Race Car Design

Product Information

Looking at the cars this season, you can see that the approaches to this problem largely fall into two camps. We call these 'outboard-loaded' and 'inboard loaded'. To get started, OBR produced some preliminary designs as CAD models to generate essential data to meet design parameters, including mass and predicted stiffness. The team put initial design and research information into a criteria-based decision-making system called a Pugh matrix. That allowed the team to attribute numerical values to design elements and determine the best solution for its Formula Student car chassis — the result: moulded carbon fibre monocoque. Crucially, a thorough Balance of Performance equalisation programme is designed to make good any aerodynamic disadvantages that result from the design changes, paving the way for a good-looking car that’s still capable of winning against LMP2 rivals when the two race each other. The chassis balance is often assessed subjectively, but it does have very objective roots. In the most basic terms, chassis balance describes which axle loses grip first and leads to under or oversteer. The physics behind balance forms one of the fundamental equations of cornering, namely the concept of yaw moment equilibrium.

Two of the new Mazdas, which share a chassis with the Riley MkXXX LMP2, were joined on the grid for the Daytona 24 Hours at the end of January by three Cadillac DPi-V.Rs, which are built on Dallara LMP2 chassis. The desired CG location will generally depend on neutral steer points (which depends on the choice of tyres), the location of the aerodynamic center of pressure (CP), required load on driven wheels for traction and required load on steering wheels for control. In addition, the CG must be as low as possible, to reduce lateral transfer on the car. It’s desirable to keep the roll centre as low as possible to maximise the horizontal component, but lowering the roll centre too much creates a large moment arm between the CoM, though, so there’s a balance to be made here. That's because the inherent nervousness of the 'peaky' approach means the driver does not have the confidence to push to the limit, as he fears he might lose control. British motorsport expertise played a role here; IMSA’s scalemodel aerodynamic test programme was conducted in a wind tunnel at Williams F1 with Ben Wood, a British aerodynamicist who previously worked for Brawn GP. Mazda’s RT24-P DPi bodywork was co-developed with Multimatic in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire.

Design Process

On the side view sketch, front and rear axle centrelines are drawn together with the ground line and the undertray line, thus defining the ground clearance of the car. On the top view, a rough estimation of the location of major components such as engine, gearbox, fuel, water and oil tanks, radiators, seats, and minor components, such as pedals, gear lever, pipes an throttle cable is made. The detailed design process includes constant solution proposal to specific problems and analysis of these solutions. These efforts should be run in parallel, since data from one is required to conclude the other. The proposal of new solutions might follow the engineering design process, which consists of the following steps: For this article, it’s enough to understand that with all else being equal (i.e. the exact tyre, spring-damper and suspension kinematics on all four wheels), the significant input into chassis balance is the longitudinal CoM location relative to the wheelbase of the racecar. Mercedes have gone for 'outboard'. Their car has the highest and steepest bits of the wing at the outside tips, where the flaps meet what is called the end-plate, the vertical structure at the outside of the wing. The changes mean teams have lost a lot of our ability to control one of the biggest problems for an F1 designer - the air coming off the front tyres.

This book is intended for motorsport engineering students and is the best possible resource for those involved in Formula Student/FSAE. It is also a valuable guide for practising car designers and constructors, and enthusiasts.There is also services available for the 'Commercial' and 'Transportation' aspects of motorsport. MDM Designs can create livery designs for Race Transporters, Vans and more. Visual Proposals A decade ago, Saward was project manager on the Furai programme, creating the beautiful concept car that met a fiery end during a magazine test. There are hints of its swoopy lines, too, in the new DPi. Those names refer to the point on the front wing on which the most downforce is exerted, and consequently where the airflow is being directed. Please see our 'Promotional Design Service' for more information with how Livery Design and Promotional Design can be combined specifically to motorsport. The Design of a vehicle is an iterative process where you attempt to meet all objectives you have defined. In practice, you usually won’t meet all of them, but hopefully most.

Tests are also run on free practice sessions of a race weekend, but in this case, the amount of time available to test is much reduced. During these sessions, the car must comply entirely with the rules, and this restricts the testing of any radical components. Generally the test of new components and evaluation work is done during the Friday morning session, as in most cases, teams will be concentrating on car set-up and race strategy work during the afternoon session and Saturday morning session. In the vehicle dynamics world, we refer to chassis modes. Modes are combinations of wheel deflections that produce a particular form of chassis displacement. Traditionally these modes are discussed concerning road inputs, but the concept is also used to illustrate chassis displacements caused by longitudinal and lateral forces generated whilst driving. A reminder should be made to take into account driver’s seat, feet, knees, sight line and steering wheel position while working out the basic layout of the car. This can always change as the design progresses, but by now, it is possible to have a pretty good idea of the general layout of the chassis, in the form of a series of bulkheads. At this point, complex models to evaluate the many performance parameters are introduced, and this is the first time the designer will have a good vision of how close the car is to the design goals. If the performance is not as desired, or if design conflicts arise, returning to a previous design phase is necessary.Designing your own vehicle, even if you don’t build it, can be a very rewarding experience. You’ll learn a lot about how cars work and if you do build it, you’ll be part of a select group of people who’ve taken on the challenge of building their dream. Performance goals can also be set in relation to specific systems, as opposed to the whole car. For example, the goals for aerodynamics might include a specific value for the lift/drag ratio, and the location of the center of pressure (CP), while goals for the suspension might include a specific value for roll sensitivity, weight transfer, suspension travel, steer and camber variations and so on. There are a lot of Cadillac design cues in the body lines of the DPi,” says Blanski. “The surface tension and line quality in the early sketches were inspired by the production vehicles in our studio.”