Aussie 2012 Rules Addendum

[Schrader]

The Australian Rules Addendum is available at

http://www.saea.com.au/wp-cont...Addendum-2012-V2.pdf (http://www.saea.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/FORMULA-SAE-A-Addendum-2012-V2.pdf)

Cutting to the chase.

B2.1 P20 Clarification of “Open Wheel”.
"No bodywork may enclose the wheel; be located in proximity to the upper half of the tyre such that it may be assessed by the judges as managing the air flow around the tyre; or obstruct the upper half of the tyre from being totally exposed in plan view. Wings or other bodywork may be located above the tyre, such that may obstruct the plan view sight lines, provided they are approximately linear in shape in side elevation and no closer than 150mm to the tyre at any point. The judges’ assessment as to the design meeting the intent of this rule will be final."

Definition of clarification
"The action of making a statement or situation less confused and more comprehensible"

I don't feel that this has been achieved.

Thoughts?

[Dunk Mckay]

While I disagree with the wording I think the intent is pretty clear: no wheel-pods whatsoever, but it needs to be made clear and quantified properly. Which is sad if you ask me, what with aero being so important in both motorsport and automotive engineering these days. They should be encouraging aerodynamic development not the other way around.

What I really disagree with is that it's subject to the judges opinion. I have nothing against the judges, but a sporting rule like this should be very strictly controlled so as not allow an unfair advantage because one team had a more lenient or friendly judge than another.

How do you define "in proximity to the upper half of the tyre"? I'm guessing it's supposed to mean you can have pods/fairings below the level of the wheel center axis (for all the good it will do you) but a judge could easily argue that it is still "in proximity to the upper half". I have seen many many front wings that have large scoops or additional winglets that are obviously there solely to direct air over the wheel to reduce drag, which means they are close enough to do so, and therefore arguably "in proximity".

Almost all sidepods I've seen are going to have a fair amount of aero effect on the rear tyres and most extend upwards past the level of the wheel axes. So technically that also manages air flow around the tyre even if it just a byproduct. I bet they won't bother checking them though.

If they're going to do it, they need to specify a distance in front as well as above, don't make it subjective, and consider differences between front and rear tyres. Clarify that if bodywork is allowed below the centre-line, then air management generated below there that is allowed, I say 'generated' because it can and will extend upwards. You can't say below centre-line allowed but no air management around the tyre forbidden, it's pointless.

[Kirk Feldkamp]

This seems like a case where a picture or two would be worth many thousands of words and a whole lot clearer.

-Kirk

[Z]

B2.1 P20 Clarification of “Open Wheel”.
"No bodywork may enclose the wheel; be located in proximity to the upper half of the tyre such that it may be assessed by the judges as managing the air flow around the tyre; or obstruct the upper half of the tyre from being totally exposed in plan view. Wings or other bodywork may be located above the tyre, such that may obstruct the plan view sight lines, provided they are approximately linear in shape in side elevation and no closer than 150mm to the tyre at any point. The judges’ assessment as to the design meeting the intent of this rule will be final."
This has to be the STUPIDEST rule yet!!!!!

Nevertheless, in the interests of openness and transparency, perhaps the, err... official... responsible for the above can clarify this clarification by answering some of the following.
~~~o0o~~~

1. Why is there still no definition of "bodywork" or "wings"? Is an endplate bodywork, wing, or other? Is a brake-duct bodywork, wing, or other? Etc....

2. Proximity????? Could the Rules Committee please supply conversion formulae between "proximity" and more common units of distance, such as "cubits", "perches", "furlongs", etc.

3. Is the person responsible for the above aware that FSAE cars operate at low subsonic speeds? The jacking-bar at the rear of the car has influence on airflow over all four wheels, so can be said to "manage" it.

4. What does "linear in shape" mean!!!???

5. What is the power-of-God ranking of "judges" vs "scrutineers"? Can any of the former overrule any of the latter, at any time, and without any justification?

6. Is the "intent of the rule" some kind of secret judges' lore? If not, then why is it so obfuscated?

7. Is this new rule a cunning ploy by Oz officials that will allow them to arbitrarily ban any Chinese team that looks like it might start winning trophies? (Yes, I know... They started it.)

8. Why does it seem that the only use of this rule is to ban efficient, low-aero-drag cars?

9. What next? Will judges start banning cars because "the proximity of their emission spectrum isn't within the judges' assessment of the intended aesthetic parameters..."? That is, if the judges don't like the colour!?
~~~o0o~~~

Let's face it. The above rule "clarification" allows any judge to ban any car for any nonsensically subjective reason they care to give (eg. "The bodywork grumpanel is located in proximity to the upper tyre, thereby managing the air flow around it. So it is banned, blah, blah...").

Anyone who pretends the above is "for the students" benefit is kidding themselves. The above crap is soley to give some sad old fart, who is bereft of self-esteem, some sort of kick from their ability to bully the team of their choice.

If you students want to actually learn anything useful from your FSAE adventure, then you have to make yourselves heard. Demand that the above rubbish is scrapped. And while you're at it, find out who wrote it. Otherwise all you will be doing is polishing turds and licking boots.

Z

[Moreboost]

Going to go out on a limb here and say, it was because of UWA's aero.

I dont see the benefit to these other than re-inforsing the formula style car bit.
Does this mean the rear of everyone's sidepods will have to end early to avoid this rule?

Also, could someone from UWA enlighten me as to why you weren't allowed your aero kit?

I see alot of rule clarification incoming.

"The judges assesment" rules are needed, but we already have enough uncertainty with scrut, please dont introduce more.
I choose 7. from Z's post.

Wouldn't it make more sense to have a wingspan maximum to stop the WA style pods? (if that is the intent)

[Dunk Mckay]

Pretty much any car I saw with a front wing at FSUK this weekend would not pass this rule, including the winners Chalmers. Front wing generally extend to (or very near to) the high of the front wheels, and the trailing edges of the upper most flaps/winglets are often within 100-150mm (sometimes much closer) of the front wheels, whcih I would say qualifies as being "in proximity".

Interestingly Stuttgart's sidepods extend back over the front top of their rear tyres, not very far, but enough so that I could see it as they drove along a good hundred yards away. Not only would it not pass this rule "clarification" but i struggle to see how it would pass any interpretation of the "plan view" rule.

[Moke]

What is really funny is that we had wheel raise up over the rear wheels that pretty much did what UWA did on the front wheels. No one ever said a thing about them, we ran them for years. But they made it a massive massive pain in the arse to work on the car.
http://fsae.co.nz/images/phocagallery/2006/Competition%20-Australia/thumbs/phoca_thumb_l_2006CompetitionAustralia%20(8).jpg

[woodsy96]

(Add some positive comments)

I see they have added a clasue to allow teams to replace punctures as was mentioned on the forums a while ago. It is nice to see the "powers that be" do listen to some of the team's wants.

However I do still disagree with the fundamental changes that are made to rules (with regard to scoring) this late in the year. If FSAE-A want to vary so dramatically from the American rules I think it curteous and practical to publish these rules in Januray before the teams start to design their cars around the points structure of the competition.

This also applies to the rule about raise ups/ nose cones/ whatchumacallums. I feel it is a bit late to tell people now "You can't do this" when most cars are probably halfway through manufacture.

[Dunk Mckay]

Punctures can be replaced? Well at least that's something. They are listening but only it would seem to half of what is said.

[Z]

The Chalmers car, recent winner of FSUK 2012, has sidepods that are in very close proximity to the upper half of the rear tyres, and clearly manage the airflow over them.

So would they be banned in FSAE-A 2012?

Well, that depends entirely on an arbitrary, and potentially very prejudiced, assessment of the Judges. If the car had UWA stickers on it, then probably yes!
~~~o0o~~~

Stop hiding, Judges. Time to defend your decisions...

Z

[Dunk Mckay]

Numbers, numbers, numbers!

Be it a percentage of wheel diameter, height off the ground, distance from wheel centre, distance from tyre surface or anything else that can be either MEASURED or easily CALCULATED. These are the restrictions that are needed, no matter what they favour design-wise. None of this "in proximity to," "assessed by the judges" or "approximately linear in shape" rubbish.

[Kirk Feldkamp]

It's not like the bulk of the content in the rules is original... it's mostly borrowed from other race organizations. It seems like there must be some "prior art" that could be called upon to clearly and succinctly define what an "open-wheel formula-style vehicle" is. Why try to reinvent the wheel when there's probably already good wording out there to do so?

Z, while I appreciate your fervor just as much as any other FSAE "outsider", I've found that it's one thing to complain about a problem and another to suggest a solution. There is clearly a hole in the rule set... one that needs to be fixed. Can you offer up a proposal as to what you think the rules should be to maintain the "open-wheel formula-style vehicle" that the organizers want? You're obviously a very smart dude, so you must have an idea for how you think it should be done! I think it's kind of a fun puzzle to solve. Does anyone else have any ideas they want to toss into the ring? I figure with as many intelligent contributors we have on here these days we can come up with something that makes sense.

-Kirk

[Dunk Mckay]

How about:
Extending the horizontal section profile of the wheels at their center, up to 150mm above the top of the tyres creates a box inside which no bodywork, aerodynamic or otherwise, may be located.

Or:
A cylinder, sharing the wheel axis when facing forwards, has 1.5 times the tyre radius. No bodywork or aerodynamic components of any sort otherwise, may be located within this cylinder.

Or my preference:
...
(i.e. go ahead make wheelpods, but please respect the current rules and don't extend past the outside of the tyres)

[Dash]

Originally posted by Dunk Mckay:
How about:
Extending the horizontal section profile of the wheels at their center, up to 150mm above the top of the tyres creates a box inside which no bodywork, aerodynamic or otherwise, may be located.

Or:
A cylinder, sharing the wheel axis when facing forwards, has 1.5 times the tyre radius. No bodywork or aerodynamic components of any sort otherwise, may be located within this cylinder.

Or my preference:
...
(i.e. go ahead make wheelpods, but please respect the current rules and don't extend past the outside of the tyres)

You would also have to say something about being able to see the tires from a top-down view of the car, or something of the sort, in addition to the two you proposed. Otherwise I could build huge bodywork/aero that covered up the wheels and stayed outside of your box. You would then need to make some kind of exception to allow the placement of wings above the rear tires, which excludes them from the top-down view criteria, while keeping them out of your box.

Even that I'm not sure would grasp everything though.

[Pete Marsh]

You would then need to make some kind of exception to allow the placement of wings above the rear tires

and WHY should you do that? What is a wing? Why is it entitled to special privilege?

The problem here is "the judges" are trying to out think 450 student teams and cover every idea teams might ever have to make you do what "the judges" want you to do. Good luck with that!

This wording effectively bans airflow management around the tyres, with a 100% subjective evaluation. This will be a management nightmare! Why is it so evil to attempt to manage air flow over the tyres? I don't see a safety or management issue with it, teams have done it for years without question. With points on offer for fuel economy and traction, some teams are going to do what they can to manage air flow.

Write a rule, or choose from the suggested ones, and if teams defeat it, too bad. If it really upsets you write a new rule, applied with reasonable notice (like 12 months) for next time.

These are my submissions to the 2013 rule comment period.

"open wheeled" - 1. When viewed from above and the side, at least 2/3rds of the plain area of each tyre must be visible past the perimeter of any component or devise at all times during competition. (The 2011 UWA car would have met this, while some rear wing cars would not). ("perimeter" to capture gills or slots and LMP1 style open guards)
2. When viewed from "x" mm above the top of the tyre at least "x" % of the plan area must be visible past the perimeter of any component or devise at all times during the competition. (allows adjustment to permit high mount rear wings and other preferred solutions).
3. In running condition, there must be a viewpoint accessible to the inspector standing to the side of the vehicle, that allows an unobstructed veiw of the entire tread surface of each tyre, for half of it's circumference. (this is something like the verbal requirement given at FSAE-A, however the UWA fairing would pass, and some common rear wing end plate solutions would fail. You could add "in line with the axle", but it would capture many commonly used solutions)

"Bodywork" vs "aero" - Bodywork is a surface licked by the air flow on one side while the other side forms the interior of the cockpit or houses an area or component necessary for the propulsion of the vehicle. ie cooling ducts, exhaust and engine covers. All other surfaces licked by the airflow are aerodynamic devises with the exception of those that in the opinion of the inspector are purely for the mechanical structure, propulsion, suspension, braking and control of the vehicle that have no aerodynamic intent.


"above and side" - means the rule applies to both plan view and side elevation.(Can't enclose the side like LMP rear might)
"plain area" - the unobstructed area the tyre/wheel would have when viewed in the plain of the relevant viewpoint.
"plan area" - The unobstructed area the tyre would have in plan view.

My favourite -
Drop the "open wheel". Allow fully enclosed bodywork. Maybe even enclosed cockpit if you can meet egress and vision rules? What's so wrong with someone running a full tear drop body if they think that's the best way?

Pete

[Dash]

Originally posted by Pete Marsh:
2. When viewed from "x" mm above the top of the tyre at least "x" % of the plan area must be visible past the perimeter of any component or devise at all times during the competition. (allows adjustment to permit high mount rear wings and other preferred solutions).

Pete

This is what I was getting at with what you quoted from me. Maybe I have poor wording?

In any instance, this topic isn't really a top priority to myself. This is an "open-wheeled" vehicle, which in my mind means that about 50-100% of the treaded portion of the wheel can be seen by a person standing a few feet away and with no bodywork hanging over the wheels.

If people wish to change it from being strictly "open-wheeled" I wouldn't care a bit. Although, I imagine that making a large body covering would be a challenge for quite a few teams ( mine included ).

[Fantomas]

I think that allowing full bodywork or further extending the meaning of aero goes beyond the scope of this competition.

The purpose of Formula Student is to learn project management and to gain hands-on design knowledge. From my point of view, aero could be completely forbidden without really changing the outcome of this competition.

Some might disagree, since aero is important for race cars and production cars, but allowing even more aero than is allowed now will further open the gap between teams with access to a wind tunnel and teams without and this should not make a difference. Especially since wind tunnels are rare...

Fantomas

[Dunk Mckay]

Originally posted by Dash:
You would also have to say something about being able to see the tires from a top-down view of the car, or something of the sort, in addition to the two you proposed. Otherwise I could build huge bodywork/aero that covered up the wheels and stayed outside of your box. You would then need to make some kind of exception to allow the placement of wings above the rear tires, which excludes them from the top-down view criteria, while keeping them out of your box.

Why? Maybe increase the size of the box a little bit to be sure, but the whole point of wheel fairings is to decrease drag, if you've got fairing outside this area the frontal area is going to be huge! And even is the CoD is low enough that they still reduce drag a little bit, think of the amoutn of material required to keep them stiff, the increased mass is going to be huge, not to mention the raised CoG and increased Yaw moment.

[Z]

Originally posted by Kirk Feldkamp:
Z, ... There is clearly a hole in the rule set... one that needs to be fixed. Can you offer up a proposal as to what you think the rules should be ...
Kirk,

The problem is not how to word this particular "clarification". The answer to that is easy. Any of the OBJECTIVE suggestions above is much better than the current, very vague and subjective, "official" version.

The real problem is much bigger. It is the question of "How was such a bad rule made in the first place?". I suggest that part of the reason is that successive Rules Committees (for the last ~20 years) have spent too much time tinkering with Level 1 details (as per Geoff's "Reasoning ..." thread), and have hardly ever considered the Level 4 "big picture" issues.

Continuing this metaphor, if the Rules Committee designed FSAE cars, then by now their car would have 52 cylinders, weigh several tons, and would need a small on-board nuclear power station to run the electrics! Even the worst FSAE teams don't get this bad because of the reality of limited budgets, etc. But ink on paper (especially electronic) is dirt cheap, so the Rulebook just keeps get bigger, and messier, and less effective...

Now if one of your team members suggested a 52 cylinder car, then I guess you could (other than helping him build it!); 1) Vote against it, 2) Wait a few years until said student has left/graduated, and then get back to designing cars that work. The problem with the general running of FSAE is that, firstly, the vast majority of the players, namely the teams, have very little say in how it is run (ie. no vote). And, secondly, the people who do have a say in the running stick around forever (instead of just a few years). So if they have stupid ideas, then you are stuck with following their stupid rules for (almost) ever.

The solution to this "big picture" problem, IMO, is to give a greater and more democratic involvement to the teams in the running of the whole show. This would require a lot of formal processes, and so like most good democracies would require quite a lot of work, albeit distributed among the many teams.

And then along with slimming the Rulebook down to an efficient, lean, mean, racing machine http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif, something similar has to happen, and has to keep happening, with the body of "Officialdom". Just as with the body of the car, all dead weight should be removed. That is how it works in Nature ("thinning the herd"), and very well it works indeed!
~~~o0o~~~

With regard to "open-wheels" I think freer is better in the long run. So allow anything from FFord to LMP type bodywork, for the reasons suggested by Kevin here. (http://fsae.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/125607348/m/13820504151?r=49920384151#49920384151) (Also many other interesting comments on that thread.)

Ultimately, more allowable freedom of expression = more creative and imaginative engineers = better future.

Z

[Moreboost]

what about a wing span limit?

[AxelRipper]

For the aero, why not just make a "box" around the tires that is off limits for any bodywork/aero bits. That way you could either measure it or even have a template that you hold against the wheel and see if anything lies in it within the width of the tires.

Seems like the "intent" of this rule would be a bit clearer than the current suggestion, which is simply that the entire package is subject to if the judges like it or not.

[penna]

definitely agree with axel on that one. Would any of the other Australian teams be up for getting a group consensus on this rule which is a little clearer and not damaging if you are trying to design an aero package. If we present our alternative as a group as long as it is the spirit of the original rules hopefully we might get somewhere.

[Pete Marsh]

I was led to believe such a group consensus was reached at the faculty advisers meeting after comp last year. And that the resolution was VERY different to what we see in this rule addendum for this year. ie - No more design altering local rules issued after designs are finished!

Do you see we must endure 125 point fuel economy rules once again. And again with 5 months notice when we were expecting normal rules. Too bad if you working on the FSG rules, (which FSAE are going to, and where you might like to take your car next year).

Any chance of some comment from somebody that was at that meeting? Do we need a "team representative group"? Would it make any difference anyway? Surely it's pretty clear this aero "clarification" (cough) is not very popular.

Pete

[Z]

Originally posted by penna:
If we present our alternative as a group as long as it is the spirit of the original rules hopefully we might get somewhere.

Originally posted by Pete Marsh:
Do we need a "team representative group"? Would it make any difference anyway?


RULES, RIGHTS, and RESPONSIBILITIES.
======================================
FSAE is currently run by a small group of people who make the rules and decide how things are done. Meanwhile the vast majority of participants make the cars, without which there is no event. So FSAE is effectively a dictatorship, with an "us" and a "them".

This sort of system works well when the dictator is intelligent and benevolent. But when the dictator is less capable, then the majority suffers. Read the history books (or even look around the world today).

An alternative approach is democracy. The funny thing is that in true democracies (which are very rare) half of the decision making is done by people of below average intelligence (it is a statistical fact!). Nevertheless, this still works better than dictatorships, because the decisions are less likely to ever drop much below average.
~~~o0o~~~

Here is how FSAE might work as a democracy, say in Australian conditions:

Rights (the Benefits).
=================
1. Any Team can propose any change to the Rules or to the running of the competition. This is done through some formal and open process.

2. All such changes come into force only if approved by a majority vote of the Teams + SAE-A. One vote per Team and one vote for SAE-A. (Note that votes within teams might be democratic (one vote per team member) or tyrannical (Faculty Advisor decides), depending on the individual school...)

3. Any contentious issues that arise at competitions, such as the UWA wheel-pods affair, are again decided by a majority vote, as above. So, for example, Team Captain, "Ok, boys, the BBQ-bonding session tonight is postponed. Instead we all have to go and listen to a whole lot of long-winded arguments for-and-against some "wheel-pod" whatevers, and then do that whole voting thing... Well, that's democracy for you...".

Responsibilities (the Costs).
======================
1. All teams must provide one person per ten team members to work at the many jobs required at competition. For example, as assistant scrutineers (holding other end of tape measure), marshals, cooking sausages, cleaning-up, latrine duty, etc. A very small Team of only, say, 8 members does not have to supply any "volunteers", or maybe only one for half the time. A big Team of 50+ members supplies 5 people. This gives the Teams a feeling of "ownership" of the event. And, no doubt, many members will continue volunteering after their schooling is over.

2. There is also the responsibility of all the administration and paperwork required throughout the year for the Rules changes, etc., mentioned above. But that's democracy for you...

Z

(Edit: Splenig!)

[Dunk Mckay]

I like the idea of forming an independant FS/FSAE teams association. A sort of union with a single voice to put forwards our requests/demands. It could be ran on a small forum like this one with one official account per team (plus individual ones with no voting abilities). Properly moderated ti could work.

The issue is that teams don't have all that much to bargain with. The only thing we can do is boycott events, and I don't think anyone is ever going to do that. We only have so many opportunities to compete, some people only ever get to go one or two events in their time as a student, so not many people are going to be willing to sacrifice that.

What else is there? Every team put a big sticker on there car saying: "We don't like such and such a rule, but we don't have much choice about it." I can't see that having all that big an affect.

Perhaps you could convince most of the teams to boycott one of the smaller static events. None of the big guns, plus as many smaller teams that don't try to take advantage of the situation and stay strong to the cause attend business presentation maybe? Still a push though.

(Yes I realise that a lot of the above sounds a lot like it's out of a cheesy movie.)

[Bill Riley]

Please find a link to the proposal to create an enforceable and measurable clarification to the open wheel rule. The intent of this is to restrict, as little as possible, the aerodynamic development of the cars while providing for minimum hand clearance to access the wheel/tire for assessing structural integrity during dynamic events. For future years the Rules Committee will discuss the bigger picture, like possibly eliminating the open wheel rule, but now we are looking to immediately revise the rule so teams will be able to build cars and know they will pass technical inspection. Please email comments to the address in the link if you want them to be officially considered before the 2013 rules are published. As always, we value your feedback and thanks to all those who commented on the draft rules already posted.

Regards,

Bill Riley
Chairman
FSAE Rules Committee

Link: http://www.fsaeonline.com/cont...ero_2013_Website.pdf (http://www.fsaeonline.com/content/Aero_2013_Website.pdf)

[mech5496]

Hmmm, I like the idea of the "circle around the tire" rule BUT that means that one could build a fully-enclosed bodywork as long as it is spaced 2 inches away of the tires, right?

[Simon Dingle]

Originally posted by mech5496:
Hmmm, I like the idea of the "circle around the tire" rule BUT that means that one could build a fully-enclosed bodywork as long as it is spaced 2 inches away of the tires, right?

Not exactly, the wheel arches would have to be square around the upper half of the wheel due to this quoted part:

"The top 180 degrees of the wheels/tires must be unobstructed when viewed 2 inches (50.8 mm) above the plane formed by the tops of the front and rear tires."

I'll try and post a sketch of enclosed bodywork that I think would be legal under this clarification.

[TMichaels]

The required spacing has been adjusted to 2.7inches in the final wording. So basically a standard ITF tennis ball has to fit in between.

[mech5496]

Originally posted by Simon Dingle:
Not exactly, the wheel arches would have to be square around the upper half of the wheel

Ooops I missed that one; still one should be able to do it.



Originally posted by TMichaels:
So basically a standard ITF tennis ball has to fit in between.

Sometimes you gotta love the creative thinking of engineers...

[JulianH]

Tobias, arguing on twitter is too difficult, I'm writting here http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Could you please tell us, why you changed it to 2.7 inches?

I mean for me it is like:

The commitee proposed a change in the rules (2 inch space), I gave feedback that this change is wrong (read: It kills 2012-car solutions which in no way concern the open-wheel-rule) and proposed a different solution to kill tire-covers and the result is, that even more space is required and even more designs will be killed and team have to redesign their ideas?

I don't get it.

So far, nobody had a problem to inspect the cars (e.g. AMZ 2012 or I guess also the Rennteam 2012 sidepod) during driver change. You said that this is the reason for this new rule...


Thank you for your insights.


Regards,

Julian

[Simon Dingle]

Originally posted by mech5496:
Ooops I missed that one; still one should be able to do it.


Yes but I don't think that anyone would want to. If you look at the image linked below, the exclusion zone is massive and the square corners at the top make any kind of aero profilling almost impossible - certainly the wheel arches would be far too big to be be able to see over. I think the most you'll see is something similar to the concept outlined in blue in the image. Although it might be feasible with 10" wheels.

https://docs.google.com/open?i...gEIdDYjJtVkcyeUFiU1E (https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B6uw7NmgEIdDYjJtVkcyeUFiU1E)

[TMichaels]

As said in other posts before: I am not the official spokes person of the rules committee. The content of the posts reflects my understanding and view of things, of course influenced by the discussions about these things in the rules committee.

Julian,
when changing rules, there are several things to consider. I will try to list them and give the reasoning behind them:

1) Why?

This is probably quite obvious. Teams started to try how far they can get and since there was no hard definition of what open-wheel really is, a definition was needed or the open-wheel wording needs to be dropped entirely.

Dropping the open-wheel wording was out of the question as there needs to be a possibility to easily inspect the inner wheel area, including the brake system etc. in the queue for the dynamic events and during driver change. Every year we see cars going DNF after a meat ball or at driver change, because something which was about to fail or already failed was discovered in this area. We all have seen cars loosing wheels or other parts on track which poses a big safety risk, at least for the drivers on track and the track marshals.
Without the open-wheel regulation, checking this becomes impossible and there is no room for discussion about not being able to inspect this.

2) How?

a) It needs to be easy to understand without excessive explanations to prevent many rules questions, frustration on the team's side and discussions at Scrutineering (UWA at FSAE-A2011, qed). The current definition is very easy to understand.

b) It needs to serve its purpose. The purpose here is not only being able to visually inspect the respective area, but also to be able to actually grab the wheel and see if it moves in any unwanted direction or if it starts to develop compliance. Therefore a minimum distance had to be defined such that at least a normal sized hand including gloves fits in between without touching other parts. Especially carbon fibre part edges can be quite harmful to hands and you probably know that as well.

c) It needs to be easily check- and enforceable. Choosing the size of a standard ITF tennis ball serves b) and c) . Every team in every part of the world can get an ITF tennis ball for 1$, mount it to a stick and test for rules compliance. So can do every scrutineer/competition.

3) What are side effects?

Re-Design needed. Well, where is the problem with that? This is a project management/ engineering design competition. All teams should admire bigger changes in the rules since it may shake up the field and allows new thoughts and possibilities. I personally would always vote for a change in restrictor size every 2 years to make sure that nobody starts to do powertrain copy&paste for example.
I thought differently about that when being on the other side of the fence as a team member. It feels as if the rules committee throws hours/days/weeks/years of work in the trash bin, but in fact they implicitly make sure that the next generation of team members need to know their stuff instead of carrying over parts and managing the status quo!

Therefore changing the rules to make current solutions illegal actually helps the competition and the teams to evolve, because they are forced to learn new things or to re-learn things (the latter is probably more often the case).

Assume you are new to a team and you are assigned to an area for which it has been decided to just slightly improve part X. You still learn something, but you probably learn a lot more questioning the current design and completely re-designing it. A rules change forces you to do so. When talking to teams as a design judge (what I am only allowed to at other events than FSG), I often remember a specific experiment:

"Stephenson (1967) trained adult male and female rhesus monkeys to avoid manipulating an object and then placed individual naïve animals in a cage with a trained individual of the same age and sex and the object in question. In one case, a trained male actually pulled his naïve partner away from the previously punished manipulandum during their period of interaction, whereas the other two trained males exhibited what were described as "threat facial expressions while in a fear posture" when a naïve animal approached the manipulandum. When placed alone in the cage with the novel object, naïve males that had been paired with trained males showed greatly reduced manipulation of the training object in comparison with controls. Unfortunately, training and testing were not carried out using a discrimination procedure so the nature of the transmitted information cannot be determined, but the data are of considerable interest."

This seems to happen in many teams (my former team at the time of my participation of course not excluded!).

Flame away...

[JulianH]

Thank you, as always, for the detailed answer.


First of all, I would like to stress that we never wanted to participate with the 2012 front wing in the next season. It sucks http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

My team is always on the side of "let's do it new". So therefore, the rule just resticts the 2013 design of the car.

(On a side note, I think it's strange for FSAE rules to "change a rule to stop copy&pasting". I never saw something like this happening... I always thought the FSAE rules should be "as open as possible" http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif).

I get the "Why?" reasoning of the rule. It is important to inspect the inner wheel assembly.

However, if a team decides to cover their front A-arms (let's say to manage the air flow...), they stop now at the tire and then no technical inspection is possible. I think it doesn't help a lot, but if CFD says 10N less drag, someone is going to do it...

The rule is easy to understand, that's correct.

What I don't understand is the change from 2inch to the Tennis ball 2.7 inch. There are complicated templates (percy, foot,..) every team cuts them out of cardboard. Why is this not possible here? Why don't go from 2inch to the golf ball 1.7inch?


I know that you are probably the wrong person to talk to, but I got a one-line answer from the rules commitee that "my comment will be taken into account" and they went in the opposite direction, therefore I'm kind of frustrated there http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif


Regards,

Julian

[TMichaels]

(On a side note, I think it's strange for FSAE rules to "change a rule to stop copy&pasting". I never saw something like this happening... I always thought the FSAE rules should be "as open as possible" ).

Just a quick answer, before someone else also responds regarding this comment:
This was just mentioned as a side effect and I am not aware of any rule change that was only conducted to stop copy & paste in a specific area.


However, if a team decides to cover their front A-arms (let's say to manage the air flow...), they stop now at the tire and then no technical inspection is possible. I think it doesn't help a lot, but if CFD says 10N less drag, someone is going to do it...

That is quite easy:
There is still Rule B2.5 Visible Access: I would not want to remove parts of the car during driver change, because the scrutineer wants to take a look at the locked nuts in the inner wheel assembly...

Therefore the rule clarification mainly prevents wrapping the wheels in bodywork, while B2.5 makes sure that now one tries to hide anything outside of the area regulated by this rule.


What I don't understand is the change from 2inch to the Tennis ball 2.7 inch. There are complicated templates (percy, foot,..) every team cuts them out of cardboard. Why is this not possible here? Why don't go from 2inch to the golf ball 1.7inch?

I have to say, that I do not really get why this makes a difference. It affects every team in the same way. Try to fit your hand with a glove through 1.7 inch and consider a hard edge, possibly offering carbon fibre splinters on one side. In case that your hands are not big, consider big hands...this might be partly a convenience thing for the inspectors during driver change and a convenience thing regarding building a test "tool", but as said before: It makes no difference, since everyone has to follow it. Aero teams are obviously more concerned than non-aero teams, but nobody forces you to run aero (an easy sentence for someone not having to build a competitive car anymore, I know). It could be that this rule even slightly changes the balance between aero and non-aero concepts, but this is a rather positive than a negative outcome.

BTW: The restrictor could be 19.8mm or 20.3mm, the minimum wheel base could be 1500mm or 1550mm. Does that really change something? Probably not... (But please don't start a detailled discussion about that now)

[JulianH]

With camlocks it's very easy to remove body panels. This won't stop any one from using covers.

Why is the rule B2.5 not extented into something like "The inner wheel assembly must be visible during driver change without removing parts". With this solution, it wouldn't be necessary the restrict front wings, sidepods and other stuff that isn't the problem for this "Why".

Concerning your edit..

Ok, maybe my hands are too small.

I think the aero-teams are little bit more concerned because they know, with one small change (e.g. the front wing does only be place 100mm in front of the front tires) their whole knowledge and experience can be crushed.

We all saw the FSG AutoX, we all know that it is probably a matter of time that Aero will be restricted...

[TMichaels]

Why is the rule B2.5 not extented into something like "The inner wheel assembly must be visible during driver change without removing parts". With this solution, it wouldn't be necessary the restrict front wings, sidepods and other stuff that isn't the problem for this "Why".

It is necessary as said before, because with the UWA wheelpods for example, you are not able to grab a tire and check whether its links are still sturdy.

[NickFavazzo]

Originally posted by TMichaels:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Why is the rule B2.5 not extented into something like "The inner wheel assembly must be visible during driver change without removing parts". With this solution, it wouldn't be necessary the restrict front wings, sidepods and other stuff that isn't the problem for this "Why".

It is necessary as said before, because with the UWA wheelpods for example, you are not able to grab a tire and check whether its links are still sturdy. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Our wheels were actually very easy to grab and inspect, the front pods did not obstruct any mechanicals from view, and did not impend the integrity of the vehicle in any way...

[mech5496]

Originally posted by Simon Dingle:
Although it might be feasible with 10" wheels.


With so many teams switching to 10's this year I wonder if anyone will still be using 13"s next year! :P

On a more serious note, I would consider 8's up front, I'm pretty sure Hoosier has 8" tires in LC0 compound... Anyway Tobias seems to have some serious arguments for this clarification, and they all seem sensible to me. Teams can still build "wheelpods" even though not so effective ones. Bad thing it also decreases the "fence" area near the rear wheels for undertrays.

[TMichaels]

Originally posted by NickFavazzo:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by TMichaels:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Why is the rule B2.5 not extented into something like "The inner wheel assembly must be visible during driver change without removing parts". With this solution, it wouldn't be necessary the restrict front wings, sidepods and other stuff that isn't the problem for this "Why".

It is necessary as said before, because with the UWA wheelpods for example, you are not able to grab a tire and check whether its links are still sturdy. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Our wheels were actually very easy to grab and inspect, the front pods did not obstruct any mechanicals from view, and did not impend the integrity of the vehicle in any way... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't think that the hand of an adult fits in the section marked with a red circle:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1607403/website-16.jpg

[Trevor]

Originally posted by TMichaels:
The required spacing has been adjusted to 2.7inches in the final wording. So basically a standard ITF tennis ball has to fit in between.

I would have liked more time to give feedback on the proposed wording. Bill Riley posted on the 14th and we at GFR started discussing immediately, but it's hard to get unified feedback if the final wording is decided only 2 days later on the 16th.

I do appreciate the effort that is being put in to define the open wheel rule.

[Dunk Mckay]

Originally posted by mech5496:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Simon Dingle:
Although it might be feasible with 10" wheels.


With so many teams switching to 10's this year I wonder if anyone will still be using 13"s next year! :P
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

We will. Not due to design decisions though, but due to limited budget and having bought a new set this past year. Having said that I don't see such a huge performance gap, not counting the new aero rule that is, if you're going for aero.

[NickFavazzo]

Originally posted by TMichaels:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by NickFavazzo:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by TMichaels:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Why is the rule B2.5 not extented into something like "The inner wheel assembly must be visible during driver change without removing parts". With this solution, it wouldn't be necessary the restrict front wings, sidepods and other stuff that isn't the problem for this "Why".

It is necessary as said before, because with the UWA wheelpods for example, you are not able to grab a tire and check whether its links are still sturdy. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Our wheels were actually very easy to grab and inspect, the front pods did not obstruct any mechanicals from view, and did not impend the integrity of the vehicle in any way... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't think that the hand of an adult fits in the section marked with a red circle:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1607403/website-16.jpg </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Why do you want your hands there anyway? There is 10-20mm gap (note: you can see daylight in the lower right quadrant of your red oval), and you can clearly see the surface of the tyre from the side, alternatively you can rotate wheel to see the tread surface..

I don't object to the clarification, teams build the cars to the set of rules, so why not make the gap something logical (ie not 2.7 inch=68.6mm, why not 50mm or 2 inch).

From where I see it teams should be free to run covers, if they will be penalised it will be in design, ie Is the weight and increased yaw inertia justified, how is serviceability affected? How can you check components for early signs of failure?

[TMichaels]

Nick,
we are starting to move in circles. The points you make have been addressed in earlier posts in this thread.

[NickFavazzo]

I understand where you are going with the covers thing, potentially hiding problems, but with our pods nothing was/is hidden or obstructed. At what point do you say no engine covers panels because you cannot see a small water/oil leak?

[TMichaels]

Your covers would make it impossible to quickly grab the tire during driver change and see, how its linkage reacts to forces.


At what point do you say no engine covers panels because you cannot see a small water/oil leak?
A small water leak is no safety issue, a small oil leak will usually be discovered under the car or if the car starts to smoke. However, a lost wheel is something completely different with respect to safety.
If you have ever attended a complete Endurance in the driver change area, I can tell you that you will notice quite some teams failing to finish, because the Scrutineers have to pull them off due to parts of the inner wheel assembly or linkage starting to wear out.

[NickFavazzo]

fuel line chafe or swelling, getting ready to burst?...potentially dangerous yet? easily seen?

Lets agree to disagree on this one then Tobias, from my own experience working on our cars with the pods the wheel assembly is very easy to grab and move to check for failures (it is part of our own checksheet along with many other preventive measures which occur everytime the car pits). There is still plenty of meat to grab and you can still reach under the pod if you want more. Maybe photos you are looking at don't show a clear enough view of the pods.

I have seen a few Aus comps, I know they differ greatly to international comps but the majority of failures I have seen are powertrain/electrics failures either on the track or failing to restart.

Regardless of the outcome, this clarification is a good step forward, at the end of the day rules are rules.

[TMichaels]

Nick,
you are right that an endless debate does not really help anyone. Maybe, but this is just a guess, the form of the clarification has also to do with wanting to reduce the effects of aero. I am not able to look into the head of every rules committee member and therefore I do not know what the intention is to be positive or negative towards a specific rule for everyone taking part in the discussions.

I personally think that aero has too much influence and I would therefore always vote for this clarification, even if it did not increase safety.

Back when being a team member I always saw the rules committee as a grey cloud with no direct feedback in any direction. I am openly discussing about these things, because I hope to change this view providing some insights. Rules changes will always be debatable, since we do not live in a digital world with only 0 and 1.

Regarding the Aus comps: Consider to give FSG a try as well http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[NickFavazzo]

Aero is definitely becoming more influential, but isnt that just something else for the teams to justify in design and to decide if it fits their concept?

Believe me when I say I would love to go to FSG, even as a volunteer (when I am no longer a poor uni student..I know excuses excuses)

[TMichaels]

Originally posted by NickFavazzo:
Aero is definitely becoming more influential, but isnt that just something else for the teams to justify in design and to decide if it fits their concept?

In general yes, but I think there is one big difference with aero compared to other design choices: Only a few teams have access to wind tunnels and not many wind tunnels do exist. Therefore I feel that teams with access to a wind tunnel have a hard to overcome advantage against a team which doesn't. But this would again start a basic discussion.


Believe me when I say I would love to go to FSG, even as a volunteer (when I am no longer a poor uni student..I know excuses excuses)
Well I can at least offer you free lodging and food, when you decide to be a volunteer at FSG http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[JulianH]

Originally posted by TMichaels:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by NickFavazzo:
Aero is definitely becoming more influential, but isnt that just something else for the teams to justify in design and to decide if it fits their concept?

In general yes, but I think there is one big difference with aero compared to other design choices: Only a few teams have access to wind tunnels and not many wind tunnels do exist. Therefore I feel that teams with access to a wind tunnel have a hard to overcome advantage against a team which doesn't. But this would again start a basic discussion.

</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Tobias is right, having a wind tunnel is a huge advantage. The problem is, that you can do it without the wind tunnel but it needs a lot of testing time to get all the settings.

(On a side note: If you have problems with the wind tunnel... What about building your own engine with a OEM? I think there are also few possibilites to get your hands on that http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif What about a Cruden simulator? I think there are a lot of "Awesome-but-rare" tools some teams can use...)


The improvements we achieved in the wind tunnel are quiet large but I think we still would have driven the 2012 car with wings only based on the CFD results...


I think the aero rules are "just open enough" to have a speed advantage but the efficiency gets you. Looking at the overall competition you don't have to use aero to win. It depends on the car concept and the rules if you use it (e.g. Ka-Raceing is running the combustion car without wings in Hungary after using wings at FSG).

I think at the end of the day, we are accepting the new rules but the problem is, that the intentions seem to be difficult to grab. Is it to shake the tire or to prevent tire-pods or to restrict aero or to prevent LMP-cars or what ever. It would be great to have an official statement besides the words of Tobias who is not responsible for the desicion.

[TMichaels]

I think at the end of the day, we are accepting the new rules but the problem is, that the intentions seem to be difficult to grab. Is it to shake the tire or to prevent tire-pods or to restrict aero or to prevent LMP-cars or what ever. It would be great to have an official statement besides the words of Tobias who is not responsible for the desicion.

There is no single person who is responsible for the decision to integrate a new rule. Therefore there rarely is a single reason to adopt a new rule. Maybe all of the possible reasons that you mentioned played a role for someone voting for this rule.

I for example forwarded the link of the forum thread with the discussion about the UWA wheelpods to the rules committee mailing list. Besides that there were also many teams requesting a clarification via the rules question mail address. Therefore something had to be done in general. The rest is history.

It was my idea, and now you will start to really hate me, to make it easy to test worldwide by using a standard tennis ball. Pragmatism sometimes wins, but all aero teams now have a new Nemesis...me.

[Kopito]

Originally posted by TMichaels:

It was my idea, and now you will start to really hate me, to make it easy to test worldwide by using a standard tennis ball. Pragmatism sometimes wins, but all aero teams now have a new Nemesis...me.

Tobias, that may be the case, but you got a thick skin, I guess you'll be fine http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif
Ask our chassis guys about somebody who made them laminate something called "copper mesh" on the whole surface of the monocoque…they weren't exactly happy about that.

On a sidenote: You can easily redeem yourself in thinking of an efficiency rule change, that prevents the electric endurance from becoming a turtle race http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

Cheers, Alex
------------------------------
AMZ Racing
2010-2012

[mech5496]

Originally posted by Kopito:

Ask our chassis guys about somebody who made them laminate something called "copper mesh" on the whole surface of the monocoque…they weren't exactly happy about that.



That's a global trend on chassis guys... http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif


Originally posted by Kopito:

On a sidenote: You can easily redeem yourself in thinking of an efficiency rule change, that prevents the electric endurance from becoming a turtle race http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif



That would be really really nice, but then you would have a disadvantage over the (huge) advantage you have now over combustion cars...

[TMichaels]

Ask our chassis guys about somebody who made them laminate something called "copper mesh" on the whole surface of the monocoque…they weren't exactly happy about that.

I know, but there were many monocoque cars out there, which managed to live without the copper mesh...so I would ask: What have you done wrong? http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_razz.gif

[Kopito]

Originally posted by TMichaels:

I know, but there were many monocoque cars out there, which managed to live without the copper mesh...so I would ask: What have you done wrong? http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_razz.gif

That is in fact true but most of those would not follow the rule as we interpreted it (or were given to understand). We did not want to take a risk of NOT passing and having to stand around taking pictures of our car. So maybe we overdid it a bit, that mainly in fear of Jürgen http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif
But trust me, we learned from that. Anyway, 300mOhm was our task in 2011, a smart Efficiency rule is yours in 2012.

Cheers, Alex

-------------------------
AMZ Racing
2010-2012

[TMichaels]

That is in fact true but most of those would not follow the rule as we interpreted it (or were given to understand). We did not want to take a risk of NOT passing and having to stand around taking pictures of our car. So maybe we overdid it a bit, that mainly in fear of Jürgen
But trust me, we learned from that. Anyway, 300mOhm was our task in 2011, a smart Efficiency rule is yours in 2012.
Jürgen is probably one of the nicest persons I know, but we will heavily rephrase the rule as it was obviously way to blurry.

I appreciate any proposal on a better Efficiency ruling, but we are going way off topic now.

[Z]

Originally posted by TMichaels:
Maybe, but this is just a guess, the form of the clarification has also to do with wanting to reduce the effects of aero.
...
I personally think that aero has too much influence and I would therefore always vote for this clarification, even if it did not increase safety.

Back when being a team member I always saw the rules committee as a grey cloud with no direct feedback in any direction. I am openly discussing about these things, because I hope to change this view providing some insights...
Tobias,

Thank you for your honesty in the quote above.

I was going to rant about your many lame excuses regarding the "impossibility" of removing body panels for inspection, and of giving UWA's front wheels a good shake, and the dangers of "carbon fibre splinters", and the cheapness of tennis balls over bits of plywood. Instead I'll just make the following brief points.

1. The most effective safety measure in FSAE is the course layout, which keeps speeds low. Some cars will still fall apart regardless of how many safety inspections are made, but it is the low speeds that limit the potential damage.

2. Good Aero = Good Fuel Efficiency. This both in FSAE and the wider automotive world. Restricting FSAE aero will breed under-educated production car designers, and hence inefficient cars.

Z

(PS. But feel free to ignore this.... http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif)

[Big Bird]

Some good discussion happening here. Thanks Tobias for your patience, and your efforts to provide honest and reasoned insight into the organizers's point of view.

My quick comment, specifically about the UWA pods but more generally about the making of rules (in response to Nick's and Tobias's interaction above). Nick, you spoke about your case, and how Tobias's arguments might not have been valid for the UWA car. Yes, you might have processes in place to ensure wheels don't fall off, and I have no doubt UWA had the safety issues covered that Tobias raised. But it is not the best case that you design for but the worst case, and therefore a rule implemented needs to cater for intrepretations and implementations that my not be as well delivered as the UWA car. And it is this difficulty in imagining potential interpretations that drives some of the ridiculous and vague language that dominates rulebooks of all sorts.

And as per my post in the SAE-A thread, I do sincerely apologize for my stuff-up with this rules addendum. The buck stops here.