F1 car setup

Hello and thanks for tuning in.

The goal of the following article is to give an overview, as well as two interesting pictures, to the reader in regards to Formula 1 car setup - and a rough idea of the complexity that every team/driver has to cope with.
Note: Some of you may be more advanced in F1's technical matters, so to some extent you may be familiar with the information below. But I'm sure you'll like the pictures.

Probably quite often you hear from a driver after the race: "For some reason, we couldn't get the balance right with the current setup and I was struggling on every fast|slow corner".
Conventional racing wisdom says that the car setup is a balance between different things, but sometimes could be a trade-off, too, for example, if you want to overcome certain shortcomings of your design, e.g. running "more wing" to compensate for lack of downforce.

Let's dive into the details about on-track settings. 

• Tires - A bit aside from tire optimal working temperatures, depending on the compound (90 - 125C), a word about the pressure. Usually, they (the tires) are filled with a special, nitrogen-rich air mixture, designed to minimise variations in tyre pressure with temperature. The mixture also retains the pressure longer than normal air would.
  The tire manufacturer would provide the teams with a limits for variation, so it will be up to the race engineers to decide, because incorrect values may simply ruin the car's performance.
  A typical average pressure number would be 19 psi.
• Suspension - There are couple of settings and terms I'd like to highlight:
  Camber, caster, toe, rear and front ride height and rake.
  
  - Camber - That's the angle between the vertical axis of the wheels and the vertical axis of the vehicle when viewed from the front. In a simple picture, that looks like this (negative camber):

  

  Ferrari F150 - Negative Camber Tire setting
  (click for larger image)
  Photo credit: http://ferrari.com/

  
  Negative camber merely means that both wheels are inclined inwards at the top, as seen above on Ferrari F150. If you are looking for a typical ballpark number, that would be for example 3 degrees, i.e. the wheels are inclined inwards by 3 degrees compared to the center line.
  
  - Caster - That's the angle to which the steering pivot axis is tilted forward or rearward from vertical, as viewed from the side.
  Just have a look at any shopping cart wheel to understand what this is.
  As it can be seen from the final two images below, teams can use figures from 9 to 12 degrees, for example.
  
  - Toe - If you look a car from above, a pair of wheel can have their leading edges pointed to each other - this is Toe-In, whereas opposite - edges away from each other, that's Toe-out. Again, let's use Mclaren 's 2012 competitor, MP4-27, to demonstrate this:
  

  

  Mclaren MP4-27 (click for larger image)
  Photo credit: http://www.mclaren.com/mp4-27

  
  On the left, that's the axis showing Toe-In, only in case where both wheels are aligned the same direction (V like shape).
  Similarly, the opposite is true for the right axis, which is Toe-Out. (Like Lambda ( λ ), from the Greek alphabet).
  More details on what Toe setting can bring in the comment section of the post.
  
  - Rake, ride height - Both are related, but put simply, rake is the car’s attitude from front to rear. Such setup should, in theory, increase the diffuser exit area, and thus increase rear downforce, for example, but it's not that simple, because there are number of settings to take into account, like suspension geometry, overall aero setup, induced oversteer from stiff rear suspension, etc.
  Example or rake here (image link @  http://scarbsf1.wordpress.com Mclaren MP4-27).
  In both pictures below you can see real numbers for rear and front ride height (in mm.)
• Engine maps/modes
  - Map is rather a high-level term describing variations of fuel strategies, ignition timing, torque settings and so on, whereas mode (or mix) is more like a setting for being inline with race demands, like fuel saving and proper amount of power.
  
  Examples of team communicating those are:
  Red Bull telling Vettel: " torque map 5 "is available", while Mercedes say to MSC:  "torque mode 3"
  
  It won't be unusual to hear race engineer on the radio: "Engine 2, mix 5" on the start - they use those values to communicate with the driver the proper settings throughout the course of the race.
  
  Example of engine software modification was the infamous "Off-throttle blown diffuser" employed last year mainly by Renault-powered engine teams.
  Small hint about how the things could be done here - software / automotive engineers will know the answer to that riddle.
  
  - Gear ratios - While real numbers can be seen in Arrows A22 picture below, we should note that this setting can really make a difference. For example, back in 2011 season it was quite evident that Sebastian Vettel had shorter 7th gear choice for Monza - a move which had its merit, namely for better acceleration out of the corners. It was a bit of a gamble, too, because Vettel was assuming that he would lead right from the start and won't need to overtake anyone. His top speed was affected, too, but it played well for him in the end.
  
  
• Differential - Among one of the most important things that driver can control from the cockpit. An example of its importance is the end of the race, where the fuel levels are going down, and car starts to behave differently, so alterations are needed.
  On average of 5 laps there is at least one adjustment, though sometimes drivers are doing it from one corner to another.
  The settings are usually a numbers, just as Rosberg was advised to try "mid-corner diff 7 setting" in Valencia FP2. 
• Angle of attack (AoA) - That's something pretty self-explanatory - it's related to the more or less extreme angles of a wing, for example, aimed to achieve respectively downforce or high-speed.
  The efficiency of a wing is its downforce/drag ratio - more downforce (or lift) typically comes at the cost of more drag and lower top-speed. The greater the angle of attack, the more downforce and drag.
  
  A while ago (2010), a mechanism for changing the angle of attack of the front wing was available for drivers, but in 2011 this was no longer allowed.
  
  Illustrated nicely with the following image, F2012 front wing:
  
• More on aerodynamics is coming here, in the blog, as well as other places, in the next few months - not general aerospace, but Formula 1 related.
• Brake balance / bias - Often adjusted by the driver from the steering wheel. During the race, the brakes can worn to some extent, for example, and in order to avoid instability during braking, the pilot can switch the bias from rear to front or vice-versa. In some cases the brakes can experience extreme overheat (thermal runaway), being loaded with values between 400C and up to 1000C.
• Ballast - Usually plates from high density metal like tungsten steel. Often planted on places where balance and in particular weight in small available space is needed.
  One piece of it usually fits on your palm, and could weight about 11 kg.

And finally to the promised pictures. I found the first one in Ebay a while ago, screenshot it, but the original URL is no longer present.
It's a setup sheet of Arrows A22 - a car that competed back in 2001.

"Arrows A22" car setup 2001

And here's a more recent one. Prior to joining back the F1 madness in 2012, Kimi R. had to complete a "smoke-test" with an old Renault car, namely R30.

Renault R30 - Kimi in pre-2012 private test
Photo credit: http://f1news.cz

These are real numbers from the notebook of his race engineer and that's part of the amount of data that goes into F1 car setup.

Finally, there's a picture available with a team race weekend program, Toro Rosso were generous enough not to hide the sheet from curious eyes. While it's not exactly a car setup, it still gives a good overview of how many of the described permutations are being tried on Friday alone. The picture is from Monza, 2012:

Larger version available, image courtesy of http://f1.f-e-n.net

Thanks for reading all the way down. These are some of the important pieces that take place in a Formula 1 car setup. I'd love to hear more from you, in case I missed something significant, or just a general feedback.
Cheers.

What is Coanda effect and its use in Formula 1

Another blog post on a things related to Formula 1, this time I'll try to explain with simple words what "Coanda Effect" is. I got the inspiration from Joe Saward's blog, and particularly an article here.

First, a bit of history.
A Coanda Effect is named after Romanian aerodynamics pioneer Henri Coandă (7 June 1886 – 25 November 1972) - there are several commercial applications based on it, as well as few patents. 

What exactly it is:

Ability / tendency of a fluid or gas to stay attached to a surface if the shape of the latter allows it.

That's my personal simple explanation to a very complex phenomenon. Coanda effect can be seen in many forms, mostly involving jet and wings. 

Caveat: the example that you've seen in YouTube with the spoon and the water flow is not a Coanda effect, it's caused by a surface tension.
You can demo the Coanda effect for yourself trying to extinguish a candle by placing a bottle in front of it, and yourself on the other end of the chain, e.g.

You -> blow small amount of air from your mouth towards the bottle -> bottle -> candle burning.

The candle will eventually be extinguished. This is a Coanda effect - because the air that came from your mouth was able to stay attached to the curved surface of the bottle and both streams coming from the left and the right side of the bottle reunited back together to execute the final job - the candle is shut down.

Why is that happening? The Bernoulli's principle is also here, playing its role: 

An increase in the velocity of any fluid or gas is always accompanied by a decrease in pressure.  

Since the pressure around the air is being decreased, the outside area respectively has a higher pressure, which pushes the gas to the surface.

How F1 teams are using that effect? By making the exhaust gases to follow the natural contour of the bodywork, driving more of them towards the trailing edge of the diffuser and sealing it was lot more easier and thus beneficial, as opposed to neutral solution, such as early Mercedes or Lotus.

Red Bull's development iterations:

Image courtesy Jason (@Crucial_Xtreme)

Update of the recent implementation of the different teams:

RB8, third revision of exhaust configuration

Ferrari F2012

Mclaren MP4-27

Mercedes AMG W03

Lotus E20, tested in Korea FP
Image credit: http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de

THE TECH BITS

The 2012 F1 rules actually 'created' the Coanda exhausts by limiting severely what could be done with exhaust plume towards diffusers. Generally, the previous efforts were a pursuit of having the hottest gases possible through the pipes, which will increase the velocity flow. The mass flow rate remained the same, dictated by engine maps and essentially amount of fuel and air coming to the engine. This meant to carry greater momentum - as a sum of velocity and mass flow rate.

In 2012 teams put lots of efforts to make the pipes smaller and more curved, which meant some initial loss of power, most recently experienced by Lotus, which were the final team to introduce this solution. 

These smaller pipes, however, helped to increase the velocity of the flow by some considerable amount, which really made a difference, and this was evident by teams' choice to run similar solutions. 

Aero rake in F1, RB8

A short article on what is aero rake (as usual, an attempt with simple words) and how it's being used in F1, for example Red Bull Racing and their front wing. The following picture is from Barcelona testing 2012, day 2, and is originally located here, at http://f1.f-e-n.net

Red Bull Racing (RB8, Barcelona 2012, day 2).
Photo credit: f1.f-e-n.net
Shown picture scaled down, larger image available (click)

Above you can see the setup of RB8 done at the front wing.
The idea is simple: through controlled setup to find out and understand wing's behavior in different airflows.
This is a useful data when you plan to use different wing ride height parameters, and in general to measure how the flow works out around the wing.

First, there are cables holding the wing and preventing the usual plunge. This is done in order to achieve constant results, usually used in conjunction with straight line permanent speed run.

Then, we have laser ride height sensors, which I can't spot on that picture, should be on endplates (if any at all) which are used to measure the ride height at the end of the wing. Usually, there's a third sensor in the middle, under the nose, who's a benchmark and the deviation would be your amount of flexibility.
I.E. the tips of the wing are measured to maintain max clearance of 10mm, whereas the center sensor shows
15mm, so the wing flexes at the tips up to 5mm compared to the center line. This way you can monitor and adjust your wing parameters.

The aero rake itself could be used for measuring air speed, angle flow, pressure (Pitot-Static probe) and even temperature. Since the cables are holding the wing and the lasers are measuring just how much exactly does it flex, the sensors on this two-row aero rake are collecting data on wing's wake and thus creating effective and data-rich info sheet.

What is really a Pitot tube?
It's a thin tube that has two holes - the front hole is located to face the airstream for measuring the stagnation pressure. For incompressible flow (where the material density is constant) it is a sum of the dynamic pressure and static pressure. The side hole measures the static pressure and the difference between these two is dynamic pressure, which can be used to calculate fluid flow and speed, in our case that's the air.

Another point of installment of aero rake could often be seen in front of the tires, or right behind the sidepods, for example, just like Red Bull did in Canada FP. That's a custom shaped 34 sensors grid mounted on a bulge, above the sidepod.

Image credit: formula1.com

Lotus and the anti-dive system

Much has been recently written about the alleged system Lotus-Renault will use in its 2012 competitor.

The system is aimed to be of anti-dive type, thus help maintaining standard ride height during braking, while the usual movement would be to plunge onward and down.

Here's a technical diagram: 

Image courtesy of Omnicorse, original here.

At the same time Ferrari have reported that they are working on the same type of system, but they are awaiting final approval from the FIA over its legality.

Reportedly, FIA said OK to such system, as it has been found legal according to the rules, so lots of noise has been created about how the rest of the grid will have to copy that setup.

Red Bull, in the mean time, say that "there's no reason to rush and copy", as "Things have to work as a package rather than as individual components."
It has been reported that in the past Red Bull have tried similar approach, but it has been abandoned, perhaps in favor of working more deeply and actually developing the winning EBD concept, as I've described (translated) here.

On the other hand, the news on the Red Bull front have been virtually equal to zero, so I would assume they are quite busy at this time, which might explain why the unveiling of the car will be done online.

Let's rewind on the anti-dive systems, that's hardly the first time we hear about it. 

• Back in the 70's we had Lotus 72, which had very advanced suspension geometry, including such anti-dive system. 
• Then we have Honda's TRAC system, seen in the CB900F model, which was again back in the time, namely the 80's. 

So, those examples are here just to illustrate that such system isn't new to the world. Now, back in F1 and if you prefer the visual style, here's a video explanation.
Note: Personally I see a bit of contradiction with : 

10.2.3 No adjustment may be made to the suspension system while the car is in motion. 

But honestly, I don't know what's really going to happen.

Some speculate that such setup could be a real gainer, with selective quotes up to 0.5 seconds per lap, but personally I would disagree. Such ride height control systems are present in the cars to some extent, depending on the car setup and overall philosophy, and I don't find it such a great gizmo that can greatly boost the performance of any team.

I'd rather call it an "aid" to a properly thought of and crafted car, as the suspension travel is very small, thus the gain would be max if one can utilize the effect of the travel along with the rest of the setup of the car.
This means that such system will have effect if the front end of the car is designed carefully around it, as well as the rest of the package.

There's a pretty good advantage, however, on the fuel load side, as the cars start with about 150 kg of fuel, and lighten up throughout the race. The inference is up to you.

Certainly, what's really going to happen, we're about to see.

UPDATE: 28.09.2012 - James Allison told PMWM about the system: "It was complicated. “Done wrong, you could get quite a nasty brake judder with this bouncing caliper. Engineering it so the car moves up exactly the amount that it would otherwise have dipped down by – that’s all quite beautiful when you get it right. We were rather proud of having done it and were looking forward to using it.”

RB7 - The Red Bull F1 Racing Car and its core success values

The following text is a best effort translation - the original source is located here- the article is in Bulgarian, its author is Ivan Tenchev - Editor in Chief at ClubS1 Magazine. I have his explicit written permission to link it here, which I'm thankful for.

The aim of that translated article is simple - to get this excellent content reaching more people, interested just as me in the huge success of RB7 - The Red Bull F1 Racing Car and overall in technical stuff related to F1.

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Going back into 2011, it's quite obvious that the advantage RB7 had was more than phenomenal. We witnessed light-speed-like qualification laps and race pace which was often unreachable even for the top teams like Ferrari and Mclaren.
So, what really lies underneath that rocket ship? Let's go down into the details.

BASE CONSTRUCTION
Even from a basic view it's very evident that the car has its roots related to the predecessors - RB5 from 2009 and RB6 from 2010 - they are all from the same breed.
When FIA ratified the most radical rule change since the beginning of 80's Adrian Newey saw an excellent opportunity to create brand new concept of a car, and including many forgotten elements.

• Rear suspension of pull-rod type was introduced - the main driver for that choice was, as the constructor himself explained, that many elements are getting more and more closer to the floor, thus overall lowering the center of gravity, and as a subsequent benefit making the rear more tightly packaged. This allows the bottom element of the rear wing to be lower, thus improving downforce without loosing the straight line speed. 
• At the same time a high-profile nose was selected along with a front wing situated as close as possible to the ground, whose sides were rather high, aiming to direct the air outside, around the front wheels, and not to do complex modeling towards the floor of the car.
  The reason for that change was allowed by the rules and discovered by Newey - the width of the front wing became 1800mm from 1400 providing that the overall car width was 2000mm.
• The next choice was the selection of Renault engines - not as powerful as the others, however requiring less cooling and being very flexible at the same time. 

Newey was already working on old-known concept - the infamous diffuser blowing with gases passing through the motor and creating constant downforce stream on the rear end.

It's also curious to mention that all of Newey's ideas are first drafted on the old-fashion drawing board, and then the schema goes through the CAD -> CFD - Aero-tunnel cycle.
Author's note: I mean this:

THE KEY ROLE OF THE DIFFUSERS
The 2009 project was really strong and it's worth mentioning that the key role was played by the single diffuser. Recently Newey revealed that he wouldn't have gone into pull-rod suspension, if he knew that FIA would allow the double diffusers of Brawn, Williams and Toyota:

Newey: For a single diffuser the pull-rod is very elegant solution, but the height of the double diffuser per se will create many problems.

However, given that fact that the Double Diffuser turned out to be a key element in 2009, Newey had to open the rear part of the floor and, surprisingly, in Monaco 2009 the car was with double diffuser and later was able to surpass his opponent, Brawn - a car made specifically with double diffusers in mind.

Then, in 2010 RB6 was already built around the double diffusers, the car was very fast, but there were problems, too. Most of the ideas from 2009 had to be combined with the new changes, amongst which was the bigger fuel tank - a consequence of the refueling ban. That led to a compromise with radiators' size, which were to bound with the overall idea of the construction.
The aerodynamic was still very good, the additionally lifted rear part was much more flexible to play with when blowing the double diffusers with exhaust gases.

Having the front wing very close to the ground, along with the overall rake of the car onward, was assuring very clear stream underneath the car. There was playing and fine tuning with the balance and the weight of the details, in order to optimize the work of the tires and the brakes.

For 2011 the double diffusers were banned, and a mandatory weight distribution was introduced, namely: 291 kg on the front and 342 kg on the rear axis. Hence, having in mind the minimum weight of 640 kg, Newey had only 7 kg to play with, but he made that move brilliantly, by putting them in the front part.
That way the car was able to heat the front Pirelli tires up to optimal temperature faster than anyone else.
Basically the front tires are more problematic in getting up to temperature, and even that could explain the excellent performance of Red Bull in the qualification sessions.

It was also evident, however, that RB7 was beginning to wear out the tires in the high-speed turns faster than the rivals like Mclaren and especially Ferrari. But on the other hand, such corners are not present on most of the F1 tracks. The bottom line was that Red Bull was having issues on classic tracks like Silverstone and Germany, so they decided to sacrifice them in favor of the newly introduced tracks.

On the rear of the car a single, optimized diffuser was used, which was very close to the whole concept of RB5, which was actually an advantage from a structural and aerodynamic point of view.

THE MAIN PROBLEM
RB5 was created to work with KERS, too, but in Red Bull quickly dismissed the system after the first tests in 2009. For 2011, however, the use of the system became mandatory and that turned out to be the biggest problem of the team, because unlike the others, they had no prior racing experience with it. At the same time they were trying to further improve the system, separately from Renault, whose development they were using as a base package.

Having aerodynamics as a main priority, Newey selected some unorthodox solutions for the system. First he put the batteries and the electronic control block on both sides of the car under the radiators. All other competitors, considering the experience from 2009, put all those units in the middle, under the fuel tank.
At the same time, concerned about the large size of the fuel tank, and in order not to break the overall balance, Newey decided to use smaller lithium ion batteries, which would require less energy for cooling purposes. This way he avoided the need of larger radiators for KERS cooling.
The smaller batteries, however, produced smaller power output, equal to about 60 HP, as opposed to the 80 HP for the rest of the grid.
It's also worth considering the fact that the system itself was fragile in terms of reliability, thus rendering it unusable, which might explain the smaller time differences in the races, compared to the rivals.

THE SOLUTIONS
Having extra bag of useful knowledge, Newey and his team had a solution for those issues. The setup of the car was modified to be very fast in one lap and thus getting P1. Then, with a good pace for a couple of laps (while others were still heating up the tires) they had more than 1 second advantage, hence being invulnerable to the rival's DRS system and then keeping up to speed.

In order to achieve that behavior, the setup of the aerodynamics itself was very important. The car was primarily setup to be fast in the bends, with a trade-off for lower speed on the straights.
In Germany, for instance, Mark Webber still managed to snatch the pole position, regardless of the fact that RBR were 5 km/h slower than Renault on the straights.

In the race, however, the leadership was inevitably lost. The telemetry data analyzed by the other teams showed the great advantage that Red Bull had in the bends - they were able to use second and third gear!
There was a new transmission available from the Milton Keynes team - although in general it was the same as in 2009 and 2010, it had a new housing and different gear ratios, in accordance with the current setup and KERS and everything else meaningful.
That particular choice of gear ratios can talk a lot about the team and its dedicated work in regards to mechanics and dynamics as a factors, forming the overall package.


SAFETY AND RELIABILITY
Undoubtedly, Newey is genuinely talented in aerodynamics - but as he mentions himself, he has graduated in aeronautics, too.
It's also true that since the late 70's the aerodynamics is a leading part of Formula 1, but at the same time his team put a lot of attention to the mechanics (transmission as an evidence), as well as the safety.

In the recent seasons a laser system by Leica was introduced in Milton Keynes. It checks each one of the details produced and RB7 became the most safe and reliable car in 2011, which managed to complete all of the 1362 laps possible in the first 11 races. Besides, both drivers have scored points in every race.

So, yes, Williams FW14B and Mclaren MP4-4 were truly amazing capable pieces of machinery, but RB7 is also very special, even though not having all of their huge superiority.

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Thanks for reading all the way down - I'll be glad to share more and more insights from Ivan Tenchev and ClubS1 Magazine.
You can follow their account at Twitter - @ClubS1Magazine