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Thread: 2017/18 Preliminary Rules

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  1. #1

    2017/18 Preliminary Rules

    http://www.fsaeonline.com/page.aspx?...f-625a6ec5c89f

    The 2017/18 rules were released a little while ago for comment. Comments were closed on April 24th. Some interesting proposals with the main points:

    - Engine capacity increased to 710cc

    - Points restructured:
    Static Events:
    Presentation 75
    Engineering Design 200 (+50)
    Cost Analysis 100
    Dynamic Events
    Acceleration 100 (+25)
    Skid-Pad 75 (+25)
    Autocross 125 (-25)
    Efficiency 100
    Endurance 225 (-75)
    Total Points 1,000

    -Footwell Template tweaked slightly (325x300 instead of 350x350)

    Maybe some other minor changes, SAE didn't bother giving a summary at the start of the document.
    UQ Racing

  2. #2
    My thoughts are, none of these are game changers. A few more engines become appealing but power stays the same (why not remove the redundant capacity limit completely?).

    More points for skid/accel as dynamic events are great, taking the focus off incredible drivers. More points for design, not so great as it's fairly subjective.

    How/if these changes will be adopted globally will be interesting to see.
    UQ Racing

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mitchell View Post
    - Points restructured:
    ...
    Engineering Design 200 (+50)
    ...
    Endurance 225 (-75)

    ...

    -Footwell Template tweaked slightly (325x300 instead of 350x350)...
    I foresee an explosion in the numbers of "Mini-F1" cars turning up, that are incapable of "...driving 30 kms at average speed of 55 kph...".

    And many frustrated students, who build a cracker of a fast and reliable car, but are heavily penalised because of the subjective (and often bizarre!) biases of the DJs.

    These points-changes are clearly for the benefit of the DJs, NOT for the better education of the students.
    ~o0o~

    Footwell template should be TWO x ~350 mm x 150 mm templates, one for each foot. That would enable a very effective Front-Engine-Front-Drive car!!!

    Picture a 4WD ATV/Quad-bike, with the rear-drive removed, driver sitting much lower, with engine between their legs and feet on front-axle-line. Big, fat, slicks on front, skinnies on rear, and extremely simple rear-end. With MASSIVELY EFFECTIVE AERO-DF possible, given current Rules.

    And much useful learning to be had, given vast majority of production cars nowadays are FEFD.

    Z

  4. #4
    Relatively small changes. Engine capacity increase is a good thing, opens up options. Marginally smaller template could free up some more space for front wings. +25 points for accel will most likely push more e-teams to 4WD...maybe.

  5. #5
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    I agree, no major impact.
    Though the smaller template will reduce some headaches.
    And having the option to run the engine out of something like a Honda TRX700XX is nice (686cc, factory EFI and drysump).


    @Z

    Funny you would mention a front engine design.
    Several years ago we mocked up a Front-Engine-Rear-Drive car.
    Our goal was to experiment to find designs with more rear weight distribution.
    (the idea may have been one big rear wing, but this is 5+ years ago)
    Anyway, we found that a FERD set up could have much more rear bias than our 'traditional' mid engine set up.
    This was because our drivers fully suited up are often heavier than our engine (most of our drivers were over 6 feet tall)
    And the engine needed to be fully in front of the rear axle while the driver conceptually could sit right on it or even slightly behind it!

    The thought experiment did not get an farther, but it would be interesting to see a broader range of designs.

    -William

  6. #6
    Smaller foot-well template is probably most significant change, as far as car design is concerned.

    Agree with Mitchell that engine size limit is redundant, but it's a step in the right direction, especially for those teams in locations that struggle to get smaller engines.

    More points focus on skid pad and acceleration is good, although some competitions have already elected to make changes like these themselves. I'd like to see this accompanied by the allowance of a third driver, or additional runs to further minimise the effect of driver skill and chance, to focus purely on the car. With a fast track queue for team's doing their first, and after half time second runs, this could work well.

    Moving points to design event is only worth doing if they also overhaul the scoring system used, to make it less subjective.
    Back in 2011 we went from 114 at one competition (FSUK) to 50 at another 3 weeks later (FSG). Scaled up to the new proposal that's over 85 points purely down to DJ subjectivity! You could consistently score 10% better in all dynamic events than another team, and still lose to them because a judge decided they liked their car more than yours, even though yours consistently proved itself to be better.
    I know this has been discussed to death, and nothing said on here is going to change anything. But I think a bit of transparency as to how teams are scored in design judging would go a long way. If the rulebook included a fixed template for the points breakdown, and the completed forms had to be made available (digitally at least) when the event scores are published. At least to give an explanation. Mark downs should be due to: "they made the wrong engineering decision based on their objectives because XYZ"; and not "I didn't like their design, it wasn't as pretty as other teams, so there."
    Dunk
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    Brunel Racing
    2010-11 - Drivetrain Development Engineer
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    2014-present - Engineer at Jaguar Land Rover

  7. #7
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    Yeah nuking endurance (100% objective) in favour of design (pretty much 100% subjective) seems like a terrible idea
    Jay

    UoW FSAE '07-'09

  8. #8
    Yes, and it's just a simple point. I agree that this information should be openly shared, for the sake of learning.
    Secrecy belongs to companies and teams that fiercely fight each other for market share and podiums, shouldn't be that way in FSAE. Unfortunately, a lot of sponsorship money rides on some teams performances. Some are told "You cannot register for other competitions unless you place top 10 at Michigan" by their advisors.

    One part of that story is that the ACE itself has become a pretty dominant engine for the competition. So, moving to the engine itself wasn't exactly a difficult choice for anyone in the last few years.
    ETS's method for costing for the competition wasn't exactly illegal due to how open the rules are for that competition, but it posed a favorable environment for teams from Canada. Currency wasn't normalized for their rules so any receipts/quotes from a Canadian supplier became 15-25% cheaper.


    I've seen GFR use grooved LC0s for wet skidpad and their attempt (engine didn't start) at 2013 FSAE-Michigan in the past few years. The one's I've seen just have the Hoosier "Wet" groove pattern in them. Can't say if this is the same for the European events.

    Again, I agree with you. I just wanted to pose a scenario.
    Kettering University Vehicle Dynamics
    Formula SAE 2010 - 2015
    Clean Snowmobile Powertrain 2012 - 2015

    Boogityland 2015 - Present

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by MCoach View Post

    I've seen GFR use grooved LC0s for wet skidpad and their attempt (engine didn't start) at 2013 FSAE-Michigan in the past few years. The one's I've seen just have the Hoosier "Wet" groove pattern in them. Can't say if this is the same for the European events.

    Again, I agree with you. I just wanted to pose a scenario.
    They ran 13inch the last 2 years.
    http://media.formulastudent.de/FSG15...euplein-X3.jpg

    Could be a regular R25B 13inch cutted or a WET, don't know. Probably found something good
    -------------------------------------------
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    ETH Zürich

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  10. #10
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    Here's an example of how sharing design reports could be used to a positive or negative effect on the competition. Lets say that a team that does very well in design has some engineering approach to selecting spring and damping rates. Maybe it involves collecting track data, doing some FFT analysis to see what frequencies most of your suspension movement is occurring at, using a 1/4 car suspension model to minimize tire load variation. Or maybe it involves some kind of weighted compromise between tire load variation and aerodynamic platform control. So their design report describes the process they used, and they came up with 3.4Hz ride frequencies with 1.1 damping ratio.

    If design reports get published, some teams will read that and think "that's an interesting approach, lets try that and see what we come up with, or see if we can test/validate/improve that methodology. Students learn, the competition gets better, sharing design reports has served a good purpose.

    Other teams will read the best team's design report and say "Team X runs 3.4hz ride frequency, 1.1 damping ratio, that's what we're going to do too."

    The teams that use the published design reports "the right way" to learn more makes it worth doing. Even if some teams use it "the wrong way" and just copy. The teams that are coming up with good designs and design processes will feel like they are losing an advantage by giving that info to other teams. I think it falls on the design judges to sort out who are the good engineers and who are the copy-cats, and score them appropriately. If they can do that fairly and consistently, the teams that do the best engineering still keep some advantage, but the rest of the teams will be stronger and more competitive. Overall a net positive.

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