1st revision of 2015 rules released

Ok, it seems that the ETC rules are a bit too extreme... Is Kettering University the only team that has an issue with that (the only team that planned to run it?!) or are the others just silent?

In my experience, Michael and Andrew, complaining about it in this forum does not change anything. You should take it up to the rules committee. When FSG announced some serious Aero restrictions for 2014, the guys from Monash wrote a nice document where they explained why the rules are too strict - not purposeful.

Maybe your team - with the experience of CSC - could try a comparable approach. To be honest, I still think the Germans are much better to talk to compared to the US responsibles, so don't know if this works, but it's worth a shot...


Kevin,
you proposed a delay of the rules for 2016 - do you still think this is necessary? I am sadly not able to fully understand the impact of the changes so don't know if the teams that already started designing their car for Michigan have an issue. If Curtin wants to go to Europe 2015, do they need more changes besides a different aero package?

John, Is there a reason or has it been done before, that we don't use drive by testing (such as on the run up to the brake test or on an accel length road). As I understand this is how noise compliance is tested on motorcycles at most racetracks in australia. Motorcycle racing GCR specify testing to be done towards the end of a straight under full throttle.

I don't know of anywhere where noise is measured with a static vehicle.

Also in regards to the SCCA rule style testing (which sounds similar to the motorcycle noise testing method) why not do the testing on a longer run immediately after brake test?

Nick

The brake check and acceleration run do not test enough of a range of engine events. Many of the sound violations come from off throttle events including backfires that show up while running the endurance event. Putting a meter out on track and handing penalties for sound violations caused frustration for students and organizers. You do not want that simulation to return.

John Burford

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JulianH

If Curtin wants to go to Europe 2015, do they need more changes besides a different aero package?

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Hi Julian,

Based on my reading of rule T3.5.5 "The support tube must have the same diameter and thickness as the bent tube, terminate at a node of the chassis, and be angled no more than 45 degrees from the plane of the bent tube." our upper side impact bar would not be rules legal. Although we potentially get around this with stressed panels and then structural equivalency.

A few pictures of our 2013 chassis are here, our 2014 side impact is similar. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...8650754&type=3

Reading through the new monocoque rules for our first metallic monocoque in 2015, this new section really stumps me:

Quote:

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T4.5.4 EV CARS ONLY
In addition a firewall must separate the driver compartment from all tractive system components.
NOTE: this includes any HV wiring.
The tractive system firewall must be composed of two layers:
a. One layer, facing the tractive system side, must be made of aluminum with a thickness
between 0.5 and 0.7 mm. This part of the tractive system firewall must be grounded according
to FSAE Rule EV4.3.
b. The second layer, facing the driver, must be made of an electrically insulating material. The
material used for the second layer must meet UL94-V0, FAR25 or equivalent. The second
layer must not be made of CFRP.

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Is a 0.8mm aluminium skin illegal? And does only the firewall have to be coated with rubber or everything that the driver touches? Obviously they want to electrically isolate the driver in the case of the tractive system energising the chassis but surely a completely conductive box is going to do a better job then a layer of rubber on a part the driver is never going to touch since the seat will separate them from the firewall....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JulianH

Ok, it seems that the ETC rules are a bit too extreme... Is Kettering University the only team that has an issue with that (the only team that planned to run it?!) or are the others just silent?

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I think Kettering just has the most familiarity/design maturity due to CSC. I agree with the Kettering appraisal from my current understanding of ETC. As far as I can read, the rules implementation of ETC literally is just replacing a conventional cable with ton of sensors, wires, and a motor without presenting much possibility to reducing pumping losses due to throttling which is really the biggest benefit to ETC. Right now the ETC rules really only let you decouple pedal movement from butterfly movement (you could more-or-less do this with a mechanical cam) and add a whole ton of failure modes into the package which are not present with cable throttle bodies. My team is not ready to implement ETC, but given the current rules I believe we would think twice about doing it from an FMEA sense alone as there really aren't many benefits to outweigh the increase in failure modes or huge amount of design time.

Julian,

My reasons for proposing the delay were stated as:

- Allowing teams to have plenty of time to adjust to large concept changes
- Allowing time for feedback and development of clearly worded rules with objective scrutineering procedures
- Avoiding situations where teams are not able to travel due to cars becoming illegal, with unreasonable changes required to make them legal in a short time frame

Most of the focus of discussion was on the first point, but I feel much more strongly about the last point. The team I am faculty advisor for was unable to travel to the UK in 2013 because of a minor change to the chassis rules that was not announced prior to the official rules release.

In this set of rules we have all three problems well and truly covered.

These rules have significant conceptual effects

There are quite a few sections which are quite subjective. Hopefully there will be a lot more clarification on the scrutineering procedures in the coming months.

Finally there are lots of small changes that affect the main structure of the car. A lot more monocoque testing, increased restrictions on spaceframes as well as a lot more details about bolted joints. In amongst that there is plenty that could invalidate a car built to the current rules structurally. A grandfathering clause would be really useful for these cases, otherwise teams may have to make fundamental changes to chassis systems. Something that I think would stop affected teams being able to travel. Of course these a preventable by much earlier rules releases.

I think a good argument could be made that expecting smaller wings (or other performance hit) is not too much to ask of traveling teams, but full tear-downs with potentially large structural modifications is going too far.

Without going into details (a lot of points in this rules release) yes I do think a delay would have been the wise choice. What may be helpful now is to look to an earlier release in following years as being a standard. In the discussion we had on the other thread there wasn't any opposition to the idea that rules releases could be made earlier.

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O̶n̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶h̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶p̶u̶s̶h̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶c̶r̶e̶a̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶t̶r̶o̶l̶ ̶o̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶c̶e̶d̶u̶r̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶e̶a̶m̶s̶ ̶p̶e̶r̶f̶o̶r̶m̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶s̶i̶d̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶p̶e̶t̶i̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶(̶i̶.̶e̶.̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶p̶s̶ ̶p̶u̶n̶i̶s̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶e̶a̶m̶s̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶u̶s̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶i̶r̶ ̶c̶a̶r̶s̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶p̶u̶r̶p̶o̶s̶e̶s̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶a̶p̶p̶r̶o̶v̶e̶d̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶o̶r̶g̶a̶n̶i̶s̶e̶r̶s̶)̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶w̶e̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶i̶m̶p̶l̶i̶c̶i̶t̶ ̶a̶p̶p̶r̶o̶v̶a̶l̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶p̶l̶a̶y̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶a̶r̶o̶u̶n̶d̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶p̶o̶t̶e̶n̶t̶i̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶n̶a̶s̶t̶y̶ ̶c̶h̶e̶m̶i̶c̶a̶l̶s̶.̶

Apart from fairly consistently advocating an earlier release of the rules my other favorite hobby horse is to introduce homolgated tyres to the competition. Tyres supplied at the comp for running, by suppliers that can supply a minimum number of approved tyres (i.e. no special one-off tyres). Tyres have always been a considerable expense and waste. Who cares about saving 1-2 litres of fuel when you throw out tyres after 22km? Now we are likely to see another tyres arms race, but with all sorts of treatments as well as the custom tyres starting to appear.

Obviously an earlier release (or at least an early draft release) would enable a decent period of feedback and explanation to occur. Maybe we can start a push to have the 2016 rules released somewhere between feb and may in 2015.

Kev

Thanks for your answer Kevin.
It's always difficult to be "the old car in a new set of rules". I think the "Monash way" to skip every second year and have a car built to the first year of the two year cycle is the better choice. So for Australian teams to be in Europe in even years. I still would love to see all of you guys in Europe every year but I'm sure that the new rules are only one fraction of the issue here. Budget is probably more difficult...


About the tires:
When I was part of the staff at FSA this year, there was one team that obviously soaked their tires in some grip enhancers (when they opened the tire protectors the tires seemed basically "wet"... The scrutineers saw that but the reaction was sooo quickly: "Yes, but we did it before static judging so it's ok". And that was it...

I think it is ok to use tire softeners or what ever because otherwise we had to ban customized tires too (Delft, Eindhoven and Darmstadt are basically able to bring tires "softened" at the competition...).

But what I don't like is that this excessive use of tire softener reduces the life span of the tires and therefore leads to a budget-issue.

In my opinion a new rule should be introduced that only one set of tires is allowed to be used at the dynamic events. Teams can do brake test or testing on an old set but if they enter a dynamic event, they can only run this marked set.
If they think they can run an endurance with softened tires, ok.

But, I think using "suuuper softened" tires for Accel / Skidpad, "medium softened" tires for AutoX and "mildly softened" tires for Endurance is an unfair advantage for the "rich teams". Tires are expensive...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by John_Burford

Nick

The brake check and acceleration run do not test enough of a range of engine events. Many of the sound violations come from off throttle events including backfires that show up while running the endurance event. Putting a meter out on track and handing penalties for sound violations caused frustration for students and organizers. You do not want that simulation to return.

John Burford

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If on track violations are enough for ADR and other non-FSAE motorsport organisations then why should FSAE be different, competitions are often run at motorsport venues, surely fitting to the tracks existing noise restrictions is sufficient.

I wasn't really suggesting having a meter permanently on track though, but rather a chance for drive by noise to be tested (similar to the ADR test procedure).

Kev, Big fan of the homologated tyres idea or at least a homologated list with manufacturers guaranteeing the availability of sufficient tyres. Introduce a tyre war...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JulianH

Ok, it seems that the ETC rules are a bit too extreme... Is Kettering University the only team that has an issue with that (the only team that planned to run it?!) or are the others just silent?

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I'm silently busy with other things. But I agree, they are too extreme and there are some confusing parts in there that I need clarification on with the rules committee.