[Tech Issue] KERS : The Second Coming? Bigger rear tyres?

[fourWheelDrift]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Petrobras have been involved in an ethanol program with the Japanese as well as producing biodiesel in their own right. Then again the Brazillians have been involved in ethanol production for sometime. Apex another ethanol producer supplies the IICS. Engines have to be adapted to a certain extent so they can use ethanol. For example the Indy Honda engine was upgraded to 3.5L because the original 3.0L engine was underpowered. Anycase it will be interesting to see how the ethanol program develops.

A world of difference between Ethanol and Methanol though. Ethanol would have genuinely green credentials if only we weren't driving up world food prices by shutting down food production in order to produce it.

[Sodemo]

Originally Posted by JeremySmith

Are we talking bigger or wider?

Bigger I think, which is why I don't understand what positive effect it will have (aside from looking nicer with bigger rims).

[JeremySmith]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

Bigger I think, which is why I don't understand what positive effect it will have (aside from looking nicer with bigger rims).

I don't understand that either to be honest ?

[Bononi]

Originally Posted by fourWheelDrift

A world of difference between Ethanol and Methanol though. Ethanol would have genuinely green credentials if only we weren't driving up world food prices by shutting down food production in order to produce it.

That's only in theory, a concern not really proven and pressed only by rich countries interests. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil
It has been done with reasonable success since the 80s for the internal market and it's growing, most of the domestic fleet runs on ethanol by now, you find it in any gas station throughout the country, and with the addition with the flex cars since 2003, the figures goes high as 70%, that's for one of the biggest vehicle fleet in the world.

[bjohnsonsmith]

There is a massive difference between Ethanol and Methanol. Ethanol is an alcohol, while Methanol is made from either natural gas or coal.

[Chiefy]

Originally Posted by duke_toaster

They are also talking about larger rear wheels for next year, however the rear wheels are currently 380mm wide (15 inches for the luddites)...

As any luddite will tell you, 15 inches is 381mm.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Chiefy's right, 381 Millimetres = 15 inches, luddite or not. However, 380 Millimetres = 14.9606299213 inches and if you round that up to the nearest decimal point you get 15 inches. So it's a draw.

[fourWheelDrift]

Originally Posted by Bononi

That's only in theory, a concern not really proven and pressed only by rich countries interests. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil
It has been done with reasonable success since the 80s for the internal market and it's growing, most of the domestic fleet runs on ethanol by now, you find it in any gas station throughout the country, and with the addition with the flex cars since 2003, the figures goes high as 70%, that's for one of the biggest vehicle fleet in the world.

Of course it is successful technically, making ethanol is pretty easy it is well documented that it went on in neolithic times so tens of thousands of years at least, using it in IC engines isn't terribly difficult either. That doesn't mean the effect on the world economy of taking huge tracts of land out of food production to make fuel for cars can just be ignored, even if it does work for Brazil. There are other ways to produce ethanol of course and also the possibility of using parts of the crop that are discarded as waste and hopefully these things will come on stream but for now they are not in large scale production and are certainly not going to be driven by any decisions made for F1.

However if you read my original post I was pointing out that Ethanol has more claim to being green than Methanol because it is (indirectly) a product of photosynthesis and the carbon in it comes from the atmosphere whereas Methanol contains fossil carbon which was removed from the atmospheric carbon cycle millions of years ago.

Having said all this I can't quite see what the green fuel issue has to do with F1. If F1 wants to promote itself as having some environmental benefit (and I say if because I'm by no means sure it does or should) it needs to position itself as driving the development of something which could reduce the environmental impact of road transport, KERS could do this, making fuel efficiency a key part of the formula could do this, if you want to go to extremes all electric cars could do this but changing the chemical you put in your fuel tank for another fuel that has been proven decades ago is just smoke and mirrors.

[Bononi]

Originally Posted by fourWheelDrift

That doesn't mean the effect on the world economy of taking huge tracts of land out of food production to make fuel for cars can just be ignored, even if it does work for Brazil. There are other ways to produce ethanol of course and also the possibility of using parts of the crop that are discarded as waste and hopefully these things will come on stream but for now they are not in large scale production ...

That's exactly what's happening in Brazil, poduction in large scale, the waste are re-used and so on... just follow my link in the previous post !

[fourWheelDrift]

Originally Posted by Bononi

That's exactly what's happening in Brazil, poduction in large scale, the waste are re-used and so on... just follow my link in the previous post !

I have read the article you link to and am well aware of the unique position Brazil finds itself in. You have missed my point completely, the crop in Brazil is sugar cane produced for the production of ethanol, my reference to using waste is to growing a food crop for food and using the waste parts of the crop for ethanol production which is possible but is not straightforward the point is this could produce a useful amount of biofuel with essentially zero impact on food production. As I said above the model you are advocating works for Brazil because they have an extroardinary amount of arable land per capita and a climate suitable for growing sugar cane which it need hardly be said is a very sugar rich crop. This model simply cannot be extrapolated to the rest of the world without impacting food prices.

[Bononi]

Fair enough FourWheelDrift !

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by fourWheelDrift

This model simply cannot be extrapolated to the rest of the world without impacting food prices.

In the US, many farmers have switched to growing corn, maize, to produce bio-fuels because they can command a good price for corn. As less corn is being produced for food, the impact has been a hike in the price of food that uses corn or corn derivatives, a hike in animal feed stuffs that use corn, leading to a hike in the price of those animal based products.

[NaBUru38]

It doesn't matter whether KERSs save fuel: the technology developed to make F1 cars more powerful can be transferred to road cars. So allowing them will help build more fuel efficient road cars. The only "but" I find is cost, and with it equality between wealthy teams and poor ones.

Originally Posted by Sodemo

Bigger I think, which is why I don't understand what positive effect it will have (aside from looking nicer with bigger rims).

A thinner tire wall makes the rim float less on the tire, therefore the acceleration caused by tire-track friction will be better transferred to the rim and to the rest of the car. So cars will turn better.

[NaBUru38]

Originally Posted by fourWheelDrift

As I said above the model you are advocating works for Brazil because they have an extroardinary amount of arable land per capita and a climate suitable for growing sugar cane which it need hardly be said is a very sugar rich crop.

Sugar causes obesity, so switching to sugar-cane etanol makes us healthier! :P

[NaBUru38]

Today's The Way It Is brings today a wider idea than KERS:

Originally Posted by Ulrich Baretzky, Audi Sport's engine boss

[...] we should not lose sight of is all kinds of waste energy recovery systems. I don't say KERS. I say waste energy recovery by using the exhaust and turbo where you really could get more efficiency into a race car.

[duke_toaster]

I think we'll see turbos in F1 when the new engine formula come in for 2012 or 2013. They'll probably be 1600cc, but I'm not sure how that would work with the number of engines per season unless they are very reliable ...

[Pingguest]

Originally Posted by duke_toaster

I think we'll see turbos in F1 when the new engine formula come in for 2012 or 2013. They'll probably be 1600cc, but I'm not sure how that would work with the number of engines per season unless they are very reliable ...

The introduction of a new set of engine regulations it would be right time to get rid of the enforced reliability.

[duke_toaster]

Not bearing in mind the need to cut costs, and ensure the engines are road relevant (I wouldn't buy a car that needed a new engine every 305km!) - if anything, it's the perfect time to reduce the number of engines to around six.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by duke_toaster

I think we'll see turbos in F1 when the new engine formula come in for 2012 or 2013. They'll probably be 1600cc, but I'm not sure how that would work with the number of engines per season unless they are very reliable ...

I posted an article written by Gordon Kirby about engines in motorsport on the, [Tech Issue] Conspiracy? The lack of proper aerodynamic changes thread.

[Pingguest]

Originally Posted by duke_toaster

Not bearing in mind the need to cut costs, and ensure the engines are road relevant (I wouldn't buy a car that needed a new engine every 305km!) - if anything, it's the perfect time to reduce the number of engines to around six.

Would you buy a car that needs a new engine every 5.300km then? In fact, most people wouldn't even buy a car that needs an engine replacement every 100.000km!

Besides, I still can't see how the 'cost-cutting' measures reduced budgets. As long as teams have the money, they'll be spending it. If teams can't spend their money on the best thing, they will spend it on the second best thing.
On this subject I recently read an interesting article on GrandPrix.com.
http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns17768.html

[fourWheelDrift]

Originally Posted by Pingguest

Would you buy a car that needs a new engine every 5.300km then? In fact, most people wouldn't even buy a car that needs an engine replacement every 100.000km!

Besides, I still can't see how the 'cost-cutting' measures reduced budgets. As long as teams have the money, they'll be spending it. If teams can't spend their money on the best thing, they will spend it on the second best thing.
On this subject I recently read an interesting article on GrandPrix.com.
http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns17768.html

The critical thing is cutting the costs of competing not the budgets of the top teams. The important thing is that it should be possible to run a reasonably competitive team on a sensible budget which a relatively small concern can raise. It actually doesn't matter if the top teams are spending hundreds of millions on stuff that is irrelevant to performance, it only becomes a problem if they are being allowed to spend it in a way which improves their performance to the point where they can push out the smaller teams.

That article is pretty old by the way.

[Pingguest]

Originally Posted by fourWheelDrift

The critical thing is cutting the costs of competing not the budgets of the top teams. The important thing is that it should be possible to run a reasonably competitive team on a sensible budget which a relatively small concern can raise. It actually doesn't matter if the top teams are spending hundreds of millions on stuff that is irrelevant to performance, it only becomes a problem if they are being allowed to spend it in a way which improves their performance to the point where they can push out the smaller teams.

That article is pretty old by the way.

In a capitalist sport like Formula 1 money is always an important factor. With stricter rules money becomes even more important, as teams can only refine what everybody already has.

[tblincoe]

I've alluded to FOTA's general stance on KERS in other threads and I think that the more power, constrained costs route is the way to go. While addressing the former is easy, its the latter part that poses the biggest problem. Understanding how the overall budget containment mechanisms will be enforced in the coming years would help us get an idea of how KERS-specific cost containment could occur organically.

As for the larger rear tires, I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. Besides the obvious redesign costs and global performance issues, wouldn't larger rears also create a larger aero wake behind the car?

[JagtechOhio]

Yep. Still smells fishy to me. But I'm calm this evening, thank you.

[wnut]

Originally Posted by Pingguest

In a capitalist sport like Formula 1 money is always an important factor. With stricter rules money becomes even more important, as teams can only refine what everybody already has.

I think you have hit this one right in the sweet spot. I can imagine the big teams spending millions on KERS systems through consultant and subsidiary companies and then having the major input on writing the rules to ensure their system is dominant, and nobody else can overturn the party with an "interesting innovation".

Why not limit the quantity of fuel -already done and allow them to recover energy anywhere they can get it and for heavens sake don't limit the power boost - just leave it open - then you will see innovation.

Not optimised self interest!

Regards
wnut