Ferrari Power Unit Hardware & Software

[MtthsMlw]

Shooting in the dark. Would this type of turbo be allowed in F1 and if so, could this be the THING?
Ferrari Patents Fascinating Electric Turbocharger

The key is hooking up the two components of the turbo to their own individual electric motors
Can't see how that would be legal in F1.

[djones]

If that graph is accurate, then one thing is for sure... this will not be dropped or brushed under the carpet.

What it tells me though, is if this 'trick' is all of a sudden stopped, Ferrari are going to find themselves behind Red Bull and Mercedes will walk away with the title.

[saviour stivala]

Shooting in the dark. Would this type of turbo be allowed in F1 and if so, could this be the THING?
Ferrari Patents Fascinating Electric Turbocharger

Interesting but in F1 turbine and compressor must be on a common shaft and rotates at the same speed.

[CriXus]

AMuS Electric coup or fuel trick? [shortened]

The FIA has checked Ferrari again and again after the battery affair and has always come to the conclusion that everything is legal. They (FIA) obviously know the trick and enjoy the fact that the opponents now shoot in all directions in the hope of hitting something.

Hilarious!

[Phil]

I think the key-points regarding the trick are:

- It's unique to Ferrari, not its customer teams
- either they have a huge power/deployment advantage or they have found a way to drastically shed drag at high speed

Maybe the battery thingy is but just a nice side distraction. The whole F1 paddock are concentrating on it, because it's a unique feature of the Ferrari power-unit and perhaps Ferrari was gaining some advantage from there. This supposed latest performance increase may be something else entirely.

Given the relation between drag and power, one would have to think it's more likely they have found a neat trick that sheds drag at higher speed than a power increase of 38hp in such a short time that is unique to the works team and not their customers.

[PhillipM]

We've been talking about using the TC/MGU-H assembly as a flywheel for years, so it's hard to believe any teams have missed that trick, certainly it makes a lot of sense in qualifying mode to keep the engine delivering hard against the MGU-K during braking, but also blowing as much exhaust gas through as possible to keep the MGU-H and turbine/compressor spun up as much as possible.
You don't even need the unit to have much inertia because you can just pulse the H to ES and then ES>H>K - we already know that, just the lower intertia you have there the higher frequency you need to run your pulsing at to avoid too much speed variation.
If you have excess energy available you can even open the wastegates for blowing, and use the H to regulate speed, then the minute you come out of a corner and aren't traction limited you pull the rpm's down on the on turbo/virtual flywheel and deliver that power straight to the K.

I still think some of the trick may be to do with this system in operation - there must be phase lag between the systems at high frequencies, and it's possible you could deliberately accentuate them to deliver more power no matter what the sensors read (along with the trick battery to switch charging/discharging cells every time the system cycles - so some cells may still be discharging from the lag when the system has switched to charging a few ms later) - but as I said before, we don't have a copy of the specific TD's to see how they're worded to be able to work out whether that would
a) work with the assigned sensors, or
b) be in the grey area of the rules - it depends how the power limit is phrased.

[subcritical71]

Ricardo have patents & prototypes for a non-contact magnetic 'clutch' for coupling/decoupling a flywheel to an output shaft.

Years ago I worked on relatively large steam turbine which drove a generator with magnetic bearings (radial and thrust were both magnetic, backup in case of a drop was roller bearings). This was cutting edge stuff at the time. They have huge advantages, one of which is lower friction since the shaft is levitated off the bearing surface. No contact, no friction. I’ve wondered if magnetic bearings and their associated controls and instruments are small enough today so that it could be used in a F1 car(?)

You may be interested in this from the now locked Honda PU thread. viewtopic.php?f=4&t=18874&start=7935

The concept was brutally shot down, but there were some interesting discussions on the subject...

That was an interesting read. A lot of what was suggested as being a non starter was overcome years ago (my involvement was 20 years ago and the system was already in operation). Vibrations, thrust, EMI, drops, etc. all solved. One thing I would not know about is the miniaturization of the system, but from reading current literature it looks like it’s feasible. Also, the effects of the MGUs magnetic field on the bearings may be the biggest hurdle, but I don’t know for sure. The system I used was hooked up to a ~5MW generator and that did not affect the magnetic fields required.

[MtthsMlw]

Haas and Sauber are getting Spec 3 PU this weekend - reported to be another significant performance boost.

[HPD]

[JasonF1]

What is the consensus on what Ferrari is doing with its ERS? Regarding Nico's comment about his insider's information, pretty certain that would be Mercedes, he talks about deploying 20% more. How do you interpret that considering Mercedes must be deploying the -K constantly whenever needed in qualifying condition?

When taking the power of the MGU-K x 120%, you get 192HP, which is pretty close to the quoted figure of "extra 38HP". How could Ferrari go above the 160HP limit?

[MtthsMlw]

What is the consensus on what Ferrari is doing with its ERS? Regarding Nico's comment about his insider's information, pretty certain that would be Mercedes, he talks about deploying 20% more. How do you interpret that considering Mercedes must be deploying the -K constantly whenever needed in qualifying condition?

When taking the power of the MGU-K x 120%, you get 192HP, which is pretty close to the quoted figure of "extra 38HP". How could Ferrari go above the 160HP limit?

They can't since it's a limit and going over it would be illegal. That alleged boost must come from the ICE/TC/MGU-H arrangement or it's an aero thing.

[Big Tea]

What is the consensus on what Ferrari is doing with its ERS? Regarding Nico's comment about his insider's information, pretty certain that would be Mercedes, he talks about deploying 20% more. How do you interpret that considering Mercedes must be deploying the -K constantly whenever needed in qualifying condition?

When taking the power of the MGU-K x 120%, you get 192HP, which is pretty close to the quoted figure of "extra 38HP". How could Ferrari go above the 160HP limit?

They can't since it's a limit and going over it would be illegal. That alleged boost must come from the ICE/TC/MGU-H arrangement or it's an aero thing.

Or possibly a fuel thing. But I do not see how they can do fuel and stay legal?

[turbof1]

I think the confusion comes from what they are deploying. Obviously you can't deploy more than 120kw. You can however deploy more energy to have 120kw for a longer period.

It can be an aero thing however. Especially concerning stalling of aero devices on certain speeds. But that's something for the car thread.

[MtthsMlw]

What is the consensus on what Ferrari is doing with its ERS? Regarding Nico's comment about his insider's information, pretty certain that would be Mercedes, he talks about deploying 20% more. How do you interpret that considering Mercedes must be deploying the -K constantly whenever needed in qualifying condition?

When taking the power of the MGU-K x 120%, you get 192HP, which is pretty close to the quoted figure of "extra 38HP". How could Ferrari go above the 160HP limit?

They can't since it's a limit and going over it would be illegal. That alleged boost must come from the ICE/TC/MGU-H arrangement or it's an aero thing.

Or possibly a fuel thing. But I do not see how they can do fuel and stay legal?

Since Ferrari has to provide the exact same PU and software to Haas and Sauber and they don't show that performance boost the only possibility left is fuel and oil which are not homologated. But a boost of 38hp which only appears sometimes? I don't think so.

[MtthsMlw]

Ahh come on that can't be true
https://twitter.com/ChrisMedlandF1/stat ... 9269302273