Unregulated F1 car design!

[GBL]

Hello all

I am a third year automotive design student and my final year project is a next generation F1 concept based on the idea of a breakaway or future race series whereby the current/past regulations are not a concern.

Considering the aerodynamics the aim is to create the ultimate unrestricted open wheel race car, a kind of design/engineering showcase of ultimate performance. Kinda like what VW did with the Veyron but for F1.

Theory is simple, increase current levels of downforce, but make most of it with the cars underbody rather than aerofoils so the cars can race closer with another car and not be as affected as much by its dirty air.

Im at the concept design stage and was looking for some insightful info regarding the most effective wheel/tyre size, overall lenght, width, track etc if the rule book has been thrown out, aswell as anyones views and opinions on the best aerodynamic features to create such a car.

Thanks for your time much appreciated

Guy

[ESPImperium]

Unregulated design means that drivers would be required to wear a G Suit under their overalls. Try Au Rouge at -10+G at the bottom of the compression and 3 seconds later on the way to Radillon you could have +10+G. Puhon would be full throttle at arround 200mph with obsene ammounts of lateral G.

Not gonna happen, just too unsafe. And as for under car aerofoils, just look at DDDs, they have made it as hard to follow behind as the cars of the past 2-3 seasons with all their aero appendages.

Personally, what id do is take away as much aero rubish as needed to make it posible for cars to follow up to half a second behind a car. So that means that SDDs are back, but with a greater effect and DDDs are banned.

Nice idea of un-regulated areo tho.

[Callum]

Does it need to be open-wheeled? Something like 1/3 of the drag on a single seater seater racecar is produced by the big old things poking out. How about flexible wings?

[xxChrisxx]

Not gonna happen, just too unsafe. And as for under car aerofoils, just look at DDDs, they have made it as hard to follow behind as the cars of the past 2-3 seasons with all their aero appendages.

Personally, what id do is take away as much aero rubish as needed to make it posible for cars to follow up to half a second behind a car. So that means that SDDs are back, but with a greater effect and DDDs are banned.

Nice idea of un-regulated areo tho.

Ventrui tunnels allow 'cleaner' downforce generation and distrub the air far less than any diffuser single or double.

What causes the probles is how the rear wing interacts with the flow from the diffuser. If you want close racing ban the diffuser all together and allow underbody aero.

[Belatti]

GBL, there are dozens of threads like this one in the forum.
Try the search mode.

[newbie]

Hello all

I am a third year automotive design student and my final year project is a next generation F1 concept based on the idea of a breakaway or future race series whereby the current/past regulations are not a concern.

Considering the aerodynamics the aim is to create the ultimate unrestricted open wheel race car, a kind of design/engineering showcase of ultimate performance. Kinda like what VW did with the Veyron but for F1.

Theory is simple, increase current levels of downforce, but make most of it with the cars underbody rather than aerofoils so the cars can race closer with another car and not be as affected as much by its dirty air.

Im at the concept design stage and was looking for some insightful info regarding the most effective wheel/tyre size, overall lenght, width, track etc if the rule book has been thrown out, aswell as anyones views and opinions on the best aerodynamic features to create such a car.

Thanks for your time much appreciated

Guy

There was an interesting article in F1 Racing mag a few years ago where some WilliamsF1 designers were asked to come up with a solution to the question you have posed. If you do some searching on these (and maybe some other) forums you'll find it. I'll give you a hint, it had a minimalistic front wing and six wheels : )

[lauromoura]

Unregulated design means that drivers would be required to wear a G Suit under their overalls. Try Au Rouge at -10+G at the bottom of the compression and 3 seconds later on the way to Radillon you could have +10+G. Puhon would be full throttle at arround 200mph with obsene ammounts of lateral G.

Not gonna happen, just too unsafe. And as for under car aerofoils, just look at DDDs, they have made it as hard to follow behind as the cars of the past 2-3 seasons with all their aero appendages.

Personally, what id do is take away as much aero rubish as needed to make it posible for cars to follow up to half a second behind a car. So that means that SDDs are back, but with a greater effect and DDDs are banned.

Nice idea of un-regulated areo tho.

What about autonomous or remote-controlled vehicles? AFAIR DARPA challenges showed some good results in autonomous offroad.

[PlatinumZealot]

GBL.. maybe you can put fenders on like a Le mans car.. I think that will make the car look much better too.. I always wanted to do automotive design... You know, do something more good looking with sublte technical features. something looking like the Ferrari Enzo or the 458.. technical underneath.. they don't have any significant wings and there are beautiful all around.

[marcello]

well if the rulebook has been thrown out as you say then the first thing that designers would do would be to throw some fenders on the cars and cover the weels allowing for much-reduced drag coeff.

But also think of the size of the weels themselves: right now they're restricted to 12" diameter but think of how much exponentially greater the braking power would be if slightly bigger wheels allowed for bigger brake discs (even by just a few inches). Also, current regs limit the number of calipers per pad, so if brakes were unrestricted the cars would reach deceleration rates that would be unbearable for the drivers (somebody up there mentioned g-suits and I think that's a grand idea).

But then again I just realized that brakes can only be as powerful as the tire grip allows them to be so maybe it wouldn't be too extreme.

[Ted68]

Try the February '98 Road & Track magazine.

Designer Paul Van Valkenberg (burg?) did a complete article on this very premise. Basically his proposal was to keep the cars to a very light maximum weight, give maximum dimensions for highth, width and length and let that be the extent of the rulebook.

Therefore, if a team wanted a turbine engine with a cvt and full ground effects on a twin chassis, let them have at it. But the weight restriction will keep them from adding other things as they would find their car overweight. An equally competitive team may be running full driver aids with a turbo-diesel, nylon tyres and no pit stops.

It was to place a premium on design and engineering creativity over big budgets in an aim to let a ingenuitive team like Super Aguri to better compete with a manufacturer-backed team. Great article with a ton of tech which is stll relevent, thanks to the slowdown of developement in current F1.

Keep us posted on your project.

Cheers!

[wrcsti]

Why not just enforce a downforce rule. FIA has to certifyall cars to produce lets say 1000KG of downforce no matter how its made. The teams can find ways of making it cleaner to get instead of cranking out more.

[theblackangus]

A bit off topic here so if this should be another thread please let me know.

Everyone always complains that <Jermey Clarkson nasal voice>:

"Well if we let them have unlimited regulations the drivers couldn't stand up to it, they would have to wear fighter pilot suits."

What the hell is wrong with that?
Givem G suits!
Problem solved.

If the drivers are too scared to drive with'em, I sure the hell will.
I mean the Red Bull air race guys pull huge G, and they are fine.
Isn't exactly safe flying that close to the ground in those planes either.

Give the drivers G-Suits, let the engineers go crazy and then let the track sort it out the best.

The only real question is -
How crazy does it get before it is considerable more unsafe than today.

On a different note,
I think a simple box for car size, and weight min/max for rules would make it a lot more interesting.

[GBL]

Thank you for all the responses so far!

I would like to give some background info to why im doing what i am so everyone can better understand my aims. Last academic year i was involved in a collaborative project with Lotus (happy to post images not sure how?). After lots of research I was inspired by Colin Chapmans philosophy and outright ingenious innovation and design in F1. This made me think if only we could be pushing the boundaries of design/engineering today as he once did!

My aim in life is to become a clay modeller (model maker in F1) therfore my final year project is aimed at illustating my skills within this field. The reason i would like to keep the deign open wheeled is to ensure instant recognition as next generation F1. I know that wheels are the most un aerodynamic aspects of the car but this makes it challenging and relevent to what they are doing today.

ESPImperium has pointed out that removing all aero rubish is needed and i agree. I think the contrast between technical elements (wheels, susp etc) and the simpler sculptuered surfacing will work brilliantly for what i am trying to achieve, whilst the use of underbody aero will be key to an effective design.

The idea of a future generation F1 (no date yet decided) is to allow myself creative freedom of the design, with that in mind it is to be based on current/past innovation which has been strictly controlled by the FIA. I want to tackle the current issue of overtaking (cleaner aero/more downforce)and make for a better racing show by keeping the driver as big a part of the equation as possible.

I have been working with a Computational fluid dynamacist who has told me double or even tripple the g force currently run is capable. I understand that drivers would have to use G suits, from a designers point of view it provides a great asthetic! In terms of safety its gotta be safer than driving a 1950s F1 car without a seatbelt and only a leather cap as a helmet! My point is that im not so interested in creating a new set of rules/regs i am just trying to produce an interesting effective design based on real world aerodynamics aimed at tackling issues surrounding todays F1.

Thanks again for the response sorry if im rambling i am more than happy to post progress if people are interested in the design process

Cheers Guy

[Ted68]

Agreeing with ESPImperium, getting rid of the front and rear wings and all surface flow conditioners would be the first thing I would do. I would also like to see all aero between and below the axles.

Post the pics of the Lotus project, please. We'd (I) love to see them. What format are they in? Just put them on photobucket and enter the link here under 'img.' Just make sure you don't have personal pics in there, Manchild once dug into my account and sent me a PM critiquing my girlfriends nude photos...

[ESPImperium]

If i was to create a future F1 car with the best of modren and future designs, id do this.

Front Wings: 2 element maximum, no upper planes, movable aero to current size.
Rear Wings: Lower by 200mm and wider by 100mm, 2 movable planes maximum.
Rear Diffuser: Single deck to start 2009 season ruled DDDs banned
Exausts: Perriscope exausts banned, lets have the exausts come out from the diffuser area.
Sidepods & Air Box: Standadised maximum cross section to create drag and give the guy behing something to punch thrugh.
Underbody aero: Allow only limited use of venturi channels on the floor to provide downforce lost.

In my opinion, the cars need to become more draggy to try and provide a slipstream effect more. But the air flow needs to be clean to do so.