Your ARE the part

[Claude Rouelle]

35 years of experience in race car design and on track engineering and still learning...

I was the race engineer of a McLaren GT3 MP4-12C last weed end at the Spa 24 hours. We were 5th catching on 4th (the 4th was the car which won the race...) in heavy rain when we where literally harpooned in the braking zone of the La Source corner by another car (another McLaren!) which had brake fade (or the driver had brain fade, or both). Sad but anyway another wonderful experience.

One very experienced chief mechanic who is also a very skilled at machining race car parts told me something which still resonates in me, very applicable to Formula Student cars design and manufacturing and that I want to share with you:

"When you design a race car part, just think that YOU are that part, YOU ARE that part"

It took me a while to understand what he meant. With my own words this is how I would describe it: put your self in the "personality" of the part. Think that you are the part and wonder "what am I doing here? What am I supposed to accomplish? What are my tasks?

This is the same approach as "form follow function" but with some kind of soul or intelligence giving the material. I bet thinking this way could help you to design stiffer, lighter and cheaper race car and race car parts.

I wish I would have heard that before.

I don't you if this perspective hits you but it did impress me so I wanted to share this with you.

Claude

[Roundabout136]

A neat approach for sure. Thanks for sharing and I'll keep that in mind designing parts for the new car!

-Adam

[Charles Kaneb]

Wait, brake fade in the rain? If a car's brakes faded in the rain severely enough to make the thing "harpoon" another car, what would they have done in the dry?

[Charles Kaneb]

This is a good way to approach the load and stress analysis.

"Where are the forces going in when I do this?"

[Lorenzo Pessa]

There is always something to learn from "the man with the wrench".

I like this way of thinking.

I beg your pardon but when I red your post I immediatly thought about a particular part.
"I'm an impact attenuator, my task is... oh, f*ck!!!"


About that kind of the race, how is managing the stress as race engineer for a 24 hours? I imagine you took turns.

[Claude Rouelle]

Lorenzo,

Working shift in a 24 hours race? You must be kidding? A) the team do not have that much resources B) I would not give that wonderful job to anybody else even for 2 minutes!

I do like your thought about the impact attenuation.

It could be worse. Image the driver is aggressive and you are the brake pedal, corner after corner, lap after lap....

Now even worse; imagine you would be a tire: change in force, moment, temperature, curbs hitting... Ouch

Claude

[RollingCamel]

J/K

[jlangholzj]

Originally posted by Claude Rouelle:

Working shift in a 24 hours race? You must be kidding? A) the team do not have that much resources B) I would not give that wonderful job to anybody else even for 2 minutes!

Claude

I'm with Claude on this one. Heck even working on the FS/FSAE cars. Wouldn't trade that off for a minute!

Interesting philosophy though. Definitely will keep this one in mind.

the one thought that popped into my head was the ECU : "Quit telling me to do so many things!!" ...it relates back to being a team member as well...hahaa. Seems like we can get spread thin now and then.

[KustomizingKid]

And then your parts causes the team to get DQ'd from endurance on the driver change... the you feel like a real crummy part.

[Test Driver]

Claude,

Sorry to hijack this.

Are those McLarens running the Kinetic suspension or do they use traditional coil overs?

Again, sorry but I don't feel like wading through competition rules and exceptions right now.