Williams shift focus.

[sportsman]

I found this rather interesting from Sam Michael.Firstly it confims my opinion that next years cars will be very different.Secondly his comments about their KERS system.
I hope that they do run their flywheel system as this technology fascinates me.

"With major rule changes for 2011 - including the banning of double diffusers and F-ducts, and the arrival of Pirelli as tyre supplier - Michael said there would be little carry over from this year's design.

"It is a completely different car - it will be a clean sheet for everybody," he said.

Williams plans to run KERS next year too, and Michael said the team was keeping its options open regarding whether it races with a battery or a flywheel system.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/86338

 

[tooncheese]

Interesting read. Williams own about 90% of the flywheel company so if the flywheel KERS system is exceptionaly good then teams must fork up or make thier own version which would never be as good. With thier driver line-up, and starting on the new car already, Williams could be the surise package next year.

 

[sportsman]

I think that the other teams would have great difficulty in copying it.The actual flywheel itself stores the electrical charge, and this technology is patented to Williams Hybrid power.

http://www.williamshybridpower.com/

 

[MajorDanby]

It is an interesting technology, and on the basis of things looks like it should be more efficient, i.e. kinetic -> kinetic -> electrical -> kinetic. As oppose to the other chemical systems that would be kinetic -> electrical -> chemical -> electric -> kinetic.

Its all comes down to the efficiency of the flywheel. Is the energy loss through friction and retardation of the flywheel less than than through the energy transfer from electrical to chemical and back again? It should also technically be 'greener' than the battery powered systems that degrade over time, and require a lot of energy to manufacture in the first place.

I sort of imagine the flywheel to work similar to the way a wind turbine works, i.e. spinning magnets through a coil, but without more details that remains to be seen.

On the topic of the switch of development, I still don't see the cars being as dramatically different to the 2010 cars, single diffuser and KERS non-withstanding. Certainly nothing like the difference we saw compared to 2008-2009-2010.

We will see I guess. It will be interesting to see just how much further along Mercedes will be having switched development earlier. I still see there being a lot of comparative technology on the 2010 spec cars however that it will be useful to develop through the season. The exhaust blown diffuser being the major component.

 

[sportsman]

There is a good article here which explains it in a little more detail

http://www.racecar-engineering.com/alla ... ained.html

 

[MajorDanby]

Ah cool, pretty much as I thought then

 

[Hamberg]

It does seem that Williams are leaning towards using the battery system rather than flywheel which has surprised me somewhat given the efforts that have gone into the flywheel development. If it's more efficient, lighter and able to release energy faster why would this be? Is it not as powerful?

 

[Brogan]

The only problem I can think of with a flywheel is there will be a lot of rotational energy which could cause problems with balance and handling?

If anyone has ever held a gyroscope or similar in their hand they will know exactly what I mean.

Also, there might be an issue with runaway flywheels being a problem in the event of a crash.
I have no idea how big/heavy the flywheel is though or how fast it spins so this might be irrelevant.

 

[Enja]

The only problem I can think of with a flywheel is there will be a lot of rotational energy which could cause problems with balance and handling?

If anyone has ever held a gyroscope or similar in their hand they will know exactly what I mean.

Also, there might be an issue with runaway flywheels being a problem in the event of a crash.
I have no idea how big/heavy the flywheel is though or how fast it spins so this might be irrelevant.

40,000 RPM. At least, the one used in the Porsche 911 GT3 Hybrid was.

 

[Brogan]

40,000 RPM. At least, the one used in the Porsche 911 GT3 Hybrid was.

Depending on the mass then that could be why Williams have decided against it?

 

[sportsman]

Its none of those reasons.They did run the system on an F1 car in 2009 without problems.But at that stage it was not developed enough to be raced.The problem is its size in its present form.The cars now have much larger fuel tanks than in 2009 and to use the one as used in the Porsche would make the car far too long
They are constantly developing the system in their bas in Qatar but most of that development work is aimed at the road car market.I have studied this technology in considerable depth as I believe that this is going to be a common application on all cars in the near future.

"With no large metallic structures in the MLC flywheel rotor, eddy current losses and heating are negligible resulting in very high electrical efficiencies. The lack of rotor heating gives MLC flywheels a unique advantage over other composite flywheel designs: they can be continuously deep-cycled at high power with no detriment to performance or reduction in life. The wholly composite MLC flywheel design also improves system safety: in the event of a failure, there are no metallic fragments requiring containment. In common with other flywheels, they can operate efficiently at extreme ambient temperatures – unlike chemical batteries and capacitors."

http://www.williamshybridpower.com/tech ... technology

 

[Enja]

Oh, also, to the main point of this thread.

Williams have been saying they will focus on "next year's" car for several years now. In 2008 they had a reasonably good car, but ditched development and moved onto 2009. Where they had a reasonable car, and the DDD. But what held them back in 2009 is they didn't get a good enough start, mostly down to money. Both Brawn (nee Honda) and Toyota spent close to £300m on R&D in a similar timescale for the '09 cars. Okay, granted, Toyota didn't capitalise on the DDD either but that says more about their management and continued employment of Jarno Trulli than anything else. And when Williams said they'd move development to 2010, they ended up with.. a reasonable car. They obviously have good people working for them ; just not the budget.

Next year, we could see things swap around again. There are more limits on the cars and new tyres, so it's not impossible to imagine one or two teams could jump the rest of the field and exploit the rules better at the beginning of the season.

Clearly this is what Williams, Mercedes, Virgin, Lotus, Sauber, STR and Force India will aim to do. Will any of them make the huge step up like Red Bull and Brawn did in 2009? Not so, in my opinion, because they do not have limitless reams of cash to spend on great designers and other stuff. There is the restriction on wind tunnels, yes, and the RRA* generally (which by the way nobody has mentioned at all this year), but I don't think they will have a profound enough impact to propel Williams into a regular podium challenger.

But definitely, it will be interesting which KERS route they go down, as far as I'm concerned half the 2011 rules have yet to be finalised so it could be a botch job lucked into for the front runners next year..

*Resource Restriction Agreement

 

[sportsman]

Its a good point about the RRA.
This is the weekly allowance for full scale wind tunnel testing.One the week is over then you start again.
Williams have started now to take advantage of this time, instead of developing this years car.No matter how well funded the team is, they are all restricted to this limit, so any time they spend now on their 2011 car is abonus.

"The Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) has strict restrictions on wind tunnel running and the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and there is an allowance that we must not exceed. The allowance is made of up CFD processor capacity used and wind tunnel ‘fan on’ hours used so when running our large wind tunnel and using our CFD super computer, we always ensure that we stay within the allowance. Within the current FOTA restrictions, we are also limited to a maximum of four full-scale wind tunnel days. These are where we take the actual race car and work on it in the wind tunnel."

 

[sportsman]

40,000 RPM. At least, the one used in the Porsche 911 GT3 Hybrid was.

Depending on the mass then that could be why Williams have decided against it?

The entire system weighs about 35kg.But the energy is not derivred from the mass of the flywheel.The flywheel itself is the battery.There are no other batteries involved.