Formula 1 Unveils Championship Contending Race Cars

Formula 1 Unveils Championship Contending Race Cars
21
Feb

Throughout this week, Formula 1 began unveiling its championship contending race cars with innovators such as Ferrari, Renault, Mercedes, and McLaren. In automobile racing, winning is inextricably linked in some fashion to speed – the speed of the vehicle, but even more importantly, the speed of technology deployment. Technology that delivers a rapid, first-time-right design. Unified in a perpetual state of wide open throttle, automobile racing employ a combination of velocity, acceleration and G-forces to deliver a potent, high-adrenaline experience unlike any other and design engineers must contend to make their vehicle lighter, faster, and more efficient.

Images courtesy of Formula 1

Quite simply, the winning teams are beating the competition by doing a better job of simulating their designs in real-world environments, aiming to get their designs right the first time, significantly reducing physical testing and allowing the engineering design team to quickly and accurately evaluate their design alternatives. See what Renault and Red Bull Racing had to say about using MSC simulation tools in design optimization:

“MSC was the natural choice of partner. MSC’s subsequent acquisition of MDI brought the Adams suite of tools into the portfolio, allowing us to also simulate the vehicles mechanical systems, and to generate more accurate set-up data and structural loadings.” -Steve Nevey, Business Development Manager and Technical Consultant, Red Bull Racing

“When we started the project we were quite far, we needed to analyze the results and understand the problems in the way we were modelling. Now we are quite happy with the results. We went quite fast in improving the accuracy.” -Philippe Mordillat, NVH CAE Expert – Methodology Development at Renault

To identify problems as early as possible, the best-in-class are more likely to take a systematic approach with simulation, and regularly perform analyses throughout the design process. Some key factors that are important to be considered are:

  • Ride and handling
  • Weight optimization
  • Noise and vibration
  • Acoustics
  • Aerodynamics
  • Durability and fatigue
  • Crash and safety
  • Closed course path optimization
  • Structural analysis of components
  • Composite material modeling
  • Thermal performance
  • Mechatronics
  • Vehicle dynamics
  • Multidiscipline analysis
  • Track simulations
  • Ride height and spring/damper influence

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