Honda Power Unit Hardware & Software

[Steven]

I did notice that the MGU-K did look very small, maybe only 60% of the size of rivals but as it is a component the has a known power limit it must surely be designed to run at that power level?

I think this is a misunderstanding. I think people looked at the wrong details on the pictures and saw some other piece of machinery instead of the actual MGU-k. I remember there being a discussion about this.

Trip down memory lane (to page 91): http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... 11#p598011

Honda MGU-K alot almost double smaller size from Mercedes

[hemichromis]

I saw that picture a while ago but couldn't find it for this post

[FW17]

What u see on the honda is not the complete MGUK but a part of it

[NL_Fer]

Size doesn't really matter for the K. Power is limited to 120kw, if Honda can achieve that with a smaller unit, it's the same for performance and better for packaging.

[hemichromis]

Size doesn't really matter for the K. Power is limited to 120kw, if Honda can achieve that with a smaller unit, it's the same for performance and better for packaging.

My theory also, why would honda use a MGU-K that is weaker than the limit of 120kw?

[Andres125sx]

Size doesn't really matter for the K. Power is limited to 120kw, if Honda can achieve that with a smaller unit, it's the same for performance and better for packaging.

Not completely accurate.

An electric motor can handle more power than it was designed for if it´s for a limited period of time with cooling periods in between, but if you try to use that power for sustained periods, you will burn it.

If Honda didn´t consider mgu-h feeding mgu-k for long periods, they could have considered that motor size is enough to handle the max 4MJ rules allow from battery (plus some little harvesting from mgu-h) as that is a small percentage of the lap time, with cooling the rest of the laptime. But if now (2016) you improve your mgu-h harvesting and make it posible to run mgu-k for longer periods, you may burn it.

Not saying that´s the case, but you can´t discard it either

[hemichromis]

True, it would be surprising if Honda could do the same with a motor half the size of mercedes and ferrari, even if they are japanese!

So it seems they underestimated the demands of the MGU-H and that it should be harvesting alot more energy.

[NL_Fer]

I already made some suspission, that Honda totally underestimated the how much could be recovered with mgu-h and that they probably didn't had a full lap of mgu-k available, even if the turbocharger had reached the designed targets.

But it was called an absurd idea and Honda wasn't that clueless.

[hurril]

I did notice that the MGU-K did look very small, maybe only 60% of the size of rivals but as it is a component the has a known power limit it must surely be designed to run at that power level?

I think this is a misunderstanding. I think people looked at the wrong details on the pictures and saw some other piece of machinery instead of the actual MGU-k. I remember there being a discussion about this.

Trip down memory lane (to page 91): http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... 11#p598011

Honda MGU-K alot almost double smaller size from Mercedes

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/COPeRd-XAAAoIJH.jpg

Yes. Yes I know. Look at the picture from the side - this is not the MGU-k we're seeing.

[piast9]

I already made some suspission, that Honda totally underestimated the how much could be recovered with mgu-h and that they probably didn't had a full lap of mgu-k available, even if the turbocharger had reached the designed targets.

But it was called an absurd idea and Honda wasn't that clueless.

I still think that it is an absurd idea because solving that problem would be very easy: bolt on bigger mgu-h spending few tokens and problem solved.

The problem must be more complex. Honda people ain't dumb for sure.

[gruntguru]

Agreed. This stuff is so obvious. The potential for energy recovery from the MGUH would have been evaluated within a few percent accuracy long before anything was even built. same goes for MGUK duty cycle. These things can be accurately simulated these days.

[hurril]

Man, this hybrid dimension is The Thing that keeps me so very interested in F1 these days. Complete sleeping pill before and I'm a motor head.

[dren]

Agreed. This stuff is so obvious. The potential for energy recovery from the MGUH would have been evaluated within a few percent accuracy long before anything was even built. same goes for MGUK duty cycle. These things can be accurately simulated these days.

Right. Which is why the comments from Wazuri stating that cooling was likely a major issue with the packaging makes senses to me.

If we were coming up with energy flow calculations and estimates on power recovery on this site before the 2014 season, you can guarantee Honda was way ahead of that. It seems like the drive for the tightest packaging caused the engineers to make sacrifices in other areas that did not pay off for them. Not unlike Ferrari.

[Wazari]

We have the saying, keisan wa kantan, tsukuri wa muzukashii; calculations are easy, implementation is complicated.
I really believe cooling issues had a major role in the PU's lack of ability to sustain longer periods of MGU-K use in deployment mode. At AD, they probably threw caution out the window on the last 4-5 laps for Fernando's car and allowed "full deployment". So even with less than an ideal MGU-H-K relationship and most likely turbocharger deficiency compared to Mercedes and Ferrari, they were still able to achieve respectable race lap times in this mode. That is why I think everyone at McLaren Honda is optimistic about next season's prospects. If their race lap times at full deployment were still 2 to 3 seconds behind their competition then the mountain they would have to climb would be Everest like. I think the other teams are much closer to running at full deployment throughout the race and McLaren is nowhere close to it. I do know engineers at Honda are very pleased with their latest ICE test results and feel the ICE's power output lacks nothing to the other teams.

I hope everyone has a Happy Holiday season.

[phezzy]

Wazari, Happy Holidays to you and thanks for all your insight this year; you've given us a good set of presents already.