Explaining Engineering - F1

Another Sunday , that means another post from Explaining Engineering. Before starting this weeks topic , I would like to thank everyone for your over whelming responses. Coming to this week topic , as I told before we are going to look into aerodynamic devices , but to understand them a little science is required. Let us first get into science part of today's topic. Source : Autosport.com I have mentioned air tends to follow the surface of the car , but a question is raised on me, why air tends to follow the surface. Answer is simple , molecular adhesion and friction. Air tends to attach to the surface with the help of static friction. between air and molecules and air. This adhesion of air and surface is really very helpful in getting some downforce ,also known as negative lift in terms of SAE. There are number of ways to create downforce , but the main and maximum amount of downforce is produced with the help rear wings. Thanks to Bernoulli . To understand how rear wings work ...

Transmission is another very important aspect of a Formula 1 car. You would have noticed shifting gears to achieve various speed. But the actual purpose of gear box is to make vehicle quicker. To know better about this , we need to know a little about how IC engine produce power. IC engines, produce power by burning fuel , which kicks the piston that reciprocate and rotate a crank. Which convert this linear motion in to rotating motion. The force produced on the piston by combustion is applied on the crank of some radius, which causes torque in the body that rotates the shaft connected to it through which rotation is produced. When Ic engine is working at lower rpm, it ultimately means the air-fuel mixture supplied to engine is low so less power is generated. So force on piston will be less. Ultimately torque will be less. Okay, if you ask me what torque is, For every object to move we need force Likewise for every object to rotate, we need torque which is again a component of f...

 The Dark Art As we saw about the power unit in the previous week, We are going to look at something that is going to deliver the power from power unit. If you ask any engineer , what part of a car you don’t want to work on, his answer will be simple , TIRES . Yes , you read it correct. Tires are the most ignored aspect of a car when it comes to customer point of view , but it is a nightmare for engineers. Indeed tires are considered dark arts of Vehicle Engineering. This is because tires are the one part, that is made up of n number of assumptions. In fact, no two tire made up of same manufacturer of same profile is same . Let us look into them in this post. Ever wondered, How a metal tube of maximum 5 inch could manage to take the part load of a car? But the honest truth is rubber made tires carry the full load of a car. Imagine how strong these tires had to made.   Tires are the only part that are in contact with the ground, which means , whatever has to be done in betwee...