Mercedes W13

[Andi76]

Some updates from Andrew Shovlin about Mercedes trying to solve their problems. They obviously do not want to trade downforce for less porpoising :

https://www-autosport-com.cdn.ampprojec ... 08717/amp/

I think that the cutaway floor didn't give them what they were hoping for or what it brought to other teams. If yes, they definitely would have sticked with it. So in both races they eventually went for the certain solution which at the moment is to simply increase the ride height.

The explanation of Mercedes sticking to their idea of wanting to solve the issue without losing performance sounds like they are the only team rejecting compromises. In fact every single team is working on solving it without losing downforce, not just Mercedes. With the difference being that other teams use modified floors helping them reduce the issue and bridge the time until they bring proper upgrades to completely solve the porpoising. For some reason Mercedes make it look like they by choice have given up on the part-time solution (being a modified floor) even though it would provide better performance. I don't know, it doesn't make sense at all.

Yes, indeed, it does not make sense at all. I also think it just cannot be a coincident that all the Mercedes cars are worse this year and, if we exclude McLaren, are suffering most from porpoising. Because of that i still think the sidepod- concept of the car also has to be a part of the problem. McLaren, maybe because of Neil Oatleys experience with ground effect cars, was just able to solve the porpoising issue with some kind of trade-off in the design-phase already. And Astons concept, while still being a little bit different, just has the same characteristics as Mercedes in that regard. However, i think its fair to say that the teams with different concepts than the Mercedes cars have less problems and the sidepod-concept imay be a part of the problem. Maybe the floors of the "Zero and Micro-Sidepod"- Teams and Astons huge and long undercuts are prone to oscillations and movements that does not happen with the sidepod concepts of RBR, Ferrari etc. You probably have to add more weight to the floor if thats the case. And as the cars are already too heavy, thats the last thing you want to do. Anyway - in my opinion its just too obvious that the more similar concepts of the Mercedes cars must be in relation with their performance getting worse, while the cars with a different concept improved. I just do cannot believe there is no relation in that regard.

And always the talk about drag...maybe they just designed their cars with a wrong coefficient in mind?

In relation to the powertrain, Dr. Marko from RBR said something interesting yesterday. In Saudi Arabia Wolf said that E10 fuel cannot be the reason if there would be a lack of power of the Mercedes powertrain as you need to put more Ethanol in. 10% instead of 5%. Thats it. Dr. Marko said that at least at Red Bull, it was much more than that. He said that they had to put a lot of effort and developement work in fuel and engine that and they made a lot of changes. He also added that Mercedes had lost 50 engineers to Red Bull Powertrains and that loosing so many experienced engineers could easily have affected their performance.

But anyway- whatever is the reason - engine/E10, drag, porpoising, the concept itself- i am really interested to see whats was the reason for all the problems the Mercedes Teams are facing. And i still believe the concept is a much bigger part of the problem than Mercedes is saying/admitting or wants to believe.

[atanatizante]

From the above video Peter Wright says porpoising also induce bodywork oscillating adding maybe to the car/ICE frecvency (resonance?) that can lead to break the structures...
Thus all 4 customer PU teams which also have porpoising had to run in lower ICE modes just to diminish the bodywork resonance effect. That's why W13 and these cars are clipping sooner on the straights just to compensate with more harvesting and deployment...

In addition, for raising the ride hight to diminish the porpoiseing they need to compensate the downforce loss with both bringing a barn door rear wing and also with higher levels of AoA. It'll be useful to demonstrate this theory by showing some comparison between the rear wing levels of these 5 customer teams and the rest of the grid...

I've missed one important factor: the drag that is induceing when they need to raise the car to diminish porpoising!
So Toto doesn't always talk BS, after all...

[atanatizante]

In my humble opinion it smells of correlation problems, if so then they are in trouble.

How can it be correlation problems when porpoising cant be recreated in cfd or the wind tunnel?

I've heard that they need to do some reverse engineering in order to create porpoising in both CFD&wind tunnel...
So what can they do, precisely?

[AA_2019]

The major component of the answer to the W13 purposing problem is likely in the dampers.

They need to use a Non-Newtonian Fluid filled damper.

It does not affect normal suspension movement, but when the car starts to purpoise its non-newtonian properties resists the bouncing.

Basic science is the fluid is liquid when still, but when large forces are applied it becomes semi-solid. Think of corn starch on a vibrating speaker cone.

Simple Science:
http://www.scifun.org/homeexpts/lumpyli ... 0quicksand.

Complex science:
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/sv/2014/170464/

Based on an April Fools joke by ScarbsF1, but some of it actually makes sense

[KeiKo403]

The major component of the answer to the W13 purposing problem is likely in the dampers.

They need to use a Non-Newtonian Fluid filled damper.

It does not affect normal suspension movement, but when the car starts to purpoise its non-newtonian properties resists the bouncing.

My guess is that Red Bull are doing this hence they can run so close to the ground.

Basic science is the fluid is liquid when still, but when large forces are applied it becomes semi-solid. Think of corn starch on a vibrating speaker cone.

Simple Science:
http://www.scifun.org/homeexpts/lumpyli ... 0quicksand.

Complex science:
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/sv/2014/170464/

How can we get this info to Merc F1 ?

Didn’t Scarbs say this was Red Bulls suspension solution yesterday in an April Fools tweet?

[SiLo]

The major component of the answer to the W13 purposing problem is likely in the dampers.

They need to use a Non-Newtonian Fluid filled damper.

It does not affect normal suspension movement, but when the car starts to purpoise its non-newtonian properties resists the bouncing.

My guess is that Red Bull are doing this hence they can run so close to the ground.

Basic science is the fluid is liquid when still, but when large forces are applied it becomes semi-solid. Think of corn starch on a vibrating speaker cone.

Simple Science:
http://www.scifun.org/homeexpts/lumpyli ... 0quicksand.

Complex science:
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/sv/2014/170464/

How can we get this info to Merc F1 ?

Didn’t Scarbs say this was Red Bulls suspension solution yesterday in an April Fools tweet?

He did, and I knew straight away that people would think it was real because they wouldn't bother to read the rest of the tweets.

[PlatinumZealot]

The major component of the answer to the W13 purposing problem is likely in the dampers.

They need to use a Non-Newtonian Fluid filled damper.

It does not affect normal suspension movement, but when the car starts to purpoise its non-newtonian properties resists the bouncing.

My guess is that Red Bull are doing this hence they can run so close to the ground.

Basic science is the fluid is liquid when still, but when large forces are applied it becomes semi-solid. Think of corn starch on a vibrating speaker cone.

Simple Science:
http://www.scifun.org/homeexpts/lumpyli ... 0quicksand.

Complex science:
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/sv/2014/170464/

How can we get this info to Merc F1 ?

It was an April fool's joke by Scarbs!

It wasn't meant to say other teams are using non-Newtonian fluids or not. And it's not black or white. Non-Newtonian fluids can be advantageous or disadvantageous depending on the situation. Ideally you want a fluid that can switch between the regimes. Some street cars use magnetic objects inside of a Newtonian fluid to change its viscous behaviour in certain situations (magneto-rheological fluids). You need to know exactly the root-cause problem you are trying to solve first before prescribing the need to change the fluid properties.

I used to work in the food industry some years ago... and you can imagine we had a lot of Non-Newtonian fluids! the different starches, some milk proteins.. etc.. they were a pain in the butt. Some were shear thinning fluids, some were shear thickening. Their heat transfer properties also changed with temperature and sheer rate. So we had to design our process around these properties. We sent the products to a laboratory in Germany to analyze them and we would get many charts of the physical properties. From my personal engineering point of view, if I could get what I wanted out of the process/system/machine I would chose a Newtonian fluid unless there is a specific problem that I cannot solve without using a Non-Newtonian fluid.

[Stu]

Non-Newton fluids would be illegal…..

[AA_2019]

Yes it was an April Fools joke by ScarbsF1, but it disguises a hidden truth that you need to vigorously damp the purpoising oscillations

[ringo]

There should be some way to progressively damp the car once it falls below a certain ride height then starts rebounding.
And this can be achieved with leverage. Once two bellcranks on the same axle reaches a certain angle, another damper can be engage that detects the car is squatting at certain height and is rebounding at a certain speed.
At the same time the spring rate can be heavily reduced by leaverage and car is mostly supported by this heavily damped damper.

[AR3-GP]

There should be some way to progressively damp the car once it falls below a certain ride height then starts rebounding.
And this can be achieved with leverage. Once two bellcranks on the same axle reaches a certain angle, another damper can be engage that detects the car is squatting at certain height and is rebounding at a certain speed.
At the same time the spring rate can be heavily reduced by leaverage and car is mostly supported by this heavily damped damper.

Mercedes was the main team doing this last season with great effect. I'm certain it's a method they are aware of.

However I believe the opposite is what they are after. Stiffening below a certain ride height due to pure heave.

[ringo]

Okay i was considering what would be better in this situation.. stiffer or not?
Stiffer car is going to move less. I guess this is the desire.
But how well can dampers work if the car is too stiff?
Dampers need motion to work.

[Marty_Y]

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... Y8L6a.html

TECH TUESDAY: The major Mercedes update expected to land in Melbourne

Technical contributors
Mark Hughes and Giorgio Piola

[De Jokke]

WTH is that title, the major mercedes update. A small mercedes update yeah, a new wing. That's it.
Hate these sites that create these fake titles!

[Marty_Y]

WTH is that title, the major mercedes update. A small mercedes update yeah, a new wing. That's it.
Hate these sites that create these fake titles!

I agree that the headline is somewhat misleading, but it does say that there is a possibility of a new floor and this is the start of a planned major update package.

But yes a new wing in Melbourne isn't a major update, we'll just have to wait and see what they actually bring.