| Author |
Message |
Dave Penhale (Dapper)
Member
Username: Dapper
Post Number: 265
Registered: 4-2002
| | Posted on Friday, October 11, 2002 - 5:39 am: | |
Jeffrey, believe me in the UK even 100hp is enough, we spend most of the time crawling in queues of traffic, good clutches are the important feature! |
Mitch Alsup (Mitch_alsup)
Junior Member
Username: Mitch_alsup
Post Number: 134
Registered: 4-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 03, 2002 - 2:12 pm: | |
Its just over twice the HP of a normal American car(1)
(1) Normal american car == { Mustang, Vette, Camaro, Firechicken, Viper } |
Jeffrey Caspar (Jcaspar1)
New member
Username: Jcaspar1
Post Number: 20
Registered: 5-2002
| | Posted on Sunday, September 01, 2002 - 10:37 pm: | |
Great site Jon. I love the discussion on F-1 engines: "With ten times the horsepower of a normal road car...."
Glad I don't live in the UK and have a normal road car! |
Jon P. Kofod (95f355c)
Junior Member
Username: 95f355c
Post Number: 177
Registered: 8-2001
| | Posted on Monday, June 17, 2002 - 6:43 pm: | |
Tim,
Go here: http://www.f1mech.co.uk/
Best site for technical details of F1 cars.
Regards,
Jon P. Kofod
1995 F355 Challenge #23 |
Tim N (Timn88)
Intermediate Member
Username: Timn88
Post Number: 1109
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, June 15, 2002 - 2:52 pm: | |
Thanks Hugh for quenching my never ending thirst for knowledge, i really appriciate that. Im sure alot of people learned some new things from it. That should go down for Fchat post of the week. |
Hubert Otlik (Hugh)
Junior Member
Username: Hugh
Post Number: 118
Registered: 1-2002
| | Posted on Friday, June 14, 2002 - 5:11 pm: | |
Tim: The following is an article authored by Steve Matchett regarding F1 brakes. Enjoy.
Former Benetton engineer, Speedvision pundit and F1 Racing's new technical editor Steve Matchett on the art and science of effective braking.
Having the most powerful engine in the pit lane isn't enough to guarantee on-track success, the drivers and engineers need to make the best possible use of the car's braking system too.
Controlling the car's retardation - with no loss of stability - is paramount to a driver's performance. Rather than relying on sheer engine power to out-drag the opposition, it has long been recognised that the most reliable way of overtaking a competitors is out-brake them: pull out towards the end of the straight, dash down the inside and see who dares to stay off the brakes the longest.
The 4.5 g-load experienced under braking is more than twice that produced under hard acceleration, as the drivers release more than 800 horsepower to the rear wheels. In fact, most of the car's overall performance is a result of having efficient, reliable brakes.
The next race on the Formula 1 calendar is the Canadian Grand Prix, held in Montreal at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Along with Imola, these two tracks are regarded as the hardest on brakes; for the teams, merely succeeding in getting their cars' brake discs and pads to last the distance at either of these two venues is considered a small victory in its own right.
Eddie Irvine under heavy braking at the 1998 Italian GP at Monza For the past 20 years the Formula 1 teams have favoured carbon discs and pads. They were first introduced by designer Gordon Murray back in 1980, then working as chief designer with Bernie Ecclestone's Brabham outfit.
Murray's flash of inspiration came after reading a magazine article covering the development of the carbon brakes especially developed by Dunlop Aviation for the Concorde project.
Two decades of evolution have greatly enhanced the efficiency of Murray's original carbon disc designs. However, progress has been made on all fronts, and contemporary steel discs (and composite pads) are now actually about equal in terms of potential 'stopping' power. And steel brakes are but a fraction of the cost of their carbon counterparts.
So, why do the teams insist on using such expensive carbon brakes when steel units will stop the car just as well?
The real advantage of using carbon brakes is the immense weight difference between carbon and steel: a carbon disc weighs approximately one kilo - more than three kilos lighter than its steel equivalent - a collective saving of twelve kilos over the four corners of the car. For the engineers, any reduction to the car's mass is advantageous, but savings on brake weight is worth more than ever.
Mounted on the car's axles, the brake discs rotate at the same speed as the wheels; the resulting rotational, centrifugal force generates a gyroscopic effect which, depending on velocity, makes the steering increasingly heavy, the car less responsive to the driver's steering input .
You may remember a similar experiment in science class, when holding the axle of a spinning bicycle wheel? If not, then give it a go, the results are quite staggering! If you try this while seated on a swivel-chair, you will find that there is sufficient energy to effortlessly turn in circles. The less spinning mass there is, the less the gyroscopic effect; in terms of F1, this results in a lighter, more nimble race car.
Carbon disc production is exceedingly longwinded, each disc takes six months to manufacture. The process requires carbon particles to be superheated and compressed under great pressure, in this way the carbon is gradually fused together without the need for any bonding resins (which would burn off under braking, causing the disc to disintegrate). Half a year is required to produce a carbon disc - and, at tracks such as Montreal, perhaps less than a race distance is all that's required to render it an obsolete piece of scrap.
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Hubert Otlik (Hugh)
Junior Member
Username: Hugh
Post Number: 115
Registered: 1-2002
| | Posted on Friday, June 14, 2002 - 2:46 pm: | |
Tim:
F1 brakes are amazing, F1 cars can go from 200 mph to 50 mph in 3 seconds! Taking 100 metres, roughly 300 feet. Often with a force of 4G. Coincidentally, just taking your foot off the throttle in an F1 car will create 1.1G's.
F1 cars use disc brakes like most road cars, but are designed to work at 750 degrees C and are discarded after each race. The driver needs the car to be stable under heavy braking, and is able to adjust the balance between front and rear braking force from a dial in the cockpit. The brakes are usually set-up with 60% of the braking force to the front, 40% to the rear.
For qualifying, when longevity of the brake discs is not important, teams often run thinner discs to reduce the 'unsprung' weight of the car. Race discs are 28 mm thick (the maximum allowed) where the special qualifying discs are often as thin as 21 mm. Ferrari often uses lightweight calipers during qualifying as well. Teams often run either very small or in some cases no front brake ducts during qualifying to gain an aerodynamic advantage.
These brakes are extremely expensive as they are made from hi-tech carbon materials (long chain carbon, as in carbon fibre) and they can take up to 5 months to produce a single brake disk. The first stage in making a disc is to heat white polyacrylo nitrile (PAN) fibres until they turn black. This makes them pre-oxidised, and are arranged in layers similar to felt. They are then cut into shape and carbonised to obtain very pure carbon fibres. Next, they undergo two densification heat cycles at around 1000 degrees Celsius. These stages last hundreds of hours, during which a hydrocarbon-rich gas in injected into the oven or furnace. This helps the layers of felt-like material to fuse together and form a solid material. The finished disc is then machined to size ready for installing onto the car.
There are two main companies that make brakes for F1 cars, AP Racing and Brembo (Brembo has recently acquired AP Racing). Carbon discs and pads are more abrasive than steel and dissipate heat better making them advantageous. Steel brakes as used in CART are heavier and have disadvantages in distortion and heat transfer. Metal brake discs weigh about 3 Kg, carbon systems typically 1.4 Kg. Metal brakes are advantageous in some aspects such as 'feel'. The driver can get more feedback from metal brakes than carbon brakes, with the carbon systems often being described like an on-off switch. The coefficient of friction between the pads and the discs can be as much as 0.6 when the brakes are up to temperature. You can often see the brake discs glowing during a race, this is due to the high temperatures in the disc, with the normal operating temperature between 400-800 degrees Celsius.
Hope this helps,
Hubert |
Tim N (Timn88)
Intermediate Member
Username: Timn88
Post Number: 1093
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, June 13, 2002 - 8:15 pm: | |
anyone know what they run? Slotted? drilled? blank? ceramic, carbon, etc? |
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