1st revision of 2015 rules released

[AxelRipper]

Here is what I'm interpreting that as. Really restricts front roll hoop height to a max of ~21" pending the thickness of tubes. Our 2009-2013 car would for sure not pass (had a raised floor for suspension geometry where the side impact tubes were maybe 4" apart) and our 2014 car would be pretty close.

I don't understand why the rules place a zone of 2" UNDER the upper side impact tube though. 2" under side impact puts your side impact at the top of your front roll hoop. So the top of your roll hoop could only be at a max of 13.8". I don't know how you'd pass broomstick or be able to put your 13.75" tall front end template in there.

[MCoach]

I think it's supposed to emphasize more designs like this and less like the way we've done it.

[Bemo]

That's exactly how I would interpret the rule. People who come to the conclusion, that this rule restricts front hoop height or something like this have a too narrow sight, how the front part of the space frame can look like. This is only the case if your front bulkhead support and the front hoop bracing are the same tube. Some concepts will be hard to maintain, but it's not a change comparable to the introduction of the footwell template.

I guess the reason for this is, that the rules committe doesn't want that in case of a frontal crash the load coming from the front bulkhead support is introduced to the top of the front hoop which will has to take a bending load if there is no structure above the side impact structure (which is not required by the rules). I don't say this rule is necessary to be this strict. Another possibility would have been to say that if the upper front bulkhead support is higher than the side impact structer another tube from there to the point were the upper side impact member meets the main roll hoop is required or something like this...

[jd74914]

I agree with Bemo, the intent of this rule is definitely to prevent bending loads on the front roll hoop in the case of a frontal impact. What I don't understand is why this is necessary; since when have frontal impacts been an issue? The only frontal impact I've seen that was dangerous was the Korean team at FSAEM 2013 with a bolted IA bulkhead plate which came into the cockpit when the bolts broke.

The rule does seem very much too restrictive in that many (most) teams have a member which runs to near the top of the front hoop from the rear hoop direction for frame stiffness reasons. I don't understand why this is not considered acceptable by the rules committee unless their wording here is a poor way of saying that they want this tube to be of side impact wall thickness.

[AxelRipper]

OH. I just realized I read that wrong. For whatever reason I had read the "The upper support member must be attached within 50mm (2”) of the top surface of the Front Bulkhead" as being the front roll hoop. So yeah, it pretty much just serves to disconnect the use of the upper tube as the front bulkhead support (which we had done on pretty much every chassis since the template rules).

[MCoach]

FYI for anyone who wasn't aware...

The F1 technical regulations are about 100 pages shorter than the FSAE rules.

[Bemo]

And the award for the most wrong and senseless comparison goes to...

How many of these pages are the rules for EV, how many for static events, how many for dynamic events?

If you want to compare that you have to sum up the technical and the sporting regulations of F1. From the FSAE rules you have to subtract the EV rules. Then the difference all of a sudden will not be that great anymore.

[Jonny Rochester]

But F1 are hybrid and run both electric and combustion. So comparisons of the total rulebook are valid.

[Kevin Hayward]

Bemo,

Because you asked:

Ev 25 pages
Static Events 30 pages
Dynamic Events 23 pages

Total of 78 pages. If the F1 rules are about 100 pages shorter than the FSAE rules these sections do not cover the excess rules.

For interests sake I checked out the CAMS manual (Australian motorsport). If you take all of the general requirements, add in a racing class, add in sporting regulations etc you still end up with around 100 pages.

The FSAE regulations are long, and are getting confusing with different areas addressing the similar issues. For example:

T3.31.1-2 deals with 275mm of the side impact zone being equivalent to 2 tubes.

Later we have:

T3.34.1-3 showing that a section of up to 320-330mm needs to be equivalent to 2 tubes, with a floor equivalent to one, and the whole section (side and floor) equivalent to 3 tubes.

We have about 1 page total of rules in two separate sections talking about the same requirements, with some redundancy.

There is no shortage of these examples. While they can be interpreted and understood, they do not have to be written this way. They can be shorter with improved clarity.

Kev

[Dylan Edmiston]

It is acceptable to have a jumper harness which you install during technical inspection in order to allow demonstration of the plausibility functions for IC1.12.6 and IC1.13.7.

The response I got regarding the separate connectors for ETC sensors. I'm really glad they will allow us to do this because it will help simplify the harness to use a dual output sensor on a single connector.

Attached is a drawing I made as an example of the jumper harness (attached with the rules question I submitted).

edit: I just realized I'm dumb and showed red as ground. The point still gets across though...