Hey Kyle, it was a pleasure having you! Funny that this exact channel is where I got a lot of help from when designing the kinematics for this very car. It has come full circle. Thanks!
more wings = more money... but dont make it like rennstall esslingen this year... We have a FW so complex, that we couldn't fit the normal amount of sponsors...
Hey Kyle, thanks so much for coming and driving our car! Unfortunately I couldn't be there for the drive day, but I'm glad you enjoyed the car. We are all so incredibly proud of what the team achieved with that car last year. To take one of the smallest budgets in Australasia and score 2nd overall and finish as the top Australian team, with only our first running EV, was huge from the team. I'm personally incredibly proud of the aero team especially, they took on a huge scope and performed brilliantly. RB23 was designed as a whole system working together, and the team more than delivered, so I'm glad you liked it.
Not at all. ;-). There’s always “a guy” in the racing circles. I’m one of them ;-). JK it’s definitely “THE GUY”, but at the F1 level. But also…many “of their guys” left at the same time.
Huge thanks to Redback Racing for having me out! You can find their socials here: facebook.com/UNSWRedbackRacing and here www.youtube.com/@UNSWRedbackRacing and here instagram.com/unswredbackracing/ Hope you all enjoy the video!
@@skippy2987 hello! member of Redback Racing here that can answer your question! The rules for Formula SAE in general are quite open and one of those areas is suspension. There are multiple FSAE teams both here in Australia and abroad that not only run anti-roll bars but also do run decoupled heave and roll springs. However decoupled setups add a lot of complexity both for the suspension geometry as well as mounting for a spaceframe, and for RB23 our primary goal was to deliver a simple but well executed electric FSAE car that we could quickly design, manufacture and test such that it could pass all technical inspections and complete all dynamic events. Since we went above and beyond that objective last year, a decoupled heave and roll setup of some form is a possible option for future cars depending on its feasibility. Hope this helps!
@JaydenHW that makes sense. The only third element setups I've seen on a car run parallel to the chassis where a T shaped anti-roll bar is, and on pushrod suspension. The FSAE cars look like they are pretty challenged for space in that area. You'll like this one though, I've seen a setup on a human powered vehicle that used interconnected hydraulics on the front wheels connected to a single air pressurised container. It didn't work as the designer intended (as a primary spring) precisely because it had zero roll resistance (except damping from fluid movement). So a hydraulic third element could be a way to save on packaging. It could also integrate separate heave-only damping if that is somehow advantageous to separate from roll damping. The designer actually developed a unique front suspension system too. A *single* leading arm live axle that incorporated anti-roll springing, reducing part count, improving packaging, and neatly negating any camber changes on body roll. Only attached in two spots, the single central leading arm mount and a watts linkage.
@@skippy2987 yeah we've actually seen what we suspect to be hydraulic systems on other Aussie FSAE cars! seems like depending on the way they route it they can either utilise it as additional heave or roll stiffness and (though I could be wrong with this) it can probably be done with dampers that utilise an external reservoir and linking the two left and right dampers together. I don't think it's possible with our current dampers but yes that is absolutely another option in FSAE!
@@JaydenHW I'm not sure you could add significant heave spring like that. If I understand the way a normal damper operates the spring effect from gas pressure is pretty much limited to the diameter of the shaft, so the pressure would border on insane. Out of curiosity, do you have any kind of anti-roll bar? I couldn't see one in the video but I also didn't see any clear shot of the front suspension. And are you allowed to have any kind of active suspension? I can see a moveable upper coilover mount achieving the same goal.
What a great video, thank you so much for coming out to drive the car along with all our other Redback Racing alumni! As a driver of RB23 last year in skidpan and acceleration your feedback about the handling characteristics is extremely validating. Being part of the suspension department its always been a tricky balancing act between optimising the mechanical grip of the car compared to aerodynamic platform stability. Exactly as you said, our limitations with front ride height and heave stiffness does slightly limit our setup options in terms of front and rear stiffness and damping, where on this car we're running close to the minimum ride height and front springrate that we can run without excessively scraping the front wing. As a consequence this does result in a car that with this setup is slightly biased towards understeer, but also given the power of the electric motor going to the rear wheels the rear stability offered in return is actually quite appreciated. Even at this high power setting the car has even more power and torque to deliver, so at it's maximum setting understeer is less of an issue to say the least :) We also tried out multiple different toe settings last year in testing comparing turn in response vs mid corner grip and this is something we're still yearning for even more testing time to get perfectly dialled in. What makes it even more complicated is when a toe out setting for a 60+kg driver becomes far too twitchy for a 48kg driver like myself due to different weight distribution, requiring different setups per driver lol. That's also not including different driving styles where I empathise with my fellow members' concern when I want more and more oversteer from the setup while already scaring the living daylights out of them with the silly way I drive :P Hopefully this year's car will address a lot of the feedback we received for RB23 this and last year and we'll be able to have a car we can more comfortably tune the handling balance of. Thanks again for coming by and making this video!
Had a small question: Any reason a more complex suspension system wasn't used to decouple roll and heave? I would assume costs, but just curious to know.
@@samarthdalvi1323 Good question! As I similarly answered to someone else, going with simpler direct actuation was intended to reduce costs but more critically reduce design and manufacturing time/complexity. RB23 was designed in a relatively short window and since this was going to be our first dynamic EV class vehicle we wanted to make sure we got the car designed, manufactured and tested within a reasonable timeline, so at the time a decoupled setup was less of a priority for Kevin our suspension lead and kinematics designer. Overall the package still works really well! But we've got some options to fix the front heave stiffness and you'll see a bit of that this year and possibly bigger changes beyond that depending on the feasibility of a decoupled setup :)
Wow. Great to see you go back to where it started! Blows me away to see what you've achieved since we were sitting in the lab gluing cardboardium alloy together more than a decade ago. Time flies!
These cars are insane to drive, i got the chance to get into our universitys FSAE a few times when the team made the change to electric, its like an extra grippy kart and you accelerate the time x10
Hey Kyle, great video. I've been waiting for a long time for you to do something about Formula Student. I think there‘s only little content on RU-vid about it, even though there are so many young students who want to learn a lot in this area. I hope you'll be making more videos about aerodynamics in Formula Student in the future. Since the rules are so open here, there are many teams that come up with creative and extraordinary solutions. It would be especially interesting if you took a look at the cars of the major European teams, as they operate at a very high level and yet use quite different concepts among themselves. Maybe in a similar way as you do your reviews on all the F1 Cars. Thank you!
Yeah, it would be very interesting to see Kyle taking a look at what top European teams ran in the last 2-3 years. Especially since Powered Ground Effect became legal once again and you have at least 15 teams with CL*A's of over 6(and TuFast Racing rocking an 8.1)
It would be interesting for you to have a look at the european full carbon monocoque 4WD torque vectoring cars. Cars like from Stuttgard, Zürich or Karlsruhe
Great video and learnt a heap from such an in depth look at what the guys were up to. You should look at doing some colabs with Mozzysails on the Americas Cup sail boats soon. It would be interesting to see your take on the boats noting the F1 interest in a number of the teams.
There's a small youtuber called @IndeterminateDesign that 3D printed an "RC Hypercar" and did a whole bunch of aero design on it. I'd love to see you review his project and make any comments on his design. It's similar to FSAE aero in that the speeds are so slow that you need to go to extremes to extract downforce.
7:47 Cane Creek Double Barrel IL Coil mtb shock. I love how every one of these teams runs some kind of mtb coil shock. Kinda makes sense, since they are highly tunable and not all too expensive. Our Team at the TU-Ilmenau runs Öhlins TTX22s
amazing video, i hope you can travel around the world and do more of these video. The driving portion was great, and the interview was awesome, congrats to the team!!
I’m liking the chassis Vanes 13:50 , great idea. These projects are a priceless part of someone’s education both from an academic and practical hands on perspective . Literally skills that will be used throughout an individual’s lifetime … Unfortunately i didn’t have anything like this in my school years, however I was lucky enough to be taught model aeroplane building from plans and model engineering by my Father plus many other things. This led then to steel fabrication and GRP . Now thanks to decades in the field of practical engineering I’m building and designing my own race car similar to James clays and Georg Plasa’s BMW E36 . All hand built including molds ,jigs etc etc and apart from 2D cad laser cut components no use of a computer. In an ideal world I would jump at the chance to have the use of CFD or be able to have a 3D printed exhaust manifold and suspension uprights but these are beyond my budget and practically not a viable option as of now . Going back to this formula the speeds they are physically restricted to due to track layout etc is fortunately compensated by the technical analysis aspect of things off track . Personally I’d love to try flexture suspension systems, a large flat vacuum bagged chassis and bottom wishbones incorporating Kevlar flextures . These ‘Joints ‘ could be pre impregnated with a rubber compound to provide some spring resistance . Even the floor could then have some aero and structural capabilities. I want a beer if anyone try’s this as you heard it here first 😂 👍🇬🇧
Eventhought I've driven some FSAE cars, it ALWAYS amazes me how freaking quick they are. No mundane comercial car can come close in short tracks (most wouldn't even have the cornering radius necessary hahaha)
Hiya Kyle. Loved this video, and all of your videos, but I have no idea where to request videos. So, I will put it here. I would love to do an Aero analysis on the Adamastor Furia, which has a super interesting diffuser design. But anyways, thanks for making these videos, they have helped me a lot with developing my own aero knowledge. Thanks!
Hi Kyle! Interesting video, love to hear about other teams design philosophies as a current FSAE team member on aero. I’m part of Spartan Racing at San Jose State University in CA. If you’re ever in the Bay Area in California, we’d love to set up a time for you to meet our team and drive our car!
Thanks for the insight and the interview. I think the ou should consider doing more of this videos. Especially comparing the Aero package of an ICE car with an electric one. An ICE car has different components and it might restrict the Aero a bit more.
With modern EVs getting ever better battery cells, one could have a gaping hole in the middle of the pack and still have plenty of capacity and power. Imagine you would with a battery hacker, and make space for a McMurtry Speirling style fan suction system... Some rubber strips with Tesla pump twirl profile to provide a neat seal. With a fan suction system, you can have a really slick body like Model S or Lucid Air and have a "sleeper" high downforce car that just works as a track car. Either would still be fast with a much smaller battery to save weight.
Actually the Lucid Air Pure might be reasonably well set up for this, as it doesn't have battery modules under the rear passengers' feet, for a more comfy and deep "foot garage". Building more ground-up from a lighter chassis fitting lighter wheels, perhaps built for a heavy mid/rear mouterh engine. Could also use a front engine car, and add a fan system with powerful genarator and bettery system to that. Imagine 2 tons of any speed downforce in a not-too-heavy racecar with a slick body. Much better top speeds for thrills. Getting more lap time from more durable tyres.
Check out AMZ (Swiss Formula Student team). They took their competition legal car, bumped up the power, sealed the floor with skirts and fans to suck the car down, removed the rear wing to reduce drag, and they got 0-100kmph in 0.956s.
@@theWajahat I saw that but it was a demo outside of the competition and rules. The rules state: T8.1.1 defines an aerodynamic device as "A specifically designed structure mounted ON the vehicle to guide the airflow AROUND the vehicle" T2.2.2 "Sliding skirts or other aerodynamic devices that by design, fabrication or as a consequence of moving, contact the track surface are prohibited." I'm pretty sure that if anyone tried it, it will either be rejected based on these regs, or the regs would be modified to exclude it.
Actually if you will join the major competitions in Europe this year like FSG, FSA or FSEast, you will be happy to see quite a few teams with some impressive powered ground systems (which is the legal system on the cars that might come closest to your idea)
What do you make of the new Ferrari package, especially the new horns next to the cockpit? I can't quite figure those horn's contribution to the airflow and how the overall low and high pressures it creates will change the airflow downstream. I knew their effect is probably minor, but their shape just looks so interesting. I'd be especially grateful if you discussed how airflow is effected where two airfoils meet. How does the overall effect change if the airfoils have high pressure on the same side vs opposite sides and where do the vortexes actually shed from the structure? Are you going to make a video about the new aero updates for the cars? I'm very interested in what you make of the new Ferrari package, especially the new horns next to the cockpit. I can't quite figure those horn's contribution to the airflow and how the overall low and high pressures it creates will change the airflow downstream. It would be cool if you went over the McLaren updates as well before they bring when further updates later in the season.
"support the mechanical grip" *Can't decouple heave and roll* Um....Based on the feedback of the rear being very stable and the front kind of washing out, it seems as if they missed the mark on the front end of the car. Sure the aero works and it's with a low budget but it seems as though they didn't address the mechanical grip on the front end AFTER they accomplished the front aero packaging.
cool video. I do a lot OF autocross myself. you are turning too late btw. You need to early apex in autocross, in order to late apex. makes no sense right? but once you get it down, it makes sense. somethin a US SCCA nation AutoX champion taught me.
hey kyle quick question. with mechanical grip being so key to performance, and with these cars needing to run so stiff, is there any scope for the use of a mass damper to be used to reduce bouncing ?
Is MSHD a good wing profile for timeattack?, i use that profile on my car, we have a lot of "slow" small technical track here in sweden i have built it in 2 versions.. one 180cm x 47cm chord, and the one i use now, a 180 x 25cm chord.
Your fixed axle theory isn't necessarily true. In kart racing the fixed rear axle is used as if it were a diff by lifting the inside rear wheel. By adjusting the stiffness and length of the axle plus various(many) other adjustments the character can be set up to ones liking. Understeer and snap oversteer aren't a thing really.
Comedy gold Ev The battery went flat WHEN will folks realise thy are being scammed EVs have their place ( Ernie drove the fastest milk float in the west) and yes the linear torque is great BUT go back to the CBR 600 engines
