On the eve of this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix, Mercedes showed off their long-awaited upgrades for their troubled 2023 F1 car which includes new sidepods, front suspension and floor.
Others appear to have had bouncing. Both Mercs bounced.
It has virtually nothing to do with suspension, just ultimate instability of the aero platform in producing an oscillation that's effectively uncontrolled. The answer is in aero solution.Just_a_fan wrote: ↑31 Jul 2023, 18:21Others appear to have had bouncing. Both Mercs bounced.
But the car is getting quicker so the drivers will moan but they'll put up with bouncing in a faster car rather than a smooth ride in a slow one.
Mercedes can't do much about the rear suspension this season so the drivers will just have to put up with it this year. Hopefully the team will change the suspension and reduce/remove the bouncing whilst increasing car pace.
There's a lot more to getting the suspension design right than just the stiffness of the springs. The "dampers", and all the none linear nuances of how everything interacts with each other.Farnborough wrote: ↑31 Jul 2023, 18:41Soft springs are a red herring, misnomer. They have to be able to support the vehicle under full downforce loading, there's not actually much choice but to resist the platform load the aero generates.
If the "spring" rate is increased (as they were doing with W13) the spring ultimately stops moving, handing the acceptance of load to the tyre, which is another giant spring, all but undamped too.
The chassis can only operate it's spring and damping within the response of the tyre, else the suspension is effectively isolated if above that threshold, rigid in other words.
W14 looks to only be less susceptible to this phenomenon by alteration from FIA in floor mod stipulated geometry. As soon as they get more load out of the diffuser/floor they are heading back to cancellation of that effect with this concept.
The success here is that they made more load from the floor, and less rear wing flap. The problem is using that gain within their still same overall aero concept. The signpost is large and not pointed in this direction.
No doubts here that they've accumulated valuable data for 2024, if they choose to use it.
Perhaps you mean things like linearity, digressive, regressive, progressive, non linear rating (combining various of these through linkage within stroke etc) effective wheel rate, unsprung to sprung ratio, torsional, belville spring types.dans79 wrote: ↑31 Jul 2023, 19:15There's a lot more to getting the suspension design right than just the stiffness of the springs. The "dampers", and all the none linear nuances of how everything interacts with each other.Farnborough wrote: ↑31 Jul 2023, 18:41Soft springs are a red herring, misnomer. They have to be able to support the vehicle under full downforce loading, there's not actually much choice but to resist the platform load the aero generates.
If the "spring" rate is increased (as they were doing with W13) the spring ultimately stops moving, handing the acceptance of load to the tyre, which is another giant spring, all but undamped too.
The chassis can only operate it's spring and damping within the response of the tyre, else the suspension is effectively isolated if above that threshold, rigid in other words.
W14 looks to only be less susceptible to this phenomenon by alteration from FIA in floor mod stipulated geometry. As soon as they get more load out of the diffuser/floor they are heading back to cancellation of that effect with this concept.
The success here is that they made more load from the floor, and less rear wing flap. The problem is using that gain within their still same overall aero concept. The signpost is large and not pointed in this direction.
No doubts here that they've accumulated valuable data for 2024, if they choose to use it.
lol, You should have started with that level of detail, your post made it sound like the only thing you thought that mattered was the springs!
Yes, sincere apologies if it appeared misleading, but was responding to the notion that "soft springs" were being used and could be the cause of bouncing.
Of course the suspension plays its part. If it can damp the movement then you get less bouncing even if the aero platform isn't behaving properly. Get the suspension right and you can handle more of the aero issue before it becomes a performance issue for the tyres/driver.Farnborough wrote: ↑31 Jul 2023, 18:41It has virtually nothing to do with suspension, just ultimate instability of the aero platform in producing an oscillation that's effectively uncontrolled. The answer is in aero solution.Just_a_fan wrote: ↑31 Jul 2023, 18:21Others appear to have had bouncing. Both Mercs bounced.
But the car is getting quicker so the drivers will moan but they'll put up with bouncing in a faster car rather than a smooth ride in a slow one.
Mercedes can't do much about the rear suspension this season so the drivers will just have to put up with it this year. Hopefully the team will change the suspension and reduce/remove the bouncing whilst increasing car pace.
Soft springs are a red herring, misnomer. They have to be able to support the vehicle under full downforce loading, there's not actually much choice but to resist the platform load the aero generates.
