A place to discuss the characteristics of the cars in Formula One, both current as well as historical. Laptimes, driver worshipping and team chatter do not belong here.
Yes, I am not proposing a hydraulic member, although those systems are well-understood enough now that any F1 designer can look up the equations for a lot of it. IIRC it was kept proprietary for a while until FRICS was banned (and even then some people found old copies of the paper) but now is well-understood. RCE has written about the "inerter" (btw are those illegal now?), FRICS, and post-FRICS non-interconnected hydraulic heave/pitch setups that were being run, particularly because they allow for better packaging.
But I digress, we must use springs and shocks, and as I understand the spring has to be proportional with force? Which is to say the primary springs cannot have a 'buckle' point. A rising rate seems unlikely to help here.
The fundamental problem as many know is that the aero is sensitive to ride height. This has always been true but it's much worse given the higher loads directly aligned with the CoG and mandated suspension simplifications. If you look at the current rules, there seems to be some things to do:
- it has been said in the past 10-15 years that most designers have arrived at a *rough* concept of peak downforce around 125mph, with -L/D decreasing as speeds rise. The idea is that the calendar is largely fixed, the medium-high-speed corners are often the more important points of the lap. Simulations are said to show maximizing this behavior is the best overall package.
- All aero concepts and interact with the ground are based on the height of the car bottom above the road. For this, ride height is all-important. The floor or front wing or splitter can all be made less-sensitive to ride height, but they will always be influence by it, usually by a large degree. Millimeters matter here.
- Mercedes seemed to have figured out how to setup the car to run at the ride height they want for the particular speeds they need it steady. But appears to mean they must setup the car with very stiff springs and then put the ride height low, which is why they were bottoming in Monaco but are thought to be faster at the smooth Silverstone track where that should be a non-issue.
- One way to fix the issue is to find a way to control ride height very tightly under loaded conditions. This goes back to the digressive shock diagram. A linkage that effetely has a 'knee' in the spring rate might be able to hold the car in the window.
- Another option is to make the window of the floor wider. This is unlikely to be this year due to the need for testing and the much longer construction times.
- Yet another option is to find a way to 'bleed' pressure to prevent excessive downforce from collapsing the suspension and stalling the underbody, leading to the oscillation. Again, this seems like where 'jacking down' the shocks could hold the car up against rising downforce; the spring effectively rides like a bump stop. But other solutions could work. I'm struggling to think how you could bleed air under the car or divert it based on speed..? I don't know the current schools of thought on Y250 but my understanding was it was cleaned up a lot, and this plus the front of the floor (the stay) are where I would think the focus to either limit downward displacement or divert air at certain speeds, probably using vortices.
On another note, did Merc get the sidepods right? They don't seem to have the best power and I wonder if that has anything to do with more thermal constraints?
- Yet another option is to find a way to 'bleed' pressure to prevent excessive downforce from collapsing the suspension and stalling the underbody,
Isn't that the function of the Merc's new floor edge winglet? The fact that this device is adjustable makes me think they are able to control the pressure for ride height and Vmax on a race by race basis. GA said it was to set up a vortex which may be true but I think it may have another function too.
If your floor is generating too much peaky downforce then cut a big hole in it but holes are illegal but big adjustable flaps (not holes) are fine.
Kukułka zwyczajna, kukułka pospolita – nazwy ludowe: gżegżółka, zazula (Cuculus canorus) – gatunek średniego ptaka wędrownego z podrodziny kukułek (Cuculinae) w rodzinie kukułkowatych (Cuculidae). Jedyny w Europie Środkowej pasożyt lęgowy. Zamieszkuje strefę umiarkowaną.
I actually thought there might be some regulation preventing them using the underside of that wing to hold aero devices.
Indeed, wasn't the whole upper bit just a cover over the upper crash elements, below that only a single curvature stuff for the sidepod in the rules (sorry, likely not the correct terms the rules use)? It almost has to be in the mirror stalk/support box doesn't it, does that go down this low?
Does seem a little silly that it's classified as a "wing mirror stay". Understand all teams are searching for these gains however seems particularly egregious here in terms of interpretation being very far from the intention
