For all the focus on developing a Formula One car to improve performance, relatively little is done to improve the driver’s physical conditions when seated in the car. Most of the allowances for the driver are as a result of safety requirements, but comfort and heat stress are equally important factors. Safety in the cockpit, aside from the fundamental function of the monocoque as a survival cell, is largely about driver restraints and fire protection. Each driver is held in place by...
Providing power and signal cabling to every extremity of the car is the job of the wiring loom. But as the need for ever-tighter packaging in a Formula One car contradicts the spiralling complexity of the electronics, so the wiring loom has an ever-tougher brief to meet. Connecting up the FIA-spec ECU and power box to all the electronic subsystems, sensors and actuators around the car, means the loom literally extends to every corner of the car. Although most of the major electronic boxes...
Few who have ever witnessed a vehicle fire, let alone one in a Grand Prix machine, will ever forget the foreboding, the simple sheer terror of it all, and with it the intense heat, once alight and without proper fire-fighting equipment, as bystanders we can do very little. As a youth I still remember watching on television Lorenzo Bandini’s fiery demise at the 1967 Monaco race and Roger Williamson’s in Holland some five years later. Such images are still indelibly printed in my...
It is vital for any Formula One team wanting to remain competitive to maximise its research and testing resources. Whether it is because of financial limitations, regulatory constraints or a simple lack of hours in the day, there is never as much testing data available as they would like. To this end, teams are constantly assessing new technologies and methodologies that could help draw more data from a given testing scenario. One such development in the sphere of aerodynamics testing...
When we talk of powder metallurgy methods of manufacture, there are two almost unconnected methods. The first, which is used to manufacture near net-shape components, involves filling a mould with powdered metal and sintering it together under pressure to produce a pre-form that may need very little machining before the part can be used in an engine. Some production con rods are produced by this technique. However, for the purposes of this article, I want to discuss the powder metallurgy...