Project Overview

With the new 2022 F1 Technical Regulations, the teams fond themselves no longer in the position of directly measuring the downforce produced by the front wing by the use of washer-shaped load cells in the pylons supporting the mainplane of the front wing itself.

This prompted the necessity to develop a different method to accurately measure the downforce generated by the wing in order to assess aerodynamic performance and imbalances due to setup and damages.

The industry standard is the use of an array of pressure taps and accurate aeromaps in 7 variables developed in the wind tunnel to predict via pressure integration and aeromap interpolation the downforce generated. This method is, however, imprecise and inclined to biases and errors.

Design Process

Feasibility and Optimization

• Analyzed different techiques to aquire the required data including strain gauge type and technology for best aquisition resolution and range.

• Gathered environmental limits for efficient setup, calibration, aerodynamic performance and electronics compatibility to guarantee a proper sizing and complexity in order to be used during the race

• Created simplified but accurate FE Models to guarantee flexibility in the early stage of the investigation when many variables are yet not fixed

• Investigated multiple parameters affecting the performance of the sensor array such as:

  • Number of gages: The gage number changes greatly not only the accuracy, but also the number of aerodynamic forces that can be measured.

  • Orientation: Being a CFRP application, and given the complex construction process of a F1 Front Crash Structure, the orientation of the gages plays an essential role on the measured strain by the gauge and, thus on the accuracy.

  • Electrical configuration: Since the strain gages must be completed in a Wheatstone Bridge pattern, configurations where the full bridge was completed on site were also investigated.

• DOE analysis of the parameters with multiple constraint and objectives to gather data and make the most correct choice of parameters.

Automation and Calibration

Being the front wing and nosebox one of the most important aerodynamic parts of the car while also being very susceptible to crashes and failures, it is important that the entire process is very flexible and automated so it can be repeated many times for different shapes of the nosebox but also for manufacturing differences between components of the same year. In order o achieve this:

• Automated application to choose and optimize the number and position of the strain gages.

• Automatic tools to perform model accuracy and range prediction to assess validity of optimized design.

• Various tools to aid and automatize the creation of testing procedures for sensor and model calibration.

• Flexibility granted to apply same techniques to different components such as the rear wing and the underbody.

Testing

• Developed testing procedures to test first prototype of array sensor system.

• Postprocessed and fitted test data to model.

• Assessed project success by gathering KPI and statistics on the performance achieving an absolute error of ±100N in the whole range of application.

Project Overview

During the design of suspension variants for the mid-season developement of the car, one of the most important aspects for high torsional stiffness suspensions like the one used in F1 is the elasto-kinematics of the wheel, that being the variation of the fundamental kinematic parameters with varying load conditions.

The targets for ideal values for these gains are given by the Vehicle Performance Group and are then tested on a test bench to validate the models. It is therefore important, to minimize time-to-track, quick and easy assessment of various modification to the suspension geometry and element stiffnesses in order to properly guide the design process.

Algorithms

Elasticity

• Designed and implemented simpplified versions of rigid body dynamics algorithms based on robotic's screw theory applied to closed-loop mechanisms to give instantaneous feedback on pure kinematic behaviour of the design.

• Developed a fully modular and customizable platform to solve linearly and non-linearly all types of mechanisms with elastic members.

• Implemented different types of non rigid joints and bodies:

  • Link: 2-port body with complete elastic behaviour.

  • Wishbone: 3-port body in a classic wishbone configuration with full elastic matrix calculation from simple parameters.

  • Upright: N-port body with compliance matrix input from FEA software through superelement definition.

  • Hub and wheel: Simplified hub and wheel elastic behaviour from simple parameters.

  • Joints: Implemented various kind of joints with internal elasticity such as spherical, revolute, cylindrical, universal and othes.

Features

• Suspension variant creation end adit through graphics interface or xml files.

• Easy implementation of new variants through exposed interface and abstract classes for maximum scalability and flexibility.

• Quick output of compliance matrix for the use in real-time dynamic simulations.

• Calculation of loads on linkages and simple elements based on list of loadcases from excel file to check for strength via FEA.

Project Overview

During the developement of Integrale 636, to assess different tyre options and make the correct choice to extract the mosp performance, it was essential to have a tool able to quickly and accurately extract, postprocess and fit data from tire test benches.

It was essential for the model to be scalable and easily improved to accomodate for future versions. The resulting tool was able to automatically or manually read data from different types of test benches and model different effects accounted for in the Pacejka MF5.2 writing the result in output in an industry standard .tir file.

Features

Import

• Automatic import based on normal input format found in FSAE Tire Testing Consortium at Calspan to reduce to the minimum preprocessing time.

• Manual data pre-processing tools to account for the possibility of differet data input types, channels and formats.

Fitting

• Fitting of different physical quantities in pure slip conditions.

• Different possibilities for fitting models in combined slip.

• Selectable modes of operation and default values calculation to compensate for missing and/or corrupted data.

• Managed to optionally include turnslip effects and advanced effects for special tires and tests.

Project Overview

During my 4th year at university I worked in a small company based in Sant'Agata Bolognese near Lamborghini's factory which core business was the developement of mechanical components and systems mainly for GT3 cars and other series. One of the projects I was heavily involved in was the R&D group which was tasked with the reverse engineering and improvement of an XTrac gearbox that failed multiple times in the last seasons of the Endurance Championships.

This redesign aimed at reducing spare part cost as well as guaranteeing a significant improvement in life span to match the requirements of endurance racing. The efforts were focused in particular on the differential outer gears where the majority of failures were observed while also taking time to improve, from a technology and manufacturing perspective, the construction of all the other gear pairs and components, especially selector forks, shafts and splines.

Reverse Engineering

Measurements

• Used state of the art Coordinate Measuring Machines I determined basic dimensions and geometrical features with their expected tollerances.

• Performed various measurements on hardness, roughness and other parameters on all the components to guess techonologal parameters and manufacturing techniques.

• Scanned and rebuilt complex shapes and geometries with the aid of FARO scanning products in order to rebuild the complex parts in the assembly.

Rebuild

• Realized 3D CADs of all the components of the gearbox.

• Produced technical drawings for all parts, with particular intrest to manufacturing process and stages, making effective use of GD&T and normatives.

• Studied impact of surface and heat treatments in performance and life span of key components

Improvements

• Created full model of gearbox with all key components in Gleason's KISSSoft to analyze expected performance, wear and failures.

• Analyzed real track data from various test days to gather a realistic load spectrum including gear used, speed, torque, power, braking force and more.

• Performed endurance simulations of the assembly to assess modification effectiveness. The simulations confirmed an expected life span under target.

• Examined effects of tooth parameters and micro-modifications on life of gears and shafts to increase the expected life span of 50%.

• Investigated effects on technological processes on the experienced failures managing to improve critical details.

Project Overview

After many failures of the rear wing in normal conditions during the season, the Chief Designer and Chief Technical Officer pushed the head of my department for some short and long term solutions to the problem.

While the short term solution of locally reinforcing the affected parts progressed fairly easily, the long term solution was more complex since no previous know-how was present. Along with my colleagues I help develop a series of statistical metrics and tests to analyze and validate different options on different trakcs in order to improve the design validation process.

Short term solutions

• Designed reinforced components with increased stiffness to reduce vibrations and increase normal frequencies in order to improve reliability at the expense of weight.

• Performed non distructive analyses and lab tests to gather data on past failures and increase model accuracy.

• Preemptively performed corrective actions on likely-to-fail assemblies to ensure no failures due to the same effects observed on the other versions.

Long term solutions

Design targets

• Analyzed season data using filtering and signal processing techniques.

• Came up with correlation matrix for different vibrational modes to analyze mode interactions and superpositions.

• Invented metrics to assess track harshness with respect to rear wing vibrations.

• Helped reduce target safety factor by including statistical significance to the numbers and imposing reliability and probabilistic targets.

Validation

• Using vibrational data from use and misuse case at the limit of the design loads, I developed new procedures necessary for the structural sign-off of wing assemblies.

• Validated methodology via lab tests of failed and reinforced components in order to verify the correct sign-off capability of the test.

• Prepared tests and procedures for vibrational sign-off for all the specifications of rear wing for the current and following season.