuous power is surely much lower, so the increase will be more than 21%.

[ScottB]

Yeah, the ERS is something like 150bhp of the total, I presumed the proposed regs were still the current ERS, plus ICE = 1000bhp, unless I missed something they aren't proposing 1000bhp ICE.

Everything i´ve read so far have said 1000 horsepower engines, and not power units.
But i´d like to know exactly what they mean here as well.

http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/3207 ... p-engines/
http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/formu ... s-in-2017/
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/117300

Maybe it´s just a communication error.

That first article certainly uses phrases like '1000bhp cars' and 'V6 Power Units could be increased to 1000bhp' so I suspect it is talking about 1000bhp as a total for all powertrain systems, rather than the engine itself, otherwise we'd be talking 1150 / 1200bhp cars with the ERS added in.

It would make more sense though, as said in the OP, 1000bhp total isn't a huge step from where we are, but then maybe that's the point to avoid having to redesign the current ICE, the manufacturers certainly seem to be against that, understandably, given their very recent, large investments.

[gruntguru]

To quote some numbers we know, the Honda RA167E had 50% more power than the engine that replaced it - the RA168E. Did Honda save significant weight by paring down critical components in line with the reduced power? I don't think so.

What I'm getting is that safety margins are very marginal, just enough to barely cover a hot race. The safety margins aren't at 100%. Let's reduce that to 3-4% and we are much closer to the reality.

In terms of the stresses created by cylinder pressures, margins are much higher than that. Besides, those particular stresses do not increase in direct proportion to boost or BMEP. In fact if CR is reduced, they need not increase at all.

To quote some numbers we know, the Honda RA167E had 50% more power than the engine that replaced it - the RA168E. Did Honda save significant weight by paring down critical components in line with the reduced power?

Not a fair comparison since the reduced boost and fuel restrictions forced Honda to start with a blank sheet of paper concerning its engine. It was a very conservative approach, of which I'm sure they were able to cut weight by a lot later on. Naturally, since they were allowed to make as many updates as they liked at any time. That's something you can't do anymore. Manufacturers got a heads up on the new engine rules 3 years before introduction, and are only allowed to change half of the PU in the second, progressively freezing the PU over the years. There is no scope to play it conservative as Honda did because of the restrictions on development, so you are automatically starting with much smaller margins.

This is first year out with a brand new PU. It appears they are already at 850 hp. Incremental development will have them pushing 1000 within a couple of seasons - in spite of the rules dictating annually diminishing lattitude to beef-up critical areas to cope with power increases. There is no way in my mind these PUs have been pared down to the fragile limit. The weight savings you refer to are minute, the engines have to meet a minimum weight and CGH of the engines is regulated.

My opinion - the power output of the ICE could be doubled without any changes to the head, block, rods or crank.

[Hobbs04]

I'm curious what the fuel flow on an everyday car is on the road today? For the purposes of being green the argument should be that F1 engines are at 40% efficiency vs your average car around 25%... That should sell the idea not overall fuel flow. 10000hp or 180hp is irrelevant if overall fuel consumption is relative. If you put 1 in and get .4 out is better then putting 1 in and getting. 25 out regardless of overall power.

1000 hp = rocketships on the ground = more fans

[Tommy Cookers]

iirc the Gilles Simon article (in RCE 2+ years ago ?) suggested the now-current engines would need part-steel pistons like a diesel's
(because of the unusually high combustion pressures and temperatures)
and that it would be better to make the pistons wholly steel
part-steel or steel pistons would be much heavier and so tend to give high inertia loads that would limit the rpm (as in a diesel)

the F1 rules seem to have been written around this
has anyone seen these engines running much above say 12000 rpm ?

the mandated stroke has the potential for around 15000 rpm with normal pistons
but surely only say 12000 rpm with diesel-style or steel pistons

btw Simon also said that there would be a tradeoff between achievable valve size and achievable CR
(in N/A F1 they chose the biggest possible valve size and this limited the CR achievable to about 13)

[gruntguru]

Surely the current engines don't have to make such a compromise? CR would be of the order of 10:1?

[riff_raff]

This is first year out with a brand new PU. It appears they are already at 850 hp. Incremental development will have them pushing 1000 within a couple of seasons - in spite of the rules dictating annually diminishing lattitude to beef-up critical areas to cope with power increases. There is no way in my mind these PUs have been pared down to the fragile limit. The weight savings you refer to are minute, the engines have to meet a minimum weight and CGH of the engines is regulated. My opinion - the power output of the ICE could be doubled without any changes to the head, block, rods or crank.

The design stress limit for any F1 engine component is a function of material fatigue capability at the operating conditions it is subject to during its service life. The material fatigue capability is greatly influenced by temperature, mean loads, number of load cycles, the characteristics of the applied loads (combined bending/torsion, fully reversing loads, etc), the metallurgy of the material, or the condition of the material surface (shot-peening, polishing, etc). And these engine components are highly engineered to provide a certain fatigue life at minimum weight. If you were to put double the amount of power, along with significantly higher torsional forces, thru a current F1 crank without any modifications it would suffer structural failure in short order.

[gruntguru]

The engines are built to a regulated weight and CGH. The designers need to add weight to their optimum design. Where do you think they will add weight? Ballast in the crankcase?

Crankshaft design 101. Peak torsional forces are primarily cyclic. The steady state component (output torque of the engine) sits orders of magnitude lower. The cyclic component is composed of torsional vibration, piston inertia and cylinder pressure (firing).

The last of these is the only one that increases in line with boost pressure.
It is opposite to the piston inertial force so cancels somewhat.
The peak occurs near TDC where leverage is low and applied torque is therefore reduced.
The peak does not increase in magnitude unless the peak cylinder pressure is higher. With reduced CR the pressure peak will be wider rather than higher.