Red Bull RB6

[mike_dangerous]

According to James Allen, you are allowed to re-pressurise the dampers in between qualification and race...

[forty-two]

According to James Allen, you are allowed to re-pressurise the dampers in between qualification and race...

I'm pretty sure that the same statement was echoed during the BBC's coverage of the Melbourne event. Not sure who said it, or during which session but I am pretty sure someone said the teams are allowed to "Re-Pressurise" the dampers during Park Firme.

Such a system (i.e. one which slowly bleeds off during the race distance) would ideally allow the RB to run at the "same" ride height throughout the race, giving them an advantage especially toward the end of the race..... That's assuming of course that both cars actually make it to the finish!

[BreezyRacer]

RB have consistently denied this whole ride height issue. What if ***THERE IS NOTHING GOING ON????***

What a laugh we will have!

[Pup]

Are you guys suggesting that the dampers carry load? I was thinking that any type of strut actuated system would have to be done as a separate element, a la a "third spring", front and back. So if the spring were replaced with a strut, would the rules allow that to be recharged, or only the dampers themselves?

Personally, I would think that using gas to raise the car would introduce all sorts of handling problems, since the spring rate would be constantly changing as the gas bled off. Working the opposite direction, however, you could load a strut with enough pressure that it is essentially fixed, allowing the rest of the suspension to work as designed.

[HungryHebbo]

Personally, I would think that using gas to raise the car would introduce all sorts of handling problems, since the spring rate would be constantly changing as the gas bled off. Working the opposite direction, however, you could load a strut with enough pressure that it is essentially fixed, allowing the rest of the suspension to work as designed.

Air the main dampers in an F1 car coil or air? If they're coil then the spring rate won't change, springs are linear. Thus if you could have the bleed-off-system change the stop limit of the coil and somehow isolate that from the spring itself (no idea how to do that, have been thinking though!) then no damping rate change would occur.

If the gas was bled directly from some primary air shocks, then yes, the spring rate would change. Just my 2 cents.

[autogyro]

RB have consistently denied this whole ride height issue. What if ***THERE IS NOTHING GOING ON????***

What a laugh we will have!

Indeed but if this is the case, then Adrian is not making nearly enough use of the talent he has in house.

[RacingManiac]

Personally, I would think that using gas to raise the car would introduce all sorts of handling problems, since the spring rate would be constantly changing as the gas bled off. Working the opposite direction, however, you could load a strut with enough pressure that it is essentially fixed, allowing the rest of the suspension to work as designed.

Air the main dampers in an F1 car coil or air? If they're coil then the spring rate won't change, springs are linear. Thus if you could have the bleed-off-system change the stop limit of the coil and somehow isolate that from the spring itself (no idea how to do that, have been thinking though!) then no damping rate change would occur.

If the gas was bled directly from some primary air shocks, then yes, the spring rate would change. Just my 2 cents.

Dampers used in F1 are hydraulic dampers with a gas pre-charge to prevent cavitation. While typically a gas charged fluid filled damper the gas charge will have some effect of the spring rate, the through rod damper as noted from the 3rd spring thread was designed specifically to negate most of that effect as without the rod displacement, the gas charge piston does not displace nearly as much as it usually does(and gas charge is often at much lower pressure). I'd imagine if such device is used it'd have to be a seperate "spring" that might be parallel to the main ride spring(on the 3rd element) that can be charged at the same time as charging the damper.

[dren]

Even with damper gas changing, there still has to be some sort of physical change in the suspension stops to alter the ride height. That is why some sort of ratcheting set-up was suggested before. A damper slowly leaking is just going to change the damping, not the ride height. Maybe there is something else that is loaded with gas that slowly leaks allowing a slowly ratcheting setup

[autogyro]

A 19th century steam engineer would be able to explain a workable system without thinking twice.
A piston with hydrolic fluid on either side under gas pressure, the piston rod moves either way under load and it varies valves which change the pressure applied to each side of the piston and the piston returns to its set position plus a difference accounting for spring deflection (higher down pressure).
The conventional sprung suspension works within the same mechanical linkage.
No matter what the load, the level remains the same.
It can all be contained in a conventional looking set up.

[marcush.]

to increase gas pressure inthe reservoir to raise the ride height will all but distroy everything good your dampers possibly could do ...just think about stick slip effects ..so the way the Mercedes drives ...icould imagine they tried something like that.. but not the RB..
You pressurize as low as possible to prevent cavitation and reduce hysteresis in the damper .
It is not a feasible way in my eyes and if someone tried that i would instantly laugh out about it and do it away as boys tinkering around... entirely out of professional thinking.

the gas pressure is NOT acting on the piston ,it is working the piston rod wich has a diameter of say 12 or 14 mm in a F1 car ..you can easily work out the pressure neeeded to carry one 1/4 of the sprung weight of the car...(assuming 1:1 damper /wheel ratio).and how would you bleed it? relying on the exhaust gas heating up the dampers in the pitstop enough to release the pressure and retain the needed pressure.. it surely is a separate system .

[forty-two]

and how would you bleed it? relying on the exhaust gas heating up the dampers in the pitstop enough to release the pressure and retain the needed pressure.. it surely is a separate system .

I've said this before a few times, but I wonder if one of the arguments for the reconfigured exhaust outlets on the RB6 could be something exactly as you mention. Not in the pitstops, but during the whole race.

Heat from the exhausts is somehow doing the work of adjusting the ride height, this would/could explain why the RB6 appeared to cross the line and complete it's in lap very very low, but some 20 minutes later, Ted Kravitz shows a shot of the car noticably higher off the deck (i.e. the "heated" component had cooled down by then).

Maybe Vettel's car in Bahrain had a "loss of power" because something went wrong in the system, meaning that he was suddenly hitting the floor? Perhaps this was also why he stopped on his in lap?

I have absolutely no data to back any of the above up, so don't bash me for airing wild ideas, I just think that such a system MIGHT be feasible and possibly legal too.

[RacingManiac]

Personally I think if somehow exhaust energy in used, its "active". You are inputing energy into the system, its no different from running a hydraulic motor or electric actuator....

That is based on your conjecture of course.

[marcush.]

and how would you bleed it? relying on the exhaust gas heating up the dampers in the pitstop enough to release the pressure and retain the needed pressure.. it surely is a separate system .

I've said this before a few times, but I wonder if one of the arguments for the reconfigured exhaust outlets on the RB6 could be something exactly as you mention. Not in the pitstops, but during the whole race.

Heat from the exhausts is somehow doing the work of adjusting the ride height, this would/could explain why the RB6 appeared to cross the line and complete it's in lap very very low, but some 20 minutes later, Ted Kravitz shows a shot of the car noticably higher off the deck (i.e. the "heated" component had cooled down by then).

Maybe Vettel's car in Bahrain had a "loss of power" because something went wrong in the system, meaning that he was suddenly hitting the floor? Perhaps this was also why he stopped on his in lap?

I have absolutely no data to back any of the above up, so don't bash me for airing wild ideas, I just think that such a system MIGHT be feasible and possibly legal too.

I could imagine something along those lines , but why so complicated ? Is Newey really the guy not going for easy solutions?

[forty-two]

I was wondering about that..

What if a "component" just happened to be near to or downstream of a part of the exhaust, and hot air "wafts" onto it allowing it to soften and compress slowly during the race distance and slowly return to it's original position as it cools.

I take you point about the technicality of it, but since the spirit of the ban of "Active" suspension was to prevent teams running truly reactive and proactive controls of suspension movement, perhaps there's a loophole in the regs??

Agree with you though, my earlier comments and these too are merely conjecture... but so were the first comments about McLaren's Blown wing, so I guess sometimes healthy conjecture and discussion can be useful??

[forty-two]

I could imagine something along those lines , but why so complicated ? Is Newey really the guy not going for easy solutions?

Haha, good point. Why go for a simple system with little to go wrong when a far more elaborate and fault-prone one might also work for a while?!? =D>