Student needing Help!!!! - FormulaHydrogen

[Alexpcenteno]

Hi guys!!

I'm have to work on a job for my marketing class. I have to create a Formula racing category using the following:

1 - budget U$ 210 million;
2 - 4 partnerships; (I was thinking - BMW for engine and chassis, the brazilian formula federation in order to get the circuits, a tire company that develops tires using reclycled rubber and a fuel company that can provide hydrogen fuel for the cars).
3 - teams must be sponsored by private capital;
4 - all chassis must be equal;
5 - all engines must be equal; - at least 400hp
6 - all tires must be equal; - made from recycled rubber.


I was thinking of developing something eco-friendly. Cars that run using hydrogen fuel (would say a partnership to develop chassis and hydrogen engine with BMW).

Please I need the help from the experts!!


Thanks

[WhiteBlue]

you should drop the idea of tyres from recycled rubber because it is nonsense. rubber is made from chemically crosslinked polymer chains. you cannot melt it like thermoplastic resins or metal when you have used it the first time. the only way to recycle used tyres is by grinding them up and use the regrind as filler. that will limit the use of recycled rubber to very low percentages. another way to recycle tyres is using the construction or carcass several times and retread it. it is done in the truck tyre industry. that wouldn't be appropriate for race cars of the performance level you describe. you have to consider that the construction gets stressed beyond the level where multiple use is feasible.

perhaps you can do something like this Michelin Tweel concept. It would reduce the use of rubber significantly and perhaps it could be retreaded.

[Alexpcenteno]

Thanks WhiteBlue!

I look up that tire.
Do you think the rest of the idea is ok?

[WhiteBlue]

the hydrogen fuel isn't a valid solution in my view. to produce the hydrogen you have to use massive amount of energy that would mainly come from fossile fuels that would be burned at another location to generate the hydrogen.

in my view an eco friendly formula should use turbo diesels with twin fuel capability. the technology allows to use small amounts of diesel or bio diesel for ignition and provide the rest of the fuel by any kind of gas. that could be LPG, ethanol or biogas from organic waste.

the technology is commercialized by an Australian corporation. I will research a link for you and post it here.

http://www.dieselgasaustralia.com.au/de ... x?ID=About

[Alexpcenteno]

Thank you very much!

[The FOZ]

The others have said it right - Hydrogen is just too new a technology to be worth using in a high performance situation.

Further, it takes too much energy to produe it - making the environmental benefits negligible. Same would go for Ethanol, I'd say.

Take a proven technology, like turbo diesels, consider alternate fuels, add in KERS, and you've got a far greener Formula than hydrogen could ever be.

As far as tires go, I'd say skip rubber altogether and look into urethane tires, since they (probably) require less petrochemical input than regular tires do.

[RacingManiac]

Hydrogen is also NOT a fuel, its a carrier. You convert other energy source and store it hydrogen, be it as nuclear, fossilfuel, solar or whathaveyou to do electrolysis to get Hydrogen.....

[jon-mullen]

If you're going with the turbo diesel Audi would be the obvious partner choice, too. The R10 LeMans prototype is renowned for its power, quiet volume, and reliability.

Hydrogen fuel cells are also really heavy for the amount of power, aren't they? I thought that's why we've only really seen them in passenger buses and Hummers.

Check this out, http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/wimrc ... red/ecoone . It's a little over the top, but it shows how far you can take your idea.

[Alexpcenteno]

Thanks guys.

I spoken with my team and we decided to give a go with the audi deisel engines. The problem is that we have only 4 partnerships so we have to use the one for the fuel and get a partner for the chassis.

That makes it like this:

1 - Audi diesel engines
2 - Tyre company - we are reasearching
3 - Chassis ??
4 - FBA - Brazilian Formula Association - for the circuits

Teams can sell the livery for sponsorphip and they have to buy their own fuel.

The budget is U$ 210 million.

We still have to come up with the slogan and some other attractives. Our professor wants us to be a Formula that shares the market with the GP2 or A1GP...
He also wants some inovations... like a jetfighter covered monocoque.

And we are also going to mention that we received help from you guys in the credits.

[WhiteBlue]

I understand that this is fictous?

Why don't you take the engine, the dual fuel system and chassis from Audi or Peugeot just like they do it for Le Mans.

The Biodiesel and LNG you can get from Shell. they have a huge facility down in Arabia for advanced synthetic fuels.

Michelin is truely the best for racing tyres. They can tell you if the Tweel is race ready or give you advise of other green tyre concepts.

[cookty]

Regarding tyres try Dunlop as they are doing the tyres on the radical sr10 so that they can be recycled after use and can be used as something useful, cant remember what exactly though

[Ciro Pabón]

Alex, I'd say you're teacher is crazy. Jet fighters what? Find an older teacher right now! I don't know, perhaps being original is different from trying to impress.

So, I swallow my own recipe. Here you have my (as much as humanly possible) original ideas about racing. A word of advice: original ideas have at least two problems. First, they're hard to explain. Second, you probably will fail trying to implement them. Anyway, this is the best I can come up with.

Diesel engines are obvious as WB points out.

Perhaps you should try electric motors. They're "hot" right now and they'll give the series a unique quality.

Are GM managers really betting their shirts on the Volt? Maybe


There are several examples of racing cars powered by electricity, but no top racing series. On the other hand, you can find a dozen series powered by diesel. What would make your series different?

Same goes for competing against GP2 or A1GP. It's like opening a fourth auto maker in US right now. Bad idea.

The chassis is easy. Dallara is the one. A twist I would introduce is to create something like the software public license for this chassis, if you follow my drift. Have you ever seen the "public" blueprints for the Lotus 7? I would demand the same from Dallara: to publish the blueprints in the "public domain". That would be a hit, I think. You would have endless variations of the chassis created by "hackers".

Tyres, well, I don't know. Rubber is renewable, but polyurethane is radical.

I introduced the tweel to this forum years ago, I agree with WB that it's a new design. However, what about trying also to go to the roots? I suggest microcell polyurethane tyres. They're as green as you can go. It has another advantage: there are no car tyres made of this material.

It's a hard road what these tyres have ahead of them


These tyres come in several colours: purple, yellow, blue, red, white and of course, green...

I would design new tracks for electric racers. For starters, I would like to see someone experimenting with new materials, instead of asphalt. I don't know how feasible is to use for the surface the same material you use for the tyres, but the grip would be incredible. Have you ever ride a skate board? It's the same material used on those tyres.

[Alexpcenteno]

Thanks Ciro.

RACETRACKS:

The problem with the race tracks is that we don't have much of a budget to build them. So we sent an e-mail to check with the brazilian federation how they work and they work getting 27% of the revenue plus fees that we pay per race. This makes it possible for us to have them as partners and be able to have a calendar with more then 10 races.



ENGINE:

We decided we are goning with turbo diesel engines. We sent e-mails to peugeot, ford, mercedes and audi in order to get some answers. The plan is to have them as partners so the teams pay little money for the engines. The livery of the car would have the "Powered by..." from the supplier.


CHASSIS:

We don't know how to get in touch with dallara but one of the guys from my team sent bmw an e-mail to check about the chassis. We are still looking for a good company with some greener stuff.


TYRES:

We sent Michelin an e-mail yesterday and we are still waiting on that.


FUEL:

As you said we are going to use deisel and each team is going to be responsible for their own.


INNOVATIONS:

The jet fighter like covered cockpit is in order to get better aerodynamics (I'm not a fan but we have to invovate so...)

[flynfrog]

Thanks Ciro.

RACETRACKS:

The problem with the race tracks is that we don't have much of a budget to build them. So we sent an e-mail to check with the brazilian federation how they work and they work getting 27% of the revenue plus fees that we pay per race. This makes it possible for us to have them as partners and be able to have a calendar with more then 10 races.



ENGINE:

We decided we are goning with turbo diesel engines. We sent e-mails to peugeot, ford, mercedes and audi in order to get some answers. The plan is to have them as partners so the teams pay little money for the engines. The livery of the car would have the "Powered by..." from the supplier.


CHASSIS:

We don't know how to get in touch with dallara but one of the guys from my team sent bmw an e-mail to check about the chassis. We are still looking for a good company with some greener stuff.


TYRES:

We sent Michelin an e-mail yesterday and we are still waiting on that.


FUEL:

As you said we are going to use deisel and each team is going to be responsible for their own.


INNOVATIONS:

The jet fighter like covered cockpit is in order to get better aerodynamics (I'm not a fan but we have to invovate so...)

I wouldn't let teams be in charge of there own fuel
there is a lot that can be considered diesel fuel