F1 : wrote it three years back, now much is obsolete
Amongst Indy, NASCAR, rallying and other motor sports F1 rules the roost. Why is F1 called so? As history goes, the fuel used for early racing engines was Green Spirit which was known as formula one hence this name has been adopted by the FIA. Earlier this sport was a rich man’s game who used their own machines (usually custom built than stock) to prove their driving skills. Mille Miglia and Grand Prix des Nations are the earlier forms of this sport.F1 has slowly transformed from an individual effort to a team event and one of the most prestigious event in the automobile industry.
Motor companies pour in millions (even billions) of dollars in research and development of latest technologies to get that crucial edge in the race and make their product superior in the consumer market. A major chunk of the R&D money goes into the development of the engine, the heart of the car, to make them lighter, frugal, efficient, and long lasting. It takes almost 500,000 man hours to develop an F1 engine and the design data when compiled takes up almost a terra byte of memory space.
The engines are manufactured with a very high degree of tolerance and precision. All the engines have to conform to the very strict FIA norms which take care that no manufacturer takes undue advantage of their technical and financial vantage. All cars this season have to stick to having 10 cylinders and a capacity of no more than three liters. Along with this limit there are many other checks on the power boosting accessories so as to keep the competition as even as possible but still experience of the drivers of some teams coupled with the engineering advantage sends many a teams scurrying for cover. These engines of 3000cc capacity have a power output of nearly 900BHP, almost 24 times that of our dear Maruti 800 with the engine having a capacity advantage of only 3.7 times. If we consider the Land Cruiser Prado (Toyota), the most powerful car in country, the power level is still 4 times in favor of the F1 car. The power to weight ratio of an F1 car is 1500BHP per ton meaning for every 1000kgs of the car weight there is 1500BHP of power to drive or rather rocket it. The power levels themselves prove the efficiency these engines have.
The F1 engines are made tough so that they last for about 1500kms of race. After this the cylinder block is all messed up and appears as if it has been used for a few hundred thousand miles. The pistons are all damaged, valve assembly ruined and the springs used in actuating the valves start to pose problems like bounce or float. Bounce occurs when the springs cannot keep up with the cam, the lifters hit back on the valve seat. This increases the wear and hampers air flow into the combustion chamber hampering high speed performance.
F1 engines are not as heavy as one might perceive them to be. An F1 engine weighs in the region of 90 to 100 kgs which is much less than the engines of our stock cars. Engines weighing more would affect the performance of the whole car by increasing the dry weight of the car. A Maruti Esteem engine weighs almost the same. These engines are not cast iron blocks but are very durable, light and thermodynamically efficient alloys of aluminum, magnesium and iron. The higher the thermodynamic efficiency of the engine, the faster it reaches the optimum temperature of operation and which ensures a higher performance delivery. The 4500 other components used to assemble an engine are also made of one of the best materials like valves of titanium steel in order to bear the rough usage the engine would be put to when racing.
The F1 engines are extremely high revving, which means its maximum rpm values are astronomical, to say the least. An F1 engine normally revs to the extent of 19000rpm, that’s 19k’s without running out of breath compared to only 4000-5000 for a stock diesel engine and 6000 to 8500 for a gasoline unit. Such high rpm values are achieved using a short stroke engine. In a short stroke engine the stroke is less so the piston head takes lesser time to reach the Bottom Dead Center (BDC) and back to the Top Dead Center (TDC). As this motion is fast the ignition in the cylinder occur at a faster rate, in short the total time taken to complete the 4 strokes (all F1 engines are 4 stroke) of compression, ignition, power and exhaust is reduced resulting in higher rpm which the engine can achieve. As these engines run at such a high rpm the speed of the piston inside the cylinder is also very high and are near 25m/s whereas for a normal car these are somewhere in the range of 11 to 15 m/s. As the stroke of engine is less, hence in order to achieve the volumetric capacity, the area of cross-section of the cylinder has to be increased which results in higher torque values (the torque of any engine is directly proportional to the area of c/s of the piston or the bore of the cylinder. The torque developed by an F1 engine is in the region of 300 lb-ft that is equivalent to 42 kg-m or 412 n-m which can festinate a 600 kg automobile with utmost ease and agility).
The engine temperatures are high enough to melt iron. The temperature at the exhaust port is about 950 degrees. The cooling of an F1 engine poses special challenges and these are all oil cooled instead of being water cooled. The spark plug fires 158.33 times every second burning a liter of fuel for every 4 to 5 kilometers. The peak acceleration experienced by the piston head is 100G.
The newer engines that are being developed use pneumatic springs, i.e. highly compressed air for actuating the valves, instead of an ordinary spring used traditionally. The use of these eliminates many problems like float and weakening of the mechanical springs and hence improves the overall efficiency and reliability of the engine. The team at LOTUS (UK based) is working on an engine wherein the camshaft is being replaced by solenoidal valves which are electronically actuated. All these enhancements will make the F1 engines superior in all respect. The objective is to minimize the number of moving parts, resulting in lesser heat generation, reduced wear, more frugal and greater overall efficiency.
All F1 engines are four strokers and have mainly V-configuration as opposed to the inline or cylinder configuration since this configuration gives a smooth operation on almost the entire power band with a constant power and seamless torque delivery.
As we all know the fuel reserves are fast depleting and it’s a matter of a few decades when oil will become equivalent to diamond or gold, taking this factor into consideration, what will be the future fuel to power these cars? Water, hydrogen or just pure electricity? Although research is on at Toyota in Japan for extracting hydrogen from water by on-board hydrolysis, only time will tell which alternative fuel does the trick!
Motor companies pour in millions (even billions) of dollars in research and development of latest technologies to get that crucial edge in the race and make their product superior in the consumer market. A major chunk of the R&D money goes into the development of the engine, the heart of the car, to make them lighter, frugal, efficient, and long lasting. It takes almost 500,000 man hours to develop an F1 engine and the design data when compiled takes up almost a terra byte of memory space.
The engines are manufactured with a very high degree of tolerance and precision. All the engines have to conform to the very strict FIA norms which take care that no manufacturer takes undue advantage of their technical and financial vantage. All cars this season have to stick to having 10 cylinders and a capacity of no more than three liters. Along with this limit there are many other checks on the power boosting accessories so as to keep the competition as even as possible but still experience of the drivers of some teams coupled with the engineering advantage sends many a teams scurrying for cover. These engines of 3000cc capacity have a power output of nearly 900BHP, almost 24 times that of our dear Maruti 800 with the engine having a capacity advantage of only 3.7 times. If we consider the Land Cruiser Prado (Toyota), the most powerful car in country, the power level is still 4 times in favor of the F1 car. The power to weight ratio of an F1 car is 1500BHP per ton meaning for every 1000kgs of the car weight there is 1500BHP of power to drive or rather rocket it. The power levels themselves prove the efficiency these engines have.
The F1 engines are made tough so that they last for about 1500kms of race. After this the cylinder block is all messed up and appears as if it has been used for a few hundred thousand miles. The pistons are all damaged, valve assembly ruined and the springs used in actuating the valves start to pose problems like bounce or float. Bounce occurs when the springs cannot keep up with the cam, the lifters hit back on the valve seat. This increases the wear and hampers air flow into the combustion chamber hampering high speed performance.
F1 engines are not as heavy as one might perceive them to be. An F1 engine weighs in the region of 90 to 100 kgs which is much less than the engines of our stock cars. Engines weighing more would affect the performance of the whole car by increasing the dry weight of the car. A Maruti Esteem engine weighs almost the same. These engines are not cast iron blocks but are very durable, light and thermodynamically efficient alloys of aluminum, magnesium and iron. The higher the thermodynamic efficiency of the engine, the faster it reaches the optimum temperature of operation and which ensures a higher performance delivery. The 4500 other components used to assemble an engine are also made of one of the best materials like valves of titanium steel in order to bear the rough usage the engine would be put to when racing.
The F1 engines are extremely high revving, which means its maximum rpm values are astronomical, to say the least. An F1 engine normally revs to the extent of 19000rpm, that’s 19k’s without running out of breath compared to only 4000-5000 for a stock diesel engine and 6000 to 8500 for a gasoline unit. Such high rpm values are achieved using a short stroke engine. In a short stroke engine the stroke is less so the piston head takes lesser time to reach the Bottom Dead Center (BDC) and back to the Top Dead Center (TDC). As this motion is fast the ignition in the cylinder occur at a faster rate, in short the total time taken to complete the 4 strokes (all F1 engines are 4 stroke) of compression, ignition, power and exhaust is reduced resulting in higher rpm which the engine can achieve. As these engines run at such a high rpm the speed of the piston inside the cylinder is also very high and are near 25m/s whereas for a normal car these are somewhere in the range of 11 to 15 m/s. As the stroke of engine is less, hence in order to achieve the volumetric capacity, the area of cross-section of the cylinder has to be increased which results in higher torque values (the torque of any engine is directly proportional to the area of c/s of the piston or the bore of the cylinder. The torque developed by an F1 engine is in the region of 300 lb-ft that is equivalent to 42 kg-m or 412 n-m which can festinate a 600 kg automobile with utmost ease and agility).
The engine temperatures are high enough to melt iron. The temperature at the exhaust port is about 950 degrees. The cooling of an F1 engine poses special challenges and these are all oil cooled instead of being water cooled. The spark plug fires 158.33 times every second burning a liter of fuel for every 4 to 5 kilometers. The peak acceleration experienced by the piston head is 100G.
The newer engines that are being developed use pneumatic springs, i.e. highly compressed air for actuating the valves, instead of an ordinary spring used traditionally. The use of these eliminates many problems like float and weakening of the mechanical springs and hence improves the overall efficiency and reliability of the engine. The team at LOTUS (UK based) is working on an engine wherein the camshaft is being replaced by solenoidal valves which are electronically actuated. All these enhancements will make the F1 engines superior in all respect. The objective is to minimize the number of moving parts, resulting in lesser heat generation, reduced wear, more frugal and greater overall efficiency.
All F1 engines are four strokers and have mainly V-configuration as opposed to the inline or cylinder configuration since this configuration gives a smooth operation on almost the entire power band with a constant power and seamless torque delivery.
As we all know the fuel reserves are fast depleting and it’s a matter of a few decades when oil will become equivalent to diamond or gold, taking this factor into consideration, what will be the future fuel to power these cars? Water, hydrogen or just pure electricity? Although research is on at Toyota in Japan for extracting hydrogen from water by on-board hydrolysis, only time will tell which alternative fuel does the trick!
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