Formula 1 Design

How do Formula 1 teams design a new car in only 5 months? Partially because of new software which allows every piece of the car (including the semi-naked driver) to be modeled in 3D to calculate its aerodynamics before it is made. It amazes me how the design process has improved when you think a Mercedes S class used to take 10 years to design in 1986.

Formula 1 traction control et all

[cluge]

One of the big problems in Formula 1 has been the reviewing of engine management software. "Driver aids" had been outlawed, but it has been rumored that some teams were just able to cleverly hide these aids deep in the thousands of lines of code. You know what this means?

Annoucing the OPEN SOURCE engine management software foundation

Dedicated to getting your driver ahead the open source way. Let the competition see your engine management code, who cares. Our coders are so cryptic that they won't be able to do a thing. We can develop complex traction control systems (which are now legal) in weeks using the talents of thousands of coders from around the world that have never actually seen a real race car.

• Cut your development time!!
• Open source built simulators arae better than MS built simulators!!
• Our drivers don't crash as often as the competition!

Re:maybe too fast?

[silicon_synapse]

Just one minor detail. Software can be produced very quickly and shoved out to market because you can always release a patch later. In the auto world, there may not be a chance for SP1. I would much rather see software development more closely resemble this F1 production rather than the other way around.

A new way to design new cars?

[frinkster]

Consider - F1 cars are designed more or less from the ground up with all custom parts. Not only that, but racing cars have to be safer than a normal car - it is not uncommon for a racing car to slam into a wall at 200+ MPH. Can this design model be used to design cars for the consumer market? I think it could do this well - after all, components, chassis, etc. are usually shared across many models and sometimes brands.

I remember reading something about Ford using a room full of supercomputers to do modeling. This should be the standard method for designing a car these days - model the whole thing using the F1 modeling software and crash test using supercopmuter modeling. Add in the fact that since you're using computer modeling to design the cars, you can engineer the cars to tighter tolerances and get a much more reliable car. I'm surprised that we don't hear of more companies taking advantage of this.

maybe too fast?

[alphapartic1e]

If mass-production automobile design could develop at this rate, we may very well see the "software phenomenon" in cars. Anyone care for a BMW 328i Version 2.2 Release V with Service Pack 6a?

Not new

[nuggz]

CATIA, IDEAS and Pro/Eng aren't new.
FEA isn't new, CFD isn't new.

I dind't see any new software.

The impressive part is they can manage a 500 person team so well, that is pretty damn impressive.

the illusion of safety...

[gtx]

with a car that took 10 years to design, you at least get that illusion of safety... just think about it - which car would you rather drive?

"Our skilled team of engineers has been laboring over this car for the last 10 years to maximize efficiency and driver safety"

or...

"...so I took the modeling software home, and my 14 year old son started playing with it, and next thing you know, 5 months later, he came up with something that actually looked technically feasible! So we built it!"

Maybe I'm just a bit too cynical, but I'll take the mercedes S-class, thankyouverymuch...

although it's probably rooted in my deep-seated fear of convenience. For instance, I'd never fly anything I built. That's why you never see any of those ultralight helicopter kits in my garage ;)

Re:A new way to design new cars?

[Louis_Wu]

Add in the fact that since you're using computer modeling to design the cars, you can engineer the cars to tighter tolerances and get a much more reliable car.

Tolerances are driven mostly by manufacturing methods - the more expensive and precise your manufacturing method/system, the tighter the tolerances can be. CAD/CAE software does help tighten up tolerances, but only in that you can place the parts precisely in relation to each other in the simulation CAD allows exact placement in three dimensions, eliminating problems in translating 3D thoughts into 2D drawings and then back into 3D parts.

The software does help, but you can only design for tolerances which you can build to. If I specify a flat surface with +/-0.0005 inches over the square-foot area, but I smooth out that surface with a river rock, my tolerances mean squat. Designing parts and systems with tighter tolerances than can be built is pointless.

Louis Wu

"One of life's hardest lessons is that life's lessons are hard to learn."

f1 and distributed computing

[fotoguzzi]

I think I would rather have my computer cycles go to making the next Lotus or Ferrari than in finding green space mutants, but I must say that SETI is easy to use. If an F1 or suspension bridge or super-collider program was available and as nonintrusive as SETI has been, I would dump the little green bastards immediately. bkm

Re:Formula 1 traction control et all

[lisle]

"our drivers (haha) don't crash (haha again)..."

Re:A new way to design new cars?

[nuggz]

Computer modelling is a poor replacement for manual stress calculations.
Model something simple with some FEA software and from basic mechanical principles, you'll get two different answers, one of them is more likely correct.
Computer modelling is nice, I use to think it was the solution to everything, till I took a course in FEM, and did a bit of CFD work. You're better off with Free Body Diagrams and a calculator.

Computer modelling is still only appropriate to get an idea what is going on without doing much real work.

Using CAD/CAE software to check the fits and intereferences of parts is one place where computers beat out the manual methods today.

Maybe in the future widespread computer modelling will work, but right now it is in its infancy and people tend not to realize this since it makes nice coloured plots.