Pro racing team design support

[Banacek]

Just wondering if any of you have successfully gotten the aid of a pro racing team (Stock, indy, cart, f1, whatever) in your design work.

It occurs to me that with all the fun stuff being taken out of F1 (automatic gearboxes, taction control, 2-way telemetry, etc.), there have to be a few bored race engineers willing to divulge a few design ideas to teams that ask. If not F1, than there's still got to be a few people from other racing series with a few ideas to share.

I realize that we probably wont see F1 style toys in an FSAE car anytime soon, but I'm sure we could get a few tips on suspension design or whatever.

Has anyone had any success with any pro racing group? If so, what kind of info did you get?

Given that most f1 teams are British based, any Brit FSAE teams have any luck with them?

Banacek
"There's an old Polish saying that goes 'racing is expensive, F1 racing is very expensive'"

[matt giles]

I doubt there is any such thing as a bored race engineer. Why would you want design help from someone else anyway, when design is the whole point of the competition?

If your just asking about general information and education about what to do, I suggest going to a Claude Rouelle seminar.

Matt Giles
Kettering University

[Denny Trimble]

The comments of the design judges (most of whom are involved in motorsport) are by far the most valuable input we've had. We don't run across many race engineers out here, and talking to club racers usually leads to advice such as "Copy these Formula Ford suspension points exactly! This car's really grippy!"

University of Washington Formula SAE ('98, '99, '03)

[Banacek]

Perhaps I poorly phrased my question. What I suppose I meant to ask was whether anyone had gotten design advice like the kind you would get from C. Rouelle, from someone other than Claude. And if you did get anything from a pro race engineer, was it anything novel or revolutionary?

As for designing it myself being the point of the competition, I'd want to talk directly to the people who have done this profesionally for info on things that may otherwise be a little out of my league. For example, I could probably design a control system for an automatic trans. but it would be pretty lousy and I'm sure I'd get more out of it if an F1 engineer told me what kind of things to consider for a racing automatic trans. (I have no intention of putting an automatic on our FSAE any time soon, but I think it illustrates my point). From a finding work point of view, I think an interviewer would be much more interested in knowing that I understand how to design the control system for an F1 trans. rather than knowing how to design a lousy one from the ground up. The key point being that I "understand," otherwise I may as well get the pro engineer to do my work for me and get nothing out of it personally.

There are a lot of teams out there who are trying to re-invent the wheel and it shows. There's only so much you can get out of reading books and research papers, go out there and learn to do it right.

I'm just curious if anyone has been able to get their hands on anything interesting or proprietary from pro racers.

</rant>

Banacek

[Dick Golembiewski]

Why wouldn't one want to quiz a pro if possible? That does not mean have them design it for you, but it certainly means getting another opinion from which one can make some decisions.

Now, keep in mind that none of the design judges, nor those others who you may approach, are gods. You'll find that we disagree on a fair amount. You'll also find that we agree on more than a fair amount. Both should tell you something. The thing to watch out for is that these cars are different and as such require different design compromises than most other open-wheel formulae. The track is different, as are (most of) the available tires. The fundamentals of vehicle dynamics don't change, but the pro you approach may frame his/her remarks in the context of their experience. You'll have to take the information you get, reflect, consider, and decide whether or not it makes sense in the context of FSAE design.

I haven't commented on the technical discussion here, as I may be asked to judge again, but let's use one of the topics as an example:

There has been some discussion re: the use of aluminum brake rotors. Unless one has worked on the cars that use such rotors, one is likely to dismiss them for several reasons:

1. Aluminum has a lower melting point than ferrous materials.
2. Long before it melts, its modulus and hence its stiffness will drop off much more than a ferrous rotor.
3. For the same temperature rise, it will experience three times the thermal expansion.

Most race cars are much heavier than FSAE cars, and therefore - with at least one noteable exception - the use of aluminum rotors would not be taken very seriously.

I see many FSAE cars with rotors which are much bigger than what is necessary to stop the car. I have yet to have someone show me an estimate of their expected temperature rise after a stop from some speed. (an easy calculation - and one of those I made myself when sizing rotors a quarter century ago) If the rotors are ferrous, one can get them red hot, and if designed properly, they will still stop the car. When you discover how small they really have to be, it will open your eyes. Now compare the weight and moment of inertia of those ferrous rotors to commercially available or bespoke aluminum ones. You may or may not have an arguement, which if presented properly, will open the eyes of the judges, who (in the brief period of time - at least in FSAE - we have in the first round of judging), quite understandably, wouldn't have taken them seriously prior to seeing your data. On the other hand, you may discover that there was a good reason for dismissing the aluminum rotors. It's your job to convince the judges.

Approaching pros can have other advantages. I met my first boss through the SAE competitions. I got my first racing gig through them as well. You'll make a contact, and they will likely remember you. (Positively one hopes - don't be a pest.) One never knows when one might receive a call from a team looking for a young engineer, and they are likely to turn to someone they've met, who left a positive impression. It may not happen immediately - or at all, but it won't if you don't make the impression.

On that note, I have to say that many of us read the posts here. Impressions count! (I had to look up what "chunder" means.)

- Dick

Just my usual $0.02 worth.

[matt giles]

I didn't mean that asking for advice was bad, only at first it sounded like asking for more direct assistance.
So far I haven't really met anyone that I could ask for thier opinion on something I was working on. Most often Professors are too theoretical or unpracticed in racing to have really helpful advice. (Compared to a Pro race engineer.)

Matt Giles

Matt Giles

[MikeWaggoner at UW]

"Most race cars are much heavier than FSAE cars, and therefore - with at least one noteable exception - the use of aluminum rotors would not be taken very seriously.
"

It's actually more of a power issue. Basically think of it as an energy system where all the power you put in via acceleration must be gotten rid of via heat etc. Admittedly a fair bit goes to drag + scrub etc., but your brakes are mainly counteracting power. That's why a 78 honda will make less brake heat in a race than a Hayabusa etc. even though the Honda weighs more.

UW FSAE
The views of Mike Waggoner are not necessarily the views of the UW FSAE team.

[MercerFSAE C. Burch]

The basic equation is quite simple.

KE=1/2m*v^2

Delta KE = 1/2*m*(V1-V2)^2

That change in KE is what the brakes have to absorb as friction-generated heat energy. A car that weighs twice as much as another car while going through the same velocity change will have to dissipate(sp?) twice as much energy. A car going through twice the velocity change (2*(V1-V2))^2 will have to dissipate FOUR! times the energy as a similar weight car.

The brakes have to absorb this energy during the stop and then get rid of at least some of it by dissipating the heat generated during the stop into the air. Eventually, a well designed brake system will get up to a certain average temperature during the race as the brakes absorb heat energy and then dissipate it. The key is to have a mass of brakes that's large enough to handle the heat dumped in during the hardest stops (from say, 70mph to 20mph) and be able to dump enough energy into the air so that the next time the brakes are heated up to max temp they don't expand too much or melt.

Picture a metallic cooling curve that keeps getting a heat spike, but stays within the solidus range. That is what a well designed rotor goes through in a race.

If only there were an easy way to take all that kinetic energy and store it instead of wasting it by dumping it into the air. Then it could be used for propulsion! Trouble is most race series specify that the only means of propulsion is the petroleum-fueled engine.

-Chris
Mercer University - Drive! Motorsports
Coming to an Auto-X course near you, May 2004!

[woollymoof]

Our team was considering an aluminium honey comb monocoque for next year.

The chead chassis guy was doing his work placement at Prodrive here in Oz. Prodrive just happens to own BAR F1, so he had access to BAR's chassis engineers email addresses.

He spoke to them and they thought that given the size of the car, an aluminium honeycomb monocoque, although it would increase torsional rigidity, would not decrease weight of the chassis (compared to spaceframe) and would more likely increase it.

Cheers,

Kirk Veitch
Swinburne University of Technology

[Scott Wordley]

One of our guys is doing a PhD with McLaren so we have pretty regular contact with his direct supervisor, who happens to be an ex Monash grad. He was in Oz about a month ago and came to look at the car and talk to us. he had some very interesting comments and ideas but what I remember most is him saying something along the lines of:

"If didn't have to worry about money I'd probably come back and do FSAE because there are so few rules and so much scope to do interesting, innovative things"

Regards,

Scott Wordley

http://www-personal.monash.edu.au/~fsae

[gug]

Hiya Dick, glad to hear my old signature at least made an impression. i wont ask if the impression bad or good... its from the song "down under" by men at work, and a more truthful statement has never been made. (i come from a land down under, where beer does flow and men chunder btw, chunder is vomit)

anyway, people are complaining about not being able to conserve the energy from braking. from a purely philosophical (i cant even spell that, i think?) point of view, the engine during braking is almost as big a comlaint. you have 60 something kilos of dead weight sitting in the middle of the car, that has the potential to produce 60kw of easy to use power, but nowhere to put that power!

everone on here seems to be talking about racecar brakes, how many people use bike rotors for their brakes? ive always thought that bike brakes would suit these cars better than full blown car brakes.

- if it isnt coming, you need a bigger tool.

[David Kieke]

Oakland University ran bike rotors this past year with great results. The rotors are extremely thin compared to my previous expreiences with Wilwood aluminum rotors at ~0.3" thick.

We have not had any problems with the rotors, but our pads are a different story. We almost ate through a set of pads in endurance. We think it may have to do with the number of edges on the rotors, so we're both considering smoothing the edges (they look to be laser or water-jet cut) because they have very ragged, microscopically, edges with a good bit of flash normal to the friction surface.

We didn't do any calculations last year for the rotor sizing for warp-resistance, but went with what we know works on a similar-sized bike, the rotor diameter we need to develop the braking moment needed about the spindle, and the thickness that seemed reasonable from our experience. One of our first tasks this summer is developing a model of the rotor heat input and cooling (basically a simplified track simulation), and attempt to determine what could be the smallest rotor for the comp, and then go up just a bit in size (for our personal safety, and of course reliability).

David Kieke
Oakland University

[clausen]

I'm regularly checking my theories and plans with the guys that built the fastest racing car ever built in Australia,

What did we get out of them? You'll have to see for yourselves December next year http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Regards

Paul Clausen
Uni of Adelaide

[John Gregor]

Clausen,
What kind of car are you talking about, formula 5000?

[clausen]

John,

No it was a mid eighties group C sports car. Looked almost the same as a Porsche 956 (i think).

Full ground effects. John Bowe won the sports car championship in it.

Regards

Paul Clausen
Uni of Adelaide