Hey guys, I have some query about the rear wing of F1 car....Before the team applied Carbon Fibre to many parts of the car including the rear wing like in the present, which material that they ever used before (aluminium or fiberglass etc.) and why they all changed to used Carbon Fibre...I'm just watching F1 seriously in the past few years. And there are any materials that could replaced carbon fibre in nearly future (especially in rear wing of the car) ?? One last question, has anyone knows the manufacturing processes of building the rear wing of F1....It'll be appreciate if anyone can provide me the information or the links of the rear wing of F1 car because I couldn't find any good info from Internet or may be I was not looking through it good enough. Thanks
Not sure what they used before, but I can tell you why. The weight of carbon fiber is significantly less than steel or aluminum, and is much stronger as well. As far as materials that could replace carbon fiber, scientists are working to create molecularly identical to spider silk, which is 10 times stronger than comparable steel.
I'm pretty certain that all airfoils and bodywork that are carbon fiber now were aluminum in the past.
Rough manufacturing technology history of F1: 1. Crude ladder steel chassis frames, probably alloy bodies. No wings. Pre-F1. 2. Improved steel ladder type frames (ie. Ferrari) but still ladder frames and alloy bodies. No wings. 3. Triangulated steel frames and alloy bodies. No wings. 4. Proper steel spaceframes and alloy or fibreglass bodies. No wings. 5. Steel spaceframes reinforced by riveted alloy sheet. First (riveted alloy) wings. 6. Riveted alloy monocoques, made by forming box sections (... note some like Ferrari and Brabham stuck with the steel spaceframe). Fibreglass bodies. Alloy wings. 7. Riveted alloy honeycomb sandwiched monocoques. Around this time they started making wings with alloy skins as a foam or honeycomb sandwich. 8. Carbon/kevlar male tubs and fibreglass bodies ... and carbon wings. 9. Carbon female tubs (ie. tub forms part of body ...). My 2 cents Pete
Wing production is similar to other composite pieces on the car. Check out this link: http://carboniointakes.com/design.php At the bottom is a video showing the production of carbon fiber parts.
One more query, I just wonder carbon fibre that using in F1 is the same as the one using in normal production car or any mod parts ?? or the material properties are different.. Thanks
The carbon is the same with the difference being that most MOD parts are made using wet lamination while F1 parts use pre-preg carbon made using the method shown in the video. Wet lamination results in a part with only a fraction of the strength properties of a properly made carbon part. All show and little go.
Totally agree ... and quite honestly the most embarrassing thing to have witnessed is this current trend to dress everything up with carbon fibre. There is NO current road car (some Ferrari and Porsche supercars excepted) that needs or will benefit from the addition of carbon fibre dress up kit cr@p. For example a wing mirror made out of carbon fibre is NO lighter than one made out of plastic, does not do its job any better and is just fncken stupid and goes completely against the value of the material. The other rediculous thing we see nowadays is carbon fibre sheet over top of alloy motorcycle frames, even on some race bikes. WTF!!!, it is just adding weight and doing nothing. In the end if it does not make the car go faster .... keep it OFF and please, please, please modern generation stop with this looks focus cr@p and lets get back to the real performance world. Pete
I don't want to argue you Nuvolari but someone has told me that the carbon fibres use in F1 are different with the normal part due to different purposes....so I have found this typical properties of carbon fibre table...what do you guys think which one is the most suitable for building F1 parts. In F1 car, the higher tensile strength the better of the part in my guessing....so how about the density and tensile modulus should be ?? Sorry for ask so many silly questions...but I really need some info from these.....Thx Image Unavailable, Please Login
Weight is also very important, more specifically where it is. Your best bet for that type of info would be to send an email to one of the teams they would tell you it wouldnt be a secret.
It would help to know what info you are looking for, or what you are doing: School project, shed project, you work for Williams... If you are looking to make some parts yourself, search the RC glider guys - they are making some very high performance hollow core molded wings in their kitchens. Plenty of DIY videos available. Real parts, engineered for strength and lightness, not bling. The difference between prepreg and wet layup used to be the quality of the resin & fiber matrix at the start - the prepreg would have a high fiber density with excellent uniformity, and the cured resin would have a higher glass transition temp. Upside is a robot can do a repeatable layup and you can engineer compression members. Downside was you had to refrigerate the raw stock, needed an autoclave to cure the part, and it was bloody expensive! Today though, you can go to Tap Plastics down at the strip mall and buy several different weaves and densities of carbon fiber/kevlar/S-glass. For life safety parts, get something clean though (no skin oil from handling) so the resin bond is guaranteed. Order from aircraft spruce. Then wet lay up the part and vacuum bag it to get the excess resin out. The resins are room temp cure, not particularly toxic or intolerant of mix ratios, have a decent glass transition temp, and have excellent dimensional stability during cure. Paint the part with water soluable black paint, and post cure in the Sun to raise the Tg further. You can easily make very accurate parts pretty quickly with foam and a hotwire system. I would love to know how Scaled manages to get their accuracy so quickly and cheaply! hth, Jon
