F1technical.net

Hi folks!

Due to a few bout of tempers by trying to finish the exhaust system, I changed to manufacturing of the gearbox. The first drawings for the gearbox housing I did a few week ago. Now I've built the base structure of the casing.

The connection pipes between the exhaust manifolds and the exhaust turbine were quite nerve racking. I let a few cries of rage.


The exhaust manifolds with their heat shields were also quite difficult to build.


Top view of the engine.


The base frame of the gearbox casing. A LMP1 gearbox with casing have to resist much more forces than a F1 gearbox. Apart from the 900kgs of an LMP1 (compared to the 640kgs of an F1 car), the casing must pick up a much higher torque ( about 1200Nm LMP1 against about 320Nm F1).


Current state of the car with the engine and gearbox housing.


It's slowly getting something like a racecar!


Cheers
Paul

It's nice to see how your work is progressing, seeing as a car comes to life

Hi folks!

For a bit of variety, a small question time. I've a few understanding problems regarding the oil system of the car (cooling/storing/leading). For explanation of the problem, please change to the pictures caption.
If somebody can help me, please PM me or comment directly to this thread.
Thanks beforehand!

The orange circled item should be the oil cooler. Everybody agrees? (The big one behind, which seems like to be out of aluminium is the water cooler.) And now, if that's really the oil cooler it's feeding line (or return line, that doesn't matter) leads into the monocoque. That means, that the oil tank (where I was swearing in the last post about, that I forgot the cutout in the monocoques rear bulkhead) is internal. Does that arrangement makes sense? I guess, the oil tank should be mounted at the engines front. Picture source: http://www.ten-tenths.com/forum/showthr ... 1&page=100


Another picture of this area. The pipe leads into the monocoque for 100 per cent, I elicited that on another picture. Picture source: http://www.audi4ever.com/v2/blog/detail ... index.html


I'm glad for every help, be it from an engineer or someone else.
Cheers, Paul

paul,
to me this looks not like an oil line (not enough diameter) what about Diesel fuel line? With Commonrail high pressure you might very well need something to cool the fluid in the return line top acceptable levels.having a quite generous pipe diameter will help reduce the pressure peaks not to exceed certain levels to avoid the system to suffer..I could be wrong
but it would certainly explain why the line is going into the monocoque ...

Hey folks!

marcush. wrote:paul,
to me this looks not like an oil line (not enough diameter) what about Diesel fuel line? With Commonrail high pressure you might very well need something to cool the fluid in the return line top acceptable levels.having a quite generous pipe diameter will help reduce the pressure peaks not to exceed certain levels to avoid the system to suffer..I could be wrong
but it would certainly explain why the line is going into the monocoque ...
[...]]

It seems you're completely right Marcus. I also got a PM at ten-tenths.com forum, where it's explained in the same way. But now I still have no oil cooler. There's another radiator at the right hand side which looks completely identical, so I guess it's also a diesel cooler. Any idea where the oil is cooled?
If you wonder, that my gearbox looks quite different to the one on your picture, my one is a 2011 version, your's is a 2012 one.

To the todays update:
The summer is coming to an end and with it, also the building progress will decrease slowly.
Yesterday, I covered the gearbox casing base frame with carbon fibre textures. Of course, I looked exactly after the orientation of the carbon fiber textures.I also started with the common rail fuel system, which is completely unknown territory for me. I've only built petrol engines by now. But that's also a nice thing on that hobbie, that I'm continually learning new things.

It looks more like a part of a stealth fighter aircraft than a race car gearbox. Between the two extensions at the rear, the differential is located.


These two small items left and right of the engine are the high pressure pumps for the common rail system.


Gearbox, engine and monocoque - that's the stressed part of the car.


The car grows in lenght.


A bit belated, the promised drawings of the engine block with cylinder heads and the gearbox casing. As usual, I don't comply with any Standard, because only I must can read this drawings. But I'm sure the most of you can also.

The engine block consisting out of ladder frame, cylinder block and cylinder heads.


The gearbox with outer dimensions of the car. Diffuser at the underside, engine cover at the top.


That's it, thanks for watching.
Cheers,
Paul

Nothing but trouble:

new article on the R18 engine on speedhunters.com

Hey folks!

If somebody is interested in and somewhere around, I'm going to display a few of my cars on the "Grazer Herbstmesse" (autumn fair of Graz). 26th of September till 1st of October, hall C, stand 32.

Cheers, Paul

Hi there!

Maybe some of you are just waiting for a new update. It’s quite a long time ago, since my last update on the Audi. I did not forget about my blog. But even if the building process did not stop, I wasn’t able to post any updates due to a damage on my camera. Somewhen the next days I’ll post a splitted update of the whole September work on the R18. Gearbox, engine, rear suspension, monocoque and rims.

There’s another thing, I want to tell you. Next week I’ll join the TU Graz Racing Team. Till now I’ve filled up most of my freetime with building my paper board cars beside my mechanical engineering studies. Now the priority is on the Racing Team. The TU (Technical University) Graz Racing Team is a motosport team, competing in the Formula Student. I’ll work there in the Suspension department. Maybe in some time I’ll post a bit on my work in the Racing Team.

When I find time, I for sure will continue the Audi, but the updates will become very rare.

Homepage: TU Graz Racing Team
TU Graz Racing Team
Steyrergasse 21
A-8010 Graz
[email protected]

Hi folks!

Finaly an update:
After I was yammering so hard about my big mistakes, I was able to solve at least one of them. In fact, I was able to realize the cutout in the monocoque for the oil tank. Even if it demanded all my skills and patience, the current solution is quite good (what means not perfect). After I wasn't able to get through the rear wall of the monocoque with a hammer and a scalpel (a broken blade), it needed an Aluminium-saw to get it done. I was impressed by myself how extremly hard and resistant the wall/bulkhead was.

With a little help, I also know now, how the oil is cooled. A dedicated engineer of Cummins Turbos enlighted me. As he said, it's very common in aerospace to cool the oil down by the fuel. That sounds very plausible to me, because the oil tank (at the front of the engine) is more or less surrounded by fuel, only apart by a few milimetres of carbon fibre and a bit rubber from the safety fuel tank. The fuel itself is cooled by radiators which are placed alongside the water radiators. As I wrote in a post before, the fuel has to be cooled down because a part of the compressed fuel from the common rail system flews back into the tank. The compressed fuel has a temperature of about 140°C (Wikipedia).

As you can see on the pictures, there's a lot of progress at the engine and the gearbox.

I did most of the electrical wiring of the engine. I have to say, that I do not understand the electrical injection valve control system completely. But I interpreted it in a way, that it could work. Next thing to do on the engine is the whole cooling system. Namely water-and fuel cooling and the intercoolers. The big silver pipes, that come out of the monocoque, which transports the "used" air from the cockpit are for cooling some items at the engine and the gearbox. One item is for example the VTG (Variable Turbine Geometry) control unit. That's the carbon fibre box on top of the turbo charger. There are also some items at the gearbox, but I do not know their role yet. But one of them should be the gearbox oil radiator I guess.

I also finished the whole gearbox casing. The casing itself is quite empty, only the drive shaft and the differential housing is in there. At the gearbox housing itself, I mounted a few suspension items. As for example, brackets, dampers, torsion bars and the anti roll bar.

That's the engine-gearbox unit. It's not completely finished yet, but not very much is missing.


The unit, placed at the monocoque. After fitting it, I can start with the whole cooling arrangement, which is enormously large in comparison to a F1 cooling system.


Here you can see the cutout. It's a quite clean work, as I wrote, satisfying, but not perfect.


A good view on the oil tank. The lower part is the main tank, the upper part is the collecting system. LMP1 cars must have two collector tanks. A catch tank with minimum 3 litres and an extra tank with another litre.


A view on the injection valve control system (not completely finished yet).


Another view of the engine.


Here you can see the differential casing. At the 2012 model this is also out of carbon fibre.


The gearbox housing. As you can see, I again looked exactly on the direction of the carbon fibre sheets. You can clearly see the five brackets for the two wishbones and the track rod at the very rear. Also you can see the anti roll bar under the damper and the torsion bar spring (yellow circle). The third damper and the rocker arms for the push rods are missing.


That's it for the mo,
Cheers
Paul

Hi folks!

As the last update was even quite big, I decided to split the september work report and post a second update today.

Mainly it's up to the rims today. Maybe you wonder why I started with the rims that early - usually the wheels are the last part of a car for manufacturing. Short explanation, I was displaying a few of my cars (Lotus 79, Porsche 917, Red Bull RB7 and Audi R18 TDI) at the autumn fair of Graz (Grazer Herbstmesse) and did a bit of show building for the spectators. And as the Audi was there displaying, I couldn't work at the car itself and so I decided to do the rims. The rim dimensions are fixed by the regulations, respectively published by Audi Sport.

The front ones (14.75 x 18 inches) are finished, the rear ones (14.5 x 18 inches) aren't. What is remarkably, the front rims are wider than the rear ones. But only 0.25 inches, what is 6.35mm (0.6mm at my scale). Compared to F1 rims, an LMP1 rim has a much greater diameter and about the same width. The manufacturing of the Audi rims was more costly than the Red Bull ones. First, because the number of spokes (11 Red Bull vs 15 Audi), and secondly because of the shape of the spokes. The ones of the RB7 were straight, when the R18s have a convex curved shape.

The finished front rims and the pre finished rear ones. At the left rim you can clearly see the curved shape of the spokes.


A finished front rim, the cylinder and the basic structure of the star of spokes of a rear rim.


Here is an indication, how enormously big this car will be.


Another view of the car.


Top view.


Cheers,
Paul

looks amazing man cant wait to see it finished

I wish I could see you at work as well as those lucky fair attendees! Maybe I've missed them, but have you published any videos of the building process?

Hi folks!

The last few days, for the first time since october I found a bit time for building on my paperboard Audi. I worked a bit on the cooling system which consists out of two water and Diesel radiators and two Intercoolers, one on each side of the monocoque. As explained in a former post, the oil is cooled down by the Diesel. The manufacturing of radiators is a bit boring but the work pays off - it looks great.

Here the three different radiators. The biggest ones on top are the water radiators, the lower one the Diesel radiators and the small one are the intercoolers.


A closer view of the intercoolers.


The housing of this radiators are welded. That's not that easy to rebuild from paper.


Another close-up of the left hand intercooler.


That's the way, the radiators are placed in the chassis.


There's quite much work in front of me to design the cooling channels.


The side pods will look quite like F1 side pods.


Cheers,
Paul

How did you made the cores of the radiator?
Are they made from Alu-foil?

This is just incredible the level of details you are putting on this model...more than many real models made by famous factories..i will follow this thread as well !