Monash 2003 Testing

[Hollywood]

Watched your video guys. Looked good. Though I note that you didnt have the front and rear wings on the car. Looked heaps better. Perhaps you should leave those pieces of shit off for the competition.

[gug]

i think they consistantly measure a benefit in lap times from those "pieces of shit" hollywood, so y would they leave them off? http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

ahhhhh, maybe you are scared?

btw, there is a thread on this already in the gallery section.

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

[Frank]

a guy at our uni just finished a feasibility of wings on fsae car

1/3 scale models in a wind tunnel

smaller front wing than monash, larger rear wing

he got 56kg "download" at 60 km/h

we figured you can't drive upside down, so it's just not cool enough

just kiddin guys

http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Frank

[This message was edited by Frank on October 15, 2003 at 01:50 PM.]

[Scott Wordley]

Your totally right Frank.
We regularly drive upsidedown, its so much fun and really the whole point of putting wings on any car. If we couldn't do that we never would have bothered. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

60kg@60km/h sounds pretty realistic Frank.
More importantly do you consider that feasable or not?

As for Hollywood, hahaha nice first post get right in there. Here's a pic specially for you.
http://www-personal.monash.edu.au/~fsae/688.jpg
Sorry but we're quite attached to those "peices of shit", but as you've noticed underneath is a small, low and nimble car with 30kg less ballast than in 2002.

Perhaps you should show everyone a video of your car... the most I've seen is a bare chassis and a stock bike exhaust.

As BamBam once said, keep it hostile hahaha,

Regards,

Scott Wordley

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

[This message was edited by Scott Wordley on October 15, 2003 at 07:47 PM.]

[Jackson]

Any reason why you guys don't run the rear wing straight to the uprights?

I realize that may be a pain in the arse, but is that the only reason you don't do it? (There aren't any restrictions in the rules are there?)

Looks pretty badass from that angle IMHO...

Brian
WSU Formula

[Dave Riley]

Bloody hell 30kg less weight?!?

How much did you guys weigh last year???

Project Manager
UWA Motorsport 03

[Scott Wordley]

Brian,

We used to run the rear wing to the outboard end of the top wishbone but due to our wide rear wheels and increased offset this year we could no longer do that.

We get the same unsprung mounting by going to the bellcranks as you can see in the picture.

Dave, we weighed 270kg on last year's dodgey scales at competition. This year we took 8kg out of chassis, 4 off wheels, 3 off wings, 4 off bodywork, 3 off cooling etc. Last's years car was over engineered to be robust, cheap, and highly adjustable. This year we've refined the package.

Regards,

Scott Wordley

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

[Kevin Hayward]

Guys,

Just making sure that you know that nobody from our team sent the original message - got a little worried when I saw it was from Perth.

Having seen last years Monash car go pretty quick despite its weight is a pretty good indication of the value of those "pieces of ****".

Anybody who has done the calcs would be well aware of the theoretical increases in speed that a wing gives.

I guess adopting them is a case of weighing up the benefits with the added design & construction, changes to driver style and the weight penalty. Personally I'm a little more than curious to see how Monash go this year.

One question for Monash though - Why did you get rid of the underbody venturi? Was it due to a downforce vs. weight issue?

Cheers,

Kev

Permanent Fixture
UWA Motorsport

[Scott Wordley]

Yeah... we don;t get to stressed by what people say on the forums, for all I know it could be Bob trying to stir me up. Its all fun and games...

Totally agree on the weigh up the beneifts call, wings definitely arent for everyone, we're counting on it http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif.

As for the diffusers, they basically got squeezed out when we narrowed the track by 100mm, just got to the point where it wasn;t quite worth the effort, specially seen as we couldn;t measure how well they were working. Plus weight was a big priority, so we saved 3kg right there.

PS Like the "Permanent Fixture" Tag, I know what you mean, I still wear the year 2000 T shirt with pride.

Regards,

Scott Wordley

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

[This message was edited by Scott Wordley on October 16, 2003 at 12:10 AM.]

[Hollywood]

I was kidding guys. Like you said. Keep it hostile! In reality though, from the vid, your car looks quick! Be good to see you in december

[clausen]

Hey Scott,

I'm in the Motel after the second day of the Claude course. Did he mention anything in the two day course about not putting stickers on the bottom of your wings? (unless they are clear coated http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Paul

Regards

Paul Clausen
Uni of Adelaide

[Big Bird]

I've said it a heap of times within my own team, (and apologies if I've already said it somewhere on the forums), but if you are going to do wings then the way Monash is doing it is spot on. Will be watching with interest to see how the car goes at Tailem Bend. We've done some wind tunnel tests with similarly proportioned wings mounted on a 25% scale model of our new car, and got results indicating around 50kg at 50kmh. There is definitely merit there. Wings dont fit into our overall design philosophy this year, (single cyl, less power, lightweight), but we'll be watching closely.

More importantly, we will be in the garage next to Monash this year, and will really appreciate the big "Powered by Honda" sunshade shielding us from the late afternoon sun. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_cool.gif

Paul, hope the Claude course went well. If you are not heading home tonight (Sunday) let us know, we can bring you up to our workshop and show you around.

Scott & the mob, thanks for all the good feedback on the car last night. Steve should recover in time for the comp, maybe. Anyway, it's bloody good to be involved in a competition where we can all share a beer and a laugh. Look forward to sharing some track at Calder with you.

Cheers,

Geoff Pearson
RMIT FSAE 2003

Design it. Build it. Drive it into a tree.

[rotor]

i can report that steve is alive and well...

mark

RMIT Racing

[Scott Wordley]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Big Bird:

Scott & the mob, thanks for all the good feedback on the car last night. Steve should recover in time for the comp, maybe. Anyway, it's bloody good to be involved in a competition where we can all share a beer and a laugh. Look forward to sharing some track at Calder with you.

Cheers,

Geoff Pearson
RMIT FSAE 2003

Design it. Build it. Drive it into a tree.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks for inviting us round boys, I too hope Steve recovers in time for competition and gets that strange growth looked at hehehe...

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

As we saw you've got a very tidy car coming together there, can't wait to see it out on track.

I agree with the no stickers on the wing undersides too Paul, the area is too sensitive to even small changes in the surface roughness, adverse pressure gradient and all. Rest assured I'm going to paint on all our signage rather than using stickers and give it some more clearcoat afterwards.

Regards,

Scott Wordley

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

[Benjamin]

With this many people technically versed posting these forums, the lack of realistic design goals is astounding. Granted, faster lap times justify any theory, but why not take a look at where we gain the time with wings?
The average speeds on the FSAE track are what, approximately 35 miles an hour? It is reasonable to assume that the average amount of downforce will be in the 50 to 60 kg range, with a relatively efficient airfoil, the aspect ratio being constrained by the track width.
Generating the maximum amount of downforce at the end of a straight doesn't do much good, and even generating the 40-100 kg under acceleration will only get you marginal gains in the traction department. So short of that and the more powerful braking from top speed (assuming the car is traction limited in braking in the first place), we find ourselves with a 30 kg wing through an entire race so that we can reach the end of a straight a small fraction of a second earlier and similar time gains from "improved" braking.
Fine, sounds great. Are your drivers really that consistent? Are you noticing improved cornering capability through the hair-pin turns and chicanes? Do you really think having a wing or two makes up for the fact that a car weighing 270 kg WITH water, oil and driver is going to accelerate right past you out of that turn while your wing is just beginning to generate any useful downforce?
My goal would be to trim down a 270 kg car, maybe to around 210 kg. You know a good place to start might be those wings, unless you've got faster tracks to run on in the mean time. Just my two cents.

[This message was edited by Benjamin on November 09, 2003 at 10:25 PM.]

[Frank]

We "paired" the weight out of our car this year

2002 305 kg (670 lbs)
2003 222 kg (488 lbs)

ok the last car was a POS built by people that had very little idea (including myself)

to be honest , I ALREADY find the new car overbuilt, although I'm not ashamed of it

3rd time round I'd be trying to get to 200kg (440 lbs) or I'd slit my rists, that definately means NO WINGS, even if they did end up giving (what we found in wind tunnel models) 60 kg (132 lbs) downforce at 60km/h (37 mph)

honestly Monash, I hope that tailem bend track is huge, cos I want to see those wings work WELL

Frank (keepin' it hostile)

[This message was edited by Frank on November 09, 2003 at 10:46 PM.]

[1975BMW2002]

Am I missing something, or is the point of the aero stuff being missed? Is it not to help cornering? It seesm that the maximum gain from these would be seen in higher corner speeds, not better acceleration or braking. I would think that evaluation of their performance should be done at average corner speeds, not at average course speeds. I have never been to competition, but would be willing to guess at an average corner speed ranging from 15-20 km/hr. I would assume that since this is a suqred function dependent on speed, if they are producing 50kg at 50km/hr, the load generated at 20km/hr would be under 10kg. just off the top of my head. might want to check that math. however, don't trust intuition here. you might find that 10kg is significant enough to offset the few kg weight of the aero.

just out of curiosity, how much do typical fsae aero ensembles weigh?

just my '02 cents worth,
Bill

[wingman]

I love tracking how the teams with wings sand bag by leaving out little details that define the answer to the question "to wing or not to wing"

1975BMW2002 is close but IMO I have two words for you...corner entry!!!!

the wing cars "should have" better braking and higher corner entry speed, and given that the passing lanes (in Detroit at least) are at the corner exits coming onto the straights, the wing cars are either all over the back of or pulling away from the non wing car ahead or behind them, thus giving a distinct advantage as for as driving strategy, vs. the lighter faster non wing cars with equivalent lap times...

VERY interesting that Monash has given up the belly pan...hats off for the strength to say, "if you can't justify it, you're not using it" (Hello by the way)

And for weight considerations, the aero package should not weigh more than 5-7% of the total vehicle weight (again IMO) thus 20 to 30 lbs otherwise the end doesn't justify the means...

But as always, aero takes a LOT of extra time to implement properly so if you don't have the time or experience (al la 1st year team) then I would pass on them

Cheers

[Scott Wordley]

Hey wingman good to see you back on the boards.

Some interesting comments.

Never thought about the influence of the passing zone locations, good point.

Ben, rest assured our car has been trimmed down this year and weighs 223kg wet, without wings. Keep in mind it is also designed, load case wise, to handle 3g cornering. We were quite happy with this result. I'm a bit confused by your comments, as we run wings to improve corner speed, not necessarily top speed(!) nor braking. On this note we have measured an improvement in braking but are still not sure how the wings are influencing our times down the straights, as the higher corner exit speeds pretty much balance out the influence of the additional drag at the end of the straights. Its pretty track dependent and more testing is needed. And like wingman suggests we're not gunna give you all the answers so pass the sandbags.

BMW, I agree with most of your points except:

"I would think that evaluation of their performance should be done at average corner speeds, not at average course speeds"

As you later state downforce is a function of (cornering) speed squared meaning that averaging even the corner speeds and calculating the supposedly "average" downforce is under representing the downforce due to the influence of the square in your above average speeds. Draw the graph, you get what i mean.

Secondly, do you think F1 calculate their aero load from average corner speeds? Me neither. Why not calculate for the each individual corner? But you'd need a track map from a past event to do that right? And who knows where you'd find one of them <wink wink>. But the track changes each year... so what, you'll never see a track composed of just straights and hairpins <fingers crossed>.

Thirdly, a non wing car will turn a given corner at a given maximum speed. At THIS speed, the same car with wings will produce downforce allowing it to corner a certain amount faster. Cos its going faster it produces even more downforce, meaning it corners faster still etc etc. You need to iterate at least 3 times before the corner speed plateaus off, so think about that if you haven't already.

As for weight our aero is about 6% of total car weight. Which is nothing considering it can easily make 15% (speed dependent as usual) additional TOTAL reaction force.

Which is why I have trouble understanding your comments Frank:

"3rd time round I'd be trying to get to 200kg (440 lbs) or I'd slit my rists, that definately means NO WINGS, even if they did end up giving (what we found in wind tunnel models) 60 kg (132 lbs) downforce at 60km/h (37 mph) "

What do you think getting to 200 kg will do for you exactly? Any testing data to back up these thoughts on the magical 200kg barrier? I'm deadly serious. The fact that you would rule out wings or anything else weighty just to get to this goal seems pretty silly to me. I might be mistaken but RIT were close to 200kg at last years Oz event and several Oz teams drove right past them (no offence intended to RIT, very neat car and pro team), with some of those teams being much closer to 300kg.

Obviously lighter is always better... blah blah blah, but I want to know how much better. If you run the numbers on weight reduction verus performance increase you might be a little surprised.... your thoughts?

PS I think I'm just about done ranting about wings, I you don;t get it you don;t get it and I can;t be bothered convinvcing you. Will try and save future comments for any interesting new angles rather than rehashing the old arguments ad naseum. The last thing we want is for you guys to think its a good idea any way....

Regards,

Scott Wordley

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

[NJM.]

I love reading all the interesting conversation over wings and their usefulness in FSAE. I've posted on this board some research that I have been doing on this exact subject. I wrote a simple lap simulation code in Matlab to determine the effectiveness of wings on different size tracks with full circuit lap time being the perfomance variable. Some of my initial theoretical findings show that wings are faster on the open courses, ie this years Detroit endurance course, but may or may not overcome the weight and overall size of car penalty on tight courses, ie fsae autocross event.

Over the summer our fsae car has taken quite a bit of development including a wing package to validate the lap simulation. We've done quite a few tests including wing on, wing off back to back testing and even with no suspension tuning for the wings (more control of aero platform) the car was faster with wings on open courses and equal lap time on tight courses. The wings make huge improvments in drivability. You can go to full throttle much much earlier without getting loose and can dive into corners much harder without getting a huge push through the back side of the corner.

Here are a few pictures of the car after comp and testing over the summer
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~njmckay/fsae3.jpg
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~njmckay/fsae1.jpg

Scott, your new car looks great. I can't wait to see how it does at your comp. Should be an easy first win for a wing car. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif If there is some maximum size where the aerodynamic benefits begin to be overcome by drag at our race speeds i think you guys might be close to it.

Best of luck to all the teams competing in the quickly approaching FSAE-A event.

Noah Mckay
NC State University
Wolfpack Motorsports 99-03

[This message was edited by NJM. on November 13, 2003 at 11:23 AM.]

[js10coastr]

thanks for the input http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

For us, it's more of a matter of not having the resources or time.

www.calpolysae.org (http://www.calpolysae.org)

[1975BMW2002]

I would like to respond to Wingman by saying... hmm.... never thought of that. excellent point.

In reality, I had thought of that a little in a different context. for a while we were considering a single cylinder car that we were convinced we could build under 350 pounds. I had thought about driving strategy for it, assuming that we would be getting killed on the
straights and catching up in the corners. I was hoping that we could carry so much more speed through the corners that we would constantly be knocking on back doors coming out of corners, and others would get a passing flag. then reality set in, and I realized that to convince corner workers to tell another car to let you pass requires having power to keep ahead. So I scrapped the idea, and I forgot about it unitl you brought it up.

I think you have a very good point. I have never been to competition, and am not sure how scoring goes for the endurance event. Is it really like a real race where crossing the line 2 car lengths ahead gets you more points? I have been under the impression that if you last, adn do the same number of laps, you get the same score. If you could enlighten me on how scoring for the endurance event works, that would be cool. The rules seem a bit vague.

Just for the record, I am not knocking aero at all. I was just trying to say that I think people are quoting the wrong numbers when they talk about 60kg downforce at 60kph. Can we really enter turns at 60kph?

For Scott Wordley,

I see what you mean with average speeds not being valid if you are looking at a squared relation, but I was trying to make the point that it would be more realistic to look at speeds closer to those seen in corners, than looking at 60kph, which I think is higher than corner entry speed, much less corner speed. I could be totally wrong on this. Maybe 60kph is an accepted corner entry speed, and I just have problems imagining that because I am imagining a much tighter course than it actually is. I have never been to competition, and am only going by videos that I have seen of formula student, and the autocross event at FSAE.

I have thought about the corner speed iteration thing. If you have ever seen the phantom race you can fully appreciate this phenomenon. The phantom is an A mod car that was campaigned in SCCA in the late nineties. It had so much aero that the designer/drivers said the way to drive it is just to point and try to make it look like you meant to go that way. It was a beast that they could barely control because it was capable of astronomical cornering at speeds. The drivers could not react fast enough to the course to drive it at it's theoretical maximum. It regularly won though--with margins of victory measured by full seconds, not hundredths. Apparently it responds to huge inputs past a certain speed because the downforce grows faster than cornering forces. It's just wings and a tweaked snowmobile powerplant fitted to four wheels. Are there any schools in British Columbia who have seen this car, or even talked to the two guys that built it?

If it were my choice, wings would go on our car next year, but my fellow team mates keep on bringing up that point that the winning car usually does not have wings. so close minded.

sorry that was so long,
Bill

[Charlie]

I am not too competent with aero, so I usually keep quiet about these things, but wingmans point has gotten so many agreements I have to play devil's advocate here.

Why would the fact that you might look faster than another car to a corner worker matter? Wingman, you say that for a wingless car of equal lap time, it would give you an advantage. How so? How exactly do you catch a car of equal lap time in the first place? If you end up catching a car, the corner workers see this, and they wave you buy. They certainly don't make quick judgements about passing, in fact I'm fairly sure that is not even decided by them (it is decided by one of the main organizers). They take note of a faster car closing in and when it gets close enough they wave them by.

In fact, unless you really screwed up in autocross, you won't be passing many cars. In 2002, I never passed a soul. In 2003, our first driver never passed anyone either. (And we weren't passed BTW http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif ) My drive in 2003, I passed 3 cars, but that is pretty unusual. 2 of them were fairly disabled and quite a bit slower so no strategy factored into that.

So I fail to see your advantage there. If you are faster than another car by a lot, it will be obvious and you'll be waved by. If you are only slightly faster than the car ahead of you, the corner workers will notice and wave you by eventually. If you don't have good corner exit speed, that might mean you wait a half lap before they wave you by. What is the penalty for following a car barely slower than you for a half lap? A second? A half second? Not a good arguement for wings.

I'm sure there are many good arguements for a winged car. But IMO, from driving 2 endurance events, if your passing arguement has a point it is a moot one.

-Charlie Ping
Auburn University FSAE (http://eng.auburn.edu/organizations/SAE/AUFSAE)
5th Overall Detroit 2003
? Overall Aussie 2003. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[wingman]

Not to be snotty or anything, but Cal Poly Pomona won Formula Student with a winged car back in 2000 (3rd in Detroit the same year) so I'm not saying they were the FIRST, but the title of "First Winged Car to Win" has already been filled years ago...take it from an FSAE old fart!!

I think they should have an FSAE history presentation at the competition one night...you know, right after the women of FSAE beauty contest... :^b oops "would you leave your girlfriend" topic spill over...

And about the endurance scoring, it is a percentage scale base on your lap times.....

1st place gets full points value and 2nd through whatever place takes the percentage difference between their time and the fastest time and multiplies it by the total points thus if the total enduro points is 600 and you were 10% slower than the winning car, you receive 540 points... at least that is how I remember it....

[wingman]

Take it or leave it Charlie, just making you think about it a little bit, or are you sand bagging to throw the youngins off???

The passing zones are (or at least were) at the corner exits going onto the straights, therefore if a wing car is faster in the corner it will have pulled away from or caught up to a wingless car with similar lap times therefore to the passing lane official (there was one for each passing lane) the wing car may have the "appearance" of being faster, thus would wind up in front of the other car with a clear track.... but then this is back when wing cars were scarce and wing cars that worked were fantasy (at least to the judges)....but I'm not bitter....friggen 3rd place.... http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_redface.gif...

But I digress, this sinario occurs when several fast cars get bunched up behind a slowing car, but that usually only happens in the first three groups (top 12 fastest autocross times) so you may not have experienced it...poke poke

kidding kidding!! where all friends here!!

[Charlie]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by wingman:
But I digress, this sinario occurs when several fast cars get bunched up behind a slowing car, but that usually only happens in the first three groups (top 12 fastest autocross times) so you may not have experienced it...poke poke
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yeah, only every time I've driven http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif (Ok, maybe we were 14th last year, but we were 7th in 2002 http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif )

We started 14th in 2003, set the 3rd fastest endurance time, and didn't pass a car for the first 14 laps-that ought to tell you something. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

The cars are more even in the fast groups than anywhere else; in the slower groups there is always a car or two that messed up in auto-x, and derserved to be higher-up.

-Charlie Ping
Auburn University FSAE (http://eng.auburn.edu/organizations/SAE/AUFSAE)
5th Overall Detroit 2003
? Overall Aussie 2003. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[NJM.]

Sorry wingman for, I did forget about a very deserving Cal Poly win in the UK. I agree there should be a history presentation on all of the events.

Noah Mckay

[wingman]

Hey Noah, I'm REALLY offended!! But I suffer from beer amnesia so if you buy me one next week when I'm in Raleigh...all will be forgotten!! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

Seriously!! I'd love to stop buy and say hello!!

Heck I'm guilty of the same thing with Charlie, so if he's ever out in so cal, he'll have to cash in on a beer from me....

Back to the cars..as stated repeatedly on this forum, the level of workmanship of the cars at the competition is WAY better than it was just a few years ago. Back then the gap between the top 10 and the rest of the pack was HUGE...now there doesn't seam to be a gap at all...and when the performance improvement of aero is at best 10% If the car is sorted and IF you have drivers that are sorted... So we're back to the same argument...the tuned tortoise will beat the untuned hare EVERY TIME and whenever I see wings on an FSAE car they seam to look strangely like big ears to me....so the question is not whether wings work, but rather do have the time and resources to make them work!!