Open top menu
Showing posts with label Caterham. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Caterham. Show all posts
6 Feb 2013
Caterham CT-03 Technical Analysis



You may be confused in thinking that the newest Caterham should be designated CT-02, well that designation has been handed over to the newest road car instead.  Caterham have lead the way in terms of the new teams since the 3 entered in 2010, however snapping at their heals at the tail end of 2012 were Marussia who without KERS made some strides taking the battle for 10th down to the last race at Interlagos.

Like Marussia the team have opted for evolution over revolution as demand on every department will be stretched during 2013 with the inception of the new rules coming in 2014.  It's likely we will see little development from the 2 tail end teams this year as even the more established teams will have to battle with resources to provide a good car in 2014.

A new paint job on the CT-03 has lightened the entire car and somehow seems more aesthetically pleasing, meanwhile the car will be piloted by 2 new drivers: Charles Pic & Giedo Van Der Garde in what most perceive as a shift toward the team taking pay drivers over talent.  Charles joins the team from their closest rival Marussia who impressed in his first year in F1 for me and was an obvious alignment with Caterham for me with their fresh relationship with Renault taking hold.  As we know Caterham are working with Renault as part of an alliance to develop road cars and as Pic is part of Renaults development programme the switch made sense for both parties.  Of course allied to this Renault will undoubtedly be providing Caterham with some economic benefits most likely in the form of a free or heavily reduced rate engine supply.  The team continue their association with Red Bull Technology too utilising their gearbox.



The team were the first to break cover in 2012 causing the start of the controversy over what most deemed as the ugly step noses.  The flat approach of their nose earnt it the Platypus nickname but unpurturbed the team have continued with this for 2013.  Their approach makes sense, as a team with less resources producing a new arrangement or using a vanity panel would require more CFD & Wind Tunnel work to be carried out on what essentially is a minor aerodynamic gain/loss ratio.



Under the nose the car is treated to a set of turning vanes with the same design ethos employed by Red Bull and Ferrari.  This is a key area with the raised nose profile as it effects how the additional air is distributed to the Sidepods



The Sidepod layout has been treated to a revision with an altered Inlet profile allowing for a more aggressive undercut.  Meanwhile on top of the Sidepod the team have applied 3 Vortex Generators in place of the 2 that the CT-01 used toward the tail end of 2012.  The team also continue to use a twin element airflow conditioner to the side of the Sidepod but have undoubtedly changed the profile of the element in order to change the flow characteristics around the altered Sidepod undercut.



The Sidepods themselves have been re-profiled to cater for the change the team made mid 2012 season to a Semi-Coanda exhaust layout. Previously the team had adopted a downwash configuration and so the Sidepod was much wider than the CT-03's.
The team have also added a blade section at the tail end of the exhaust channel, many are questioning it's legality but as the blade sits below the tailpipes common axis I'd doubt it is.  If the exhaust channel were to be at the same horizontal angle as the exhausts exit then I'd consider it illegal but Caterham's Semi- Coanda channel is pitched down.  I have been asked about re-ingestion of airflow too but the rules don't cover this explicitly and instead require that bodywork not have a right circular truncated cone ahead of the rear wheel centre line.


5.8.4 Once the exhaust tailpipes, the bodywork required by Article 3.8.4 and any apertures permitted by Article 3.8.5 have been fully defined there must be no bodywork lying within a right circular truncated cone which :
a) Shares a common axis with that of the last 100mm of the tailpipe.
b) Has a forward diameter equal to that of each exhaust exit.
c) Starts at the exit of the tailpipe and extends rearwards as far as the rear wheel centre line.
d) Has a half-cone angle of 3° such that the cone has its larger diameter at the rear wheel centre line.
Furthermore, there must be a view from above, the side, or any intermediate angle perpendicular to the car centre line, from which the truncated cone is not obscured by any bodywork lying more than 50mm forward of the rear wheel centre line.


Above: Fellow Tech analyst Mario Keszeli has quickly mocked up the sketch above to show the exhaust channel, the area at which the exhaust is pointed and the blade inside the channel.  The exhaust plume will of course follow a different projection than the cone section referred to visually and in the regulations and is the point at which the blade becomes relevant.

We have to wait to see if any of the teams object to the teams use of the blade or simply assess their own versions afterall it's not a complicated piece of bodywork and so is easier to copy than dispute.



At the rear of the car the team continue to run with exposed halfshafts although most of the top end of the field appear to have converged on the Red Bull shrouded option.  The floor ahead of the rear tyres remains free of vertical strakes and/or tyre squirt slots.



The team carry over some of the elements they produced in their mid/late season upgrade packages for the CT-03 including Rear Wing Endplate Strakes and their Monkey Seat which extends from a Swan Neck mounted on top of the Gearbox enabling a clean flow to the Beam Wing.
Read more
6 Nov 2012
Abu Dhabi Young Drivers Test – Day 1

Whilst some of the teams elected to carry out their Young Drivers Tests earlier in the season we have Red Bull, McLaren, Lotus, Sauber, Toro Rosso & Caterham all taking part in a 3 day test after the Abu Dhabi GP.

Although the Test carries the 'Young Drivers' title teams can use their experienced testers behind the wheel as long as they haven't competed in a GP weekend. This is why we find Gary Paffett (31) and Nicolas Prost (31) behind the wheel of the McLaren and Lotus respectively. These drivers are used due to their technical nous and relative time spent in the simulator. Meanwhile Red Bull, Sauber, Toro Rosso & Caterham (latterly followed by McLaren with Magnussen) are happy to try out the new breed of drivers.

The test days provide not only the opportunity to assess future talent but also offers the teams time to look at setups and aerodynamic components that may not be able to be covered in the usual Free Practice programme.

In Sauber's assault towards Mercedes for fourth in the constructors it's been important that the team score regular points and so less risk is taken in testing new components throughout their Free Practice time. The team decided to debut their own version of a DRD (Drag Reduction Device) with Frijns on the first day of testing in Abu Dhabi to assess the devices potential for integration into their 2013 challenger.


The Device bears more resemblance to the Mercedes counterpart (of which Mercedes have continued to test during FP1 at the last few GP, the team are however coy on it's usage, stating that it's unlikely it will feature in the W04's design)
Unlike the Mercedes & Lotus DRD's Sauber haven't added inlets around the roll hoop but instead it would seem two periscope ducts have appeared on top on the bulkhead. (Credit @F1Talks) It seems Sauber may be using these 2 ducts to feed the airflow channel encased within the Engine Cover that leads to the Periscope.

Like Mercedes we can see that Sauber's version doesn't meet with the underside of the Mainplane most likely to distribute the airflow it creates over a larger surface area. As I discuss in my DRD article the Mercedes and now Sauber devices are more likely keyed to produce more downforce from the Rear Wing by making the Mainplane more efficient at higher AoA's (Angle of Attack)


Red Bull have the impressive Antonio Felix Da Costa behind the wheel of the RB8 for the first 2 days of the test. Da Costa, I believe could be the next big name to break through as part of the Red Bull young driver programme and think it could happen as early as late next season if either of the Toro Rosso drivers fail to impress. The young Portuguese driver who has showed his talents in both GP3 and WSR this season completed the most laps on day 1 racking up 79 laps in the RB8. His fastest lap was merely 0.066 from the fastest lap of the day recorded by Magnussen in the MP4-27 but as we can see from the pictures below the team were using a Pitot Tube Test Device on the car for some of his running.


Luiz Razia is no stranger to Young Driver's tests having done the same for Virgin Racing in 2010 and Team Lotus in 2011. He was also signed as a test driver for Team Lotus during 2011 whilst continuing to compete in GP2. With his 2nd place finish in the GP2 Series for 2012 the young Brazilian is looking for a place in an F1 team for 2013. With Toro Rosso having already named their lineup for 2013 the opportunity to drive their car simply puts him on the radar for other teams with the driver completing 67 laps.  The Toro Rosso did feature their HUGE 'Monkey' Seat which I'm now going to start calling a 'Gorilla' Seat (below)


Giedo Van Der Garde piloted the CT-01 on Day 1 with the team continuing to evaluate parts taken to Abu Dhabi but seemingly didn't work as planned.  In the pic below we can see the team using a test rig in front of the Sidepod to evaluate the airflow.

McLaren ran 2 driver's in their day 1 lineup both of which have already been mentioned, unlike some of the other teams it would appear that McLaren were simply looking to establish track time on day 1 with both Paffett and Magnussen covering 84 laps combined. They did however use their diffuser test rig during some of that test phase along with their Front Nose/Wing test rig.


Lotus also used a test rig that attached above the diffuser in the gap between the Wheel & Rear Wing Endplates to assess their new 'Coanda' Style exhaust.
Read more
22 Sept 2012
Gurney Trims, Tabs or Flaps and why they're important for the Diffuser in 2012

A Gurney flap is so named after Dan Gurney who first applied such a device to the trailing edge of the rear wings of his car's in the 70's. This was not a new concept however and has been used in flight applications since the early 1900's in order to make a wing create more lift to the deficit of more drag.

The Gurney is quite a blunt method of producing lift/downforce but can also help to rectify deficiencies in the wings design. It helps to trim the angle of attack of a wing thus allowing a higher angle of attack before separation occurs. In terms of flight, had a designer miscalculated the design profile of his wing adding a gurney may help to rectify the flight pattern, as such the same can be done with an F1 wing. The advantage of this in terms of motorsport is that you can continue to leverage more downforce from a wing by increasing the wings angle of attack, however by default this will create a larger proportion of drag. This is caused by the airflow on the rear of the wing being unable to sustain the same AoA and so separation occurs as the boundary layer increases at the trailing edge.

The FIA regulations mandate the height of a Gurney Flap be no more than 20mm on the Rear Wing's Top Flap but don't specify any further on how the flap be angled and indeed it's chord or design profile.

As we have seen during 2012 the teams are using Gurney's more and more with Front Wings being treated with them in order to create downforce in specific regions. It is however the area above the diffuser that see the teams utilising Gurney's the most this season with an array of different approaches.

With Exhaust Blown Diffusers having been outlawed for 2012 the teams are constantly looking for ways to further enhance the performance of their diffuser in order to extract more downforce and so this season have set about constructing more and more complex Gurney's.

Ferrari & Red Bull have lead the way with fully perforated Gurney's whilst McLaren now sport a similar design, however Ferrari & Red Bull have now added a further tier to their designs.

The perforation allows for airflow to seep through from the high pressure side into the low pressure region helping to maintain the speed of airflow to the trailing edge so the flow doesn't separate. This creates a more  co-efficient balance of downforce vs drag creating a more stable flow structure from the diffuser.

Above: Ferrari F2012 at Monza - Gurney above the Diffuser now has 2 tiers in order that more AoA can be run on both tiers

McLaren's Diffuser design has altered since Monaco......

Above: McLaren's Monaco (and previous) specification Diffuser Gurney saw the perforation extend all the way around the periphery of the Diffuser

Above: For Silverstone and Hockenheim the team simply lopped off the edges of the Gurney stopping it a few inches short either end


Above: Since Hungary McLaren have run a very similar design to both Ferrari and Red Bull with a fluted end that joins the edges of the diffuser

Other Teams have combined the usage of perforated sections with the usual blunt Gurney Tab

Above: As we can see from these 3 images Lotus, Williams & Mercedes all choose to run with a perforated central section to their Gurney.  Their approach helps in not only extracting raw downforce from the Diffuser but managing the effects of lateral tyre squirt on the diffuser channels


Above: Caterham & Toro Rosso showing that their use of Diffuser Gurneys can still be used as a blunt instrument with large vertical tabs

As shown by the leading teams this area is crucial in extracting additional performance now EBD has been banned and as the teams find further ways in which to manipulate the exhaust plume toward this area these Gurney Tabs, Trims or Flaps may become even more complex.
Read more
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

Total Pageviews