Automotive Articles

Materials in motorsports

TAround 120 racing experts gathered in Cologne, Germany, at the Global Motorsports Congress to discuss recent developments, challenges, and opportunities impacting not only the motorsports
realm, but also the production-car world. 

Among many technical areas of interest, including powertrain (see Performance & Aftermarket for more coverage), industry insiders at the November event discussed the importance of optimizing materials to improve overall vehicle performance.

Gunter Hartmann of Parker Hannifin (Abex) presented an example of how aerospace know-how in the hydraulics field can benefit Formula One (F1). Unlike NASCAR vehicles that have no hydraulics,
F1 cannot do without it. According to Hartmann, 10 out of 11 F1 teams use Parker Hannifin hydraulic pumps for their racecars. These pumps are automatically regulated to the required flow via a tilting
hanger (also known as a swash plate). The company is testing hydraulic pumps with hyper eutectic aluminum barrels instead of brass to take out two-thirds of the barrel weight.

Another path to bring down the component weight is a new pump with a PEEK (polyetheretherketon, a semi-crystalline, high-temperature engineering thermoplastic) polymer housing that is also being tested at the moment. 

Presently, these innovations are driven by the needs of the aerospace industry, but “once the aluminum barrel pumps are ripe for the aerospace market, the F1 will be interested as well,” said Hartmann. 

Computing is a potential bottleneck for racecar and automotive design and/or material optimization through CAx techniques, said Herbert Cornelius of Intel. To simulate feasibility and applicability under
extreme conditions, more computing will be needed, he is convinced. 

“Today we are working with teraflop machines [1012 floating point operations per second], but we are moving on to petaflops [1015 flops] so there will be plenty of computing power available,” Cornelius said. “Supercomputing is being democratized. The price per 109 flops has come down.” This power can be used to simulate fluid dynamics for whole cars instead of subsystems, he suggested.

More power will also allow increased model sizes and very short reaction times. CRP Technology’s Franco Cevolini gave an example of how the company uses laser sintering to improve components
and their material makeup. The new Windform material, for instance, consists of aluminum and glass fiber. It has a very low density, high melting point, and high tensile modulus. Using this material for the air box and front fender of a 250-cc racing bike, CRP claims to have given the bike up to
9.5% more power through an improved airflow. 

“No F1 car or road car would be possible without adhesive bonding,” stated Josef Oberski of Henkel’s Teroson brand. His speech focused on the exceptional demands on design and material in F1. Oberski introduced show-goers to the basic chemistry of adhesive bonding and explained future trends, such as the growing need to bond different kinds of materials with more and more polyolefins. 

“New nanocomposites will also mean new demands on adhesive bonding,” Oberski said, “as these materials can be tailor-made to the application. However, that means they will also require special
bonding.”

Frits Altorf presented Koni’s frequency selective damping (FSD) technology. Originally developed for the aftermarket, this system offers lower damping force at high frequencies (for improved suspension
control) and high damping force at low frequencies (for improved body control).

He finished by saying that his company will announce soon which F1 racing team will begin to use FSD.
As coatings can have a great influence on friction losses, another speaker had been invited to talk about tribology. “To bring down wear, the combination of optimized surface treatment and coating
is important,” said Mark Boghe of Bekaert Advanced Coatings. “Except for the long maintenance intervals and the cost angle, the needs of the automotive and F1 industries are mostly identical.”

On the background of a greater than 50% market share of Cavidur racing coatings, Boghe stated that a suitable coating can bring down the power needed to drive valve actuation by around 30%. Asked for the total efficiency gain in terms of fuel consumption, he estimated that it ould be lowered by 1 to 2% overall through the use of coatings.

Source : SAE International.