F1's GENIUS Damper Trick Was So Good It Was Banned

renault f1 and fernando alonso were dominant in f1 through the mid-2000s but it wasn't just fernando's crazy driving style that gave them such pace the car had a genius mechanical device fitted to the nose of the car that made it extremely stable and gave it much more grip than any of the other cars on the grid it was an idea that renault copied from skyscrapers where they use a large suspended mass to counteract the swaying of the building they came up with a condensed down version and fitted it to the car it gained them downforce made the car much more confidence inspiring through the corners and gained them huge lap time but how did renault take something from a skyscraper and use it to make their f1 car so dominant in 2005 new regulations meant the front wing had to be 50 millimeters higher than in previous years so the teams often lowered the whole car to get the new in closer to the ground and therefore be more effective however this meant the springs needed to be much stiffer to stop the car bottoming out which then caused another problem as the f1 tires hit bumps or clipped curbs the car experienced pretty serious vibrations typically this led to the nose pitching up and down around 8 to 10 times a second completely ruining the airflow over the front wing leading to a huge reduction in downforce it also led to the grip levels changing through the corner making the car very unpredictable and difficult for the drivers to drive at the limit so renault developed a tuned mass damper for the 2005 season this was a device that would oppose any up and down vibrations making the car more drivable and improving grip so how did it work when you have a mass on a spring then pull it it oscillates but let's say you do this with two masses and two springs and something weird happens they appear to take turns with one oscillating and then the other one takes energy from the other then passes it back this is the concept that is used in the taipei 101 skyscraper it has an enormous mass damper that counteracts the natural sway of the building even protecting from 130 mile an hour winds and huge earthquakes the 660 ton mass is suspended with huge steel wires meaning it can move independently from the building this concept is the same as the two masses on the springs it means the building passes its swaying energy onto the pendulum which is then gently dumped removing this energy and reducing the swaying it's also tuned meaning the springs and the mass are specifically chosen so they have the same natural frequency as the building this means that when the building sways one way the mass moves in exactly the opposite direction always opposing the movement of the building and reducing the sway in high winds so how do you go about fitting one of these to a formula one car firstly renault's vibrations were in the up and down direction rather than side to side so they came up with a different design but used the same concept it consisted of a donut shaped mass originally at 10 kilograms that sat in a cylinder it had a spring on either side that suspended it so whenever the car went over a bump the mass would move up and the springs would push it back to the center however the really clever bit was how they designed the mass and the cylinder to fit together they had a very small but precisely designed gap between the airtight cylinder and the outer edge of the mass this damped the system every time the mass moved the air squeezed around the edge this dissipated some of the energy which in turn reduced the vibration of the car so how did it make the car faster thank you so much to everyone who helped us get over 400 000 subscribers last week it's absolutely incredible but 85 percent of you still aren't subscribed and we'd love for you to join us as a driver you're always predicting the grip at any one corner estimating how much speed you can carry and how much corning force the car can take without going over the limit so you're always going to be quicker more confident and more refined in a more drivable car and by that i mean a car that reacts the same every time you hit the brake pedal turn it into the corner or hit the accelerator the vibration in the 2005 f1 cars meant that the grip level wasn't consistent let me explain we know that one of the factors that affects how much grip a tire has is how much force is pushing it down into the track that's why we like downforce but if the car is oscillating up and down this downward force is changing this really matters it not only changes how much the rubber is pressed into the road but also the size of the contact patch on the tyre because the harder it's pressed into the track the more the tire deforms making the area of the tyre touching the road larger let's say that as fernando went through a fast right hander like stowe the front left tyre is experiencing 500 kilograms of downward force this would mean that the tyre would provide a certain amount of grip and fernando would anticipate this and be driving just on the limit extracting the most speed from the car but in an unpredictable oscillating car this downward force changes eight times a second throughout the corner perhaps fluctuating between around 400 and 600 kilograms of downward force this means that the grip level isn't consistent so the driver would have to back off to be sure the car would stick this is where the tuned mass damper comes in whenever the car moved upwards the mass moved the opposite way pulling the car back towards its normal ride height this made the car very stable keeping the grip consistent and alonso said it gave him massive confidence through the corners it also performed well over curbs allowing him to hit them harder and find more lap time often with chicanes you're balancing taking more curb and having a better racing line with not disrupting the car too much on the exit fernando could take a much better racing line and not risk jumping off the curb and ruining his exit renault began testing the car on their seven poster rig before every race this is a testing rig that is normally used to choose the correct suspension settings for each track they discovered they could tweak the springs and the mass in the system to optimize it for things like bumpier tracks or compensate for larger curbs although the system was mechanical and aided the suspension system in the car it gave additional benefits too it allowed renault to run with the lower ride height and stiffer springs gaining them downforce and lots of lap time renault estimated that the tuned mass stamped gained them between two and four tenths of a second per lap depending on the circuit normally gaining most on the bumpier tracks as ever the majority of the other teams copied the system but there is always a lag between the introduction of new technology and all of the teams getting it working to its full potential so renault took the constructors world championship in both 2005 and 2006 with fernando taking both drivers titles the mass damper system despite being approved by the faa in 2005 was banned for the 2007 season as it was deemed a movable aerodynamic device renault appealed this for obvious reasons the damper is as much of a movable aero device as the suspension of the car but the ruling stood and they weren't used for the 2007 season i analyzed the absolutely bizarre driving style that won alonso his two titles in this video i break down what makes him so successful and why it's so different to what anyone else does please do consider subscribing and i'll see you in the next one games is this going to be the poll at the moment for fernando along so it is he lost a little bit with that mistake in the final corner but nevertheless it puts him top of the time sheets

Channel: Driver61

Views: 997,002

Rating: 4.9324722 out of 5

Keywords: Formula 1, Driving, Coaching, Motorsport, Engineering, F1, Racing, Incredible Motorsport, Driver61, Fernando Alonso, Renault F1, Teipei 101, Mass Damper, Vibration, Physics, Design

Id: 6G4SXmDdFbg

Length: 8min 1sec (481 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 02 2021