
2014 F1 explained: What is brake by wire? - dmmalam
http://www.racecar-engineering.com/articles/2014-f1-explained-what-is-brake-by-wire/
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yason
With the endless and quite arbitrary rules and limitations they impose on the
F1 cars each year I sometimes wonder what would happen if they hadn't done
that. What would the teams have built if it weren't for the weigh, power, and
technology limitations shaping the development?

I see an analogy to evolution versus controlled genetic reproduction: what
would the F1 cars look like and how would they behave if the only thing that
mattered was being the fastest and winning races?

~~~
ggreer
If you gave an F1 team their same budget with no restrictions, you would get
an incomprehensibly fast car. I'd bet on them going with 6 wheels: 4 in front,
two in back for more traction when turning and braking, similar to the Tyrrell
P34.[1] They'd likely use ground effect with fans to provide active downforce,
similar to the Brabham BT46B.[2] It would probably be driven by electric
motors in each wheel. The power source would be a gas turbine attached to a
generator.

It would be a death trap. If the suction fan malfunctioned, all downforce
would be lost and the car would skid off the track. G forces when
accelerating, braking, and turning would quickly injure even the toughest
human being. Going around any track would require superhuman reaction times.
Such a vehicle could only be controlled by a computer. Also, such a vehicle
could only be painted plaid.

I'm not sure how profitable or safe this hypothetical series would be, but I'd
certainly watch the first couple of races. Then again, I'd also watch cyborg
kickboxing in some future version of the Paralympics.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrrell_P34](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrrell_P34)

2\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brabham_BT46#Brabham_BT46B.C2....](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brabham_BT46#Brabham_BT46B.C2.A0.E2.80.93_the_.22fan_car.22)

~~~
newman314
You would probably end up with something like the Red Bull X2010.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull_X2010](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull_X2010)

The digital creation was a response to Kazunori Yamauchi's question: "If you
built the fastest racing car on land, one that throws aside all rules and
regulations, what would that car look like, how would it perform, and how
would it feel to drive?"

~~~
_pmf_
> "If you built the fastest racing car on land, one that throws aside all
> rules and regulations, what would that car look like, how would it perform,
> and how would it feel to drive?"

The big question is whether it would qualify as a "car".

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splitbrain
Hmm, why not simply always use the recovery system but just not store the
energy in the battery if it's full already (or capacity reached or whatever)?

~~~
baq
where do you suggest this energy should go? it's not like there's room for a
bird burner on an f1 car.

~~~
robmcm
Why not power up some tesla coil on the rear of the car that produces cool
electric arcs all over the track.

Lets face it, some of the coolest parts of high power cars are dispersed
excess energy, glowing brake discs or flaming exhausts and of course screaming
engines.

~~~
baq
yeah, that's the point. the brakes are smoking hot, so if you suddenly start
to collect that energy it needs to go somewhere.

~~~
masklinn
I think you missed the question/point: traditional brakes work by converting
kinetic energy to thermal energy and dissipating it. The ERS base is to
convert it to electric and store that.

ERS obviously can't store things when the battery is full, but if the issue
here is the transition between ERS and traditional why not have ERS bypass the
battery when it's full and dump energy in a radiator, ending up with the same
result as traditional brakes (kinetic -> thermal) without having to switch
braking system in the midst of braking?

~~~
rplnt
I think you missed the first answer. There is no place for it. It's big, heavy
and needs to be exposed.

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jokoon
I really wonder how this works. Is this some generator held by the rear brakes
? How do they enable/disable this generating system when braking to go back to
normal braking ?

And why the hell did they set a maximum amount of recoverable energy ? Seems
like a additional, unnecessary puzzle that seems to make things harder for
pilots...

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "And why the hell did they set a maximum amount of recoverable energy"

One reason is that the energy is used for KERS, a boost system (press a button
for increased speed). Each driver is limited to a certain amount of this boost
per lap.

It's also possibly for safety reasons. Before a car pits or anyone can safely
touch it all recovered energy must be discharged. If the car is in an accident
and this isn't possible the less energy stored in the car the better.

~~~
DVassallo
Note that the "boost button" disappeared in 2014 [1]. (K)ERS usage is not
controlled by the driver anymore [2]:

[1]
[http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/formula1/25158104](http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/formula1/25158104)

[2]
[http://www.formula1.com/inside_f1/understanding_the_sport/87...](http://www.formula1.com/inside_f1/understanding_the_sport/8763.html)

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furyg3
I'm envisioning a lightning rod at various stages along the track to discharge
the extra energy... :)

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ggreer
I'm amused that F1 cars now have a computer mimic manual brakes. It seems
schizophrenic to allow advanced technology such as kinetic energy recovery,
but ban traction control, active aerodynamics, anti-lock brakes, and dozens of
other technologies that are in consumer vehicles. The excuse I typically hear
is that these restrictions make races depend more on driver skill instead of
team budgets. Do people not realize that the teams with the biggest budgets
are the ones who can afford the most talented drivers? And it shows: The teams
with the most money are the ones that consistently win.

I think F1 would be much more exciting if they tweaked the aerodynamics and
vehicle size to allow more passing. If race excitement can be boiled down to
one metric, it's passing. If you've seen a MotoGP race, you'll probably
concur.

~~~
mwg66
Life is often not quite as simple as that!

There are various other reasons for why it is easier to overtake on a
motorbike in MotoGP compared to F1. There has been many introductions to ease
overtaking in F1 recently - DRS, KERs (now ERS), tyre compounds etc.

There is even a working group within the FIA dedicated to exactly this, one of
it's most famous studies is the CDG wing (see
[http://www.f1technical.net/articles/4577](http://www.f1technical.net/articles/4577))
- which ultimately was not adopted.

~~~
Theodores
Thanks for the link on the CDG wing - I did not know that. Any ideas why it
was not given a go? It seems vastly more in the spirit of racing than the
'push to pass' DRS that has not been exactly popular with the dedicated fan. I
don't think the Pirelli tyres have been that popular with fans either. The CDG
wing appears a lot more true to the spirit of what racing is about.

~~~
mwg66
I think it was ultimately concluded that it wouldn't work in practice as well
as the preliminary CFD results suggested. It was an interesting study none the
less.

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7schlaefer
Rougly speaking, an electric motor acts as a generator when you turn it.

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Theodores
I think it is shocking that after a century of motoring this idea of energy
recovery from the brakes is 'new fangled'. It should have been made mandatory
back in '73\. Even if lithium batteries weren't available then every car has a
battery, usually of the lead acid variety, plus there are things like
flywheels that can store potential energy.

~~~
DVassallo
Formula 1 is a sport. The game is about building the most performant machine
within the constraints of the rules. There is a ton of technology that is
prohibited in F1 (traction control, automatic gear shifting, ABS, etc) that
has been part of road cars for decades. Rule changes tend to relax the
constraints from time to time for some specific reason: such as better safety,
better spectacle, or cost reduction. KERS (with its driver-controlled boost
button) was introduced in 2009 mostly as an attempt to facilitate overtaking,
since car aerodynamics had become so sophisticated that a car following
another one would get a significant drop in downforce due to the turbulence of
the car in front. On the other hand, the 2014 rules appear to have been
enacted mostly to help teams lower their running costs.

~~~
makmanalp
I think it's time we have an F1 alternative with only unmanned cars where we
aren't concerned by passenger safety and can focus on pure speed.

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ableal
That's an intriguing thought, but I fear it would soon devolve into guided
missiles ...

~~~
swombat
I'd watch that... F1 without drivers but with weapons... it'd be like a real
live and super-expensive version of Mario Kart...

