2014-2020 Formula One 1.6l V6 turbo engine formula

[WhiteBlue]

I think the world has come to identify gear changes as being intrinsic to high performance cars. Therefore I assume there will be some as-yet-unannounced rule that will prevent the engines from being constant power devices in order to continue the sound of shifting. The most obvious such rule would limit fuel flow as a linear function of rpm. This means all engines would be regulated to a similar peak power at 12000 rpm and a similar flat torque curve below that.

Great insights in that post, Bill. I doubt that F1 will adopt regulations to make the drive train more inefficient. One has to cater for the sound traditionalists but if someone makes a constant power drive system work with good reliability and superior performance we would be mad not to embrace this in order to please noise traditionalists. An automatic engine with superior efficiency and performance is the holy grail and worth having. I'm just not sure it will work that way.

[machin]

Doing some rough maths on Auto's -"sucked floor" idea:- you can probably increase air flow under the car by about 5% at 100mph, if the compressor is sized for the engine peak power (i.e 600-ish BHP).....

You'll get the packaging advantages of having no KERS storage, but no weight advantage due to the minimum weight rule...

[rjsa]

I think the world has come to identify gear changes as being intrinsic to high performance cars. Therefore I assume there will be some as-yet-unannounced rule that will prevent the engines from being constant power devices in order to continue the sound of shifting. The most obvious such rule would limit fuel flow as a linear function of rpm. This means all engines would be regulated to a similar peak power at 12000 rpm and a similar flat torque curve below that.

Great insights in that post, Bill. I doubt that F1 will adopt regulations to make the drive train more inefficient. One has to cater for the sound traditionalists but if someone makes a constant power drive system work with good reliability and superior performance we would be mad not to embrace this in order to please noise traditionalists. An automatic engine with superior efficiency and performance is the holy grail and worth having. I'm just not sure it will work that way.

WB, you are going to far... It is a show indeed, and you just can't kill it. It's like calling traditionalist those who like their Iron Maiden loud.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A9V2O5D8mc

Even street going cars that use CVT avoid this. They program in seven or so discreet gears.

[WhiteBlue]

WB, you are going to far... It is a show indeed, and you just can't kill it. It's like calling traditionalist those who like their Iron Maiden loud. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A9V2O5D8mc Even street going cars that use CVT avoid this. They program in seven or so discreet gears.

I agree that twenty years ago F1 wasn't prepared for that. But we are now beyond peak oil and the reality is different. F1 accepts seamless shift semi auto gearboxes and an automatic with efficiency benefits would be a rational choice of technology to go for. It would certainly maximize performance around slow to medium corners and help to increase performance.

There is a point that gear shifting should be done by he driver as long as gear shifting is required. But if you eliminate gear shifting in road cars without loosing efficiency you can eliminate it in F1 as well.

[Redstorm]

[quote="747heavy]Panoz Champcar with Cosworth engine

[/quote]
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm =D> thanks for the pretty girl!

[xpensive]

Again, how many cc's per second are we talking here, I still believe they will allow 45, WB?

[rjsa]

WB, you are going to far... It is a show indeed, and you just can't kill it. It's like calling traditionalist those who like their Iron Maiden loud. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A9V2O5D8mc Even street going cars that use CVT avoid this. They program in seven or so discreet gears.

I agree that twenty years ago F1 wasn't prepared for that. But we are now beyond peak oil and the reality is different. F1 accepts seamless shift semi auto gearboxes and an automatic with efficiency benefits would be a rational choice of technology to go for. It would certainly maximize performance around slow to medium corners and help to increase performance.

There is a point that gear shifting should be done by he driver as long as gear shifting is required. But if you eliminate gear shifting in road cars without loosing efficiency you can eliminate it in F1 as well.

I just hope you don't get it your way.

About peak oil, I guess we just found another persian gulf down the beach here in Brazil

[WhiteBlue]

Again, how many cc's per second are we talking here, I still believe they will allow 45, WB?

The best information we have on the issue is still the one from Scarbs saying it is 100 kg/h (27.8 g/s). This dovetails nicely with the 35% reduction in average fuel load announced by the FiA. The average flow according to the FiA would go down from 150 kg per race to 97.5. This would mean 73.13 kg/h (20.3 g/s). Compared to the max fuel flow we would have 73% which isn't too outlandish. If we assume 0.71 specific weight we would get:

average 28.6 cc/s
max 39.2 cc/s

But one has to take it with a grain of salt until we get written confirmation.

A potential strategy I see for 2013 would be running low revs and maxing out the pressure and the airflow. The high injection speed and pressure could then be used to run stratified charge with spray guided combustion. There could be substantial potential to run much leaner than today.

[machin]

Therefore an engine with fuel flow restricted to an absolute value (not proportional to engine speed) could produce peak power from around 1/3 of the rev range (4000 rpm) to the redline (12000 rpm)

You might need to have some variable geometry intake and exhaust parts in there to make everything work over such a wide rev-range, plus the torque to produce 600-ish BHP at 4000rpm is 790lbft (as opposed to 260lbft at 12000rpm), so the engine might end up being heavier this way than using an engine with a narrower power band and a gearbox..... They'll still need to have a rear diff and housing, plus they'll need some way of transferring the power from the engine to diff (I doubt they'd want to direct mount it due to the rear-bias weight distribution that would create)....

[autogyro]

Doing some rough maths on Auto's -"sucked floor" idea:- you can probably increase air flow under the car by about 5% at 100mph, if the compressor is sized for the engine peak power (i.e 600-ish BHP).....

You'll get the packaging advantages of having no KERS storage, but no weight advantage due to the minimum weight rule...

You can also open an induction waste gate and blow over the diffuser.
The main reason, would be to deal with the electricity generated from the KERS brakeing. If some of this can be directly applied to the induction compressor when the engine is at low revs during braking, it would not be considered as 'harvesting' because it is not being stored. There is excess energy available from brakeing, so the efficiency of the conversion between mechanical and electrical is negated.
For this to work and to maintain a mechanical drive between the turbine and the compressor, there needs to be a one way clutch on the shaft to allow the compressor to remain electricaly spooled up at all times even when the engine is at low revs and the turbine has its vanes on minimum boost, to reduce back pressure. In this condition of course it would also be possible to use a non turbo fuel assisted exhaust gas blow over the diffuser as well.

[autogyro]

Therefore an engine with fuel flow restricted to an absolute value (not proportional to engine speed) could produce peak power from around 1/3 of the rev range (4000 rpm) to the redline (12000 rpm)

You might need to have some variable geometry intake and exhaust parts in there to make everything work over such a wide rev-range, plus the torque to produce 600-ish BHP at 4000rpm is 790lbft (as opposed to 260lbft at 12000rpm), so the engine might end up being heavier this way than using an engine with a narrower power band and a gearbox..... They'll still need to have a rear diff and housing, plus they'll need some way of transferring the power from the engine to diff (I doubt they'd want to direct mount it due to the rear-bias weight distribution that would create)....

I do not think you would get away with the current size of clutches with those torque figures either. In any case, even with an engine designed that heavy and with such a wide powerband, it would still be improved with a gearbox. Unfortunately the lower gears in it would also have to be much larger.

[WhiteBlue]

At Autosport technical forum a guy called gruntguru posted:

It may be possible to operate in the lean-burn regime - consider this scenario:

1. Operate with high excess air - perhaps as high as 50 to 100% (lambda 1.5 to 2.0).
2. Use high pressure DI and stratified charge to achieve desired burn rates and knock resistance.

The excess air, combined with intercooling and high scavenge ratios would reduce cycle temps - in particular the temperature of exhaust valves and turbine wheels. Essentially, such an engine would have a Diesel-like heat balance and efficiency, yet run on gasolene.

This sounds like a juicy approach not only for the engine guys but also for chassis design. They probably want to keep high gas flow in corners to keep their EBDs going and produce downforce. It would mean that spray guided combustion would be used. High gas flow at low power would also reduce the need to drastically spool up the compressor in acceleration. There would be already an excess of air and you can simply add more fuel to make the power rise quickly.

[bill shoe]

White Blue, I'm more pessimistic than you. The FIA already bans CVT's. I've never heard any real reason for this so it's probably because CVT's lack shifting sound. Hate to say it but if I were Bernie I would probably continue to give the masses the same wail(change)wail(change)wail sound they expect.

Machin, yea that's a good one paragraph explanation of the trade offs. In reality maybe the ideal would be a flat powerband over a smaller rev range than I described combined with a few traditional gear changes. I think that if the rules don't prevent it then engines will become constant power over some part of their rev range.

Autogyro, I pretty much never agree with you but it's always an honor to have your response. I guess for the purposes of standing starts the engine could revert to a conventional flat torque curve until the clutch is fully locked up and then go to a flat power curve.

[WhiteBlue]

White Blue, I'm more pessimistic than you. The FIA already bans CVT's. I've never heard any real reason for this so it's probably because CVT's lack shifting sound. Hate to say it but if I were Bernie I would probably continue to give the masses the same wail(change)wail(change)wail sound they expect.

The FiA has also banned turbos and reversed that decision for 2013. According to experts like Tim Routsis from Cosworth the 2013 formula is supposed to have minimum restrictions beside the fuel flow restrictions. Basically they only want to discourage people from going an a spending spree playing with engine geometries. But the freedom to rise power through efficiency must be maximized so that the new regulations make sense.

I'm not saying that they would do away with gearboxes and use a CVT for the main transmission because that would probably be very inefficient, but if someone finds a way to use the engine efficiently in a smaller rev band the transmission ratios may shrink.

One thing that may change is the occurrence of maximum power at maximum revs. The engine can very well develop maximum fuel limited power significantly below the red line. If there is no limit to boost pressure it would make sense to generally run high lambdas and control the power output by the fuel injection management. Should we think about an engine management which uses 3,000-6,000 of the available revs only and always keeps up a huge torque? Wouldn't that be very desirable in terms of drivability?

[ringo]

Money will be spent, in fact more than ever before. Increased fuel efficiency means increased accountability which means increased precision, flexibility and ingenuity.
Discouraging a spending spree will only happen in terms of the physical engine.
When it comes to the management systems, and all the other things that can be controled, varied and managed, then you will see spending like you never seen before.
The wacky spending will simply relocate to the systems and controls department.

We'll pretty much have self sufficient power plants on wheels. The teams may have to increase in size again. There are simply too many bases to cover for the same set of engineers. An increase in staff will be required for the increase in variables and technology.