[WEC] LMP Future Regulations (was Le Mans EVO rules - now hypercar rules)

[Bandicoot17]

Appendix B is locked until after Le Mans...

[Victor_RO]

Originally Posted by hcl123

66.3L for petrol and 54.3L diesel ?

http://www.fia.com/sites/default/fil...T_07042014.pdf

But may be a caveat, that is only for Silverstone, meaning there will be a *different* annexe/appendix B for each track/circuit.

The only changes in appendix B between Silverstone, Spa and Le Mans are related to the MJ limit per class.

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by gwyllion

The latest EoT update gives Audi a 54.3 liter tank.

and the petrol tank is 68.3l.

Those are the capacities, the less said about the analysis the better

[hcl123]

Ok! perhaps Audi knew about what the *new* appendix B would be, between the FINAL DRAFT V8 and what may be after Le Mans (to be seen)-> nothing is more expensive than R&D for a constant moving target...

But if the past has any trend for future, *nothing* is guarantied, specially concerning diesel (->spend more millions or drop off... FIA/ACO whistling , what ? us ??... no, nono we didn't ban diesel, they dropped off ROLF.)

[hcl123]

Originally Posted by Adam43

and the petrol tank is 68.3l.

Those are the capacities, the less said about the analysis the better

ROFL!... you are right!... Diesel tank dropped size, Petrol augmented (not 66.3)... now they must allow JP10 lol

[ the less said about the analysis the better ... depends, what if we are assisting the last season for Audi ? (take it with stoicism whatever comes) ... perhaps why Porsche is there now, same VW group (corners are covered)...]

[GasperG]

Originally Posted by hcl123

And NO! ... fuel goes in, the primary derivative is torque, *power* has a much direct relation with RPM, and depends mostly on the balance, loses and mechanical efficiency ( and so *more* fuel). You also know little about engines...

Maybe I don't know much about engines, but apparently I know much more about the laws of thermodynamics.

And I'm sorry for feeding a troll, last pages in this thread were completely unproductive.

[hcl123]

Yes all combustion produces heat... but it is you who contributed *nothing*...

And guess what, the "specific energy" of a fuel doesn't have to do with "higher heat value" or "lower heat value"... it is a formula that has to do with with "Gibbs free energy" (petrol around 45MJ/Kg for typical RON 98).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_ef...ontent_of_fuel

If Audi would want more "heat of combustion", all it had to do is mix a percentage of "gasoline" in the diesel LOL

47.3MJ/Kg petrol against 44.8MJ/kg Diesel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_of_combustion

And about previous post about this distorted "fuel formula"... you could had *searched and seen*... since you talk so much of heat, by this last "Heat of combustion" link, that indeed Gasoline (petrol) has more potential gravimetric energy density than Diesel... instead of staying there babbling and rolfing of your own ignorance.

My original curse in University was Chemical Engineering my friend... before change to Enterprise Management.

Now who is the troll !?

[Aysedasi]

You.

Enough of this. We're all for the provision and exchange of information, but there are better ways of doing it than this. This isn't a competition to find out know knows the most.....

[Deleted]

A bit off, but we should be rather happy - relatively speaking - that the biggest of the factory LMP1 budgets struggle to reach lower midfield F1 teams. Especially with FIA now in the gang too. Why? Well with the ever-continuing moans over F1 cost cutting they're proposed further moves towards slow spec standardization...
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/113705

If we started reaching 100-200 million dollar budgets in LMP1 I'm pretty sure they'd start decreasing the now-unlimited testing and issuing similar things as mentioned below.

I don't think current LMP1 is perfect, but even now it's more technologically advanced and relevant and has more freedom for engineering than F1 - and if those proposed cost cuttings continue the gap just grows. Of course P1 will never, ever reach the F1 popularity or come near it because of the format difference, and F1 would still get watched if it the races were run with transsexual robots in some underground parking hall. But that's not really point.

[Richard C]

I think it is interesting that FIA/Formula 1 and FIA/ACO are roughly trying to do the same thing, but with slightly different solutions. I think this provides benefit to learn from the other side (assuming you are willing to admit when you are wrong!)

I don't know where the money is typically spent but my gut tells me that allowing a bit more testing reduces both risk and cost. Look at the fiasco of the Renault F1 PSU. I suspect a good bit of that would have been solved if more testing had been allowed. Overall, I think prototype racing has it more right than F1.

Richard

[hcl123]

I think its to praise FIA/ACO the effort they are doing in the hybrid tech ... perhaps more ACO than FIA, because in F1 this tech is much dimmer compared to WEC ... and perhaps there is a little more harder push from Toyota for this to happen ( if they did kudos to them).

8MJ in lets say, less than 3 1/2 minutes, is really lots of energy... this is all very new, it will be beneficial for the industry even for EVs, it will need lots of tests.

[Pingguest]

Originally Posted by gwyllion

This "late change" was announced in June 2012.
source: http://www.24h-lemans.com/wpphpFichi...ation_2014.pdf

The ACO mandates four-stroke piston engines for the purpose of road relevance. But why did they not mandate the engines to be bolted in the chassis and hence outlawing the engine to be a structural member then, as it is the case with road cars? The absence of such regulation made Porsche to develop a V4 instead of a more relevant straight-four engine.

[JoestForEver]

Originally Posted by Pingguest

The ACO mandates four-stroke piston engines for the purpose of road relevance. But why did they not mandate the engines to be bolted in the chassis and hence outlawing the engine to be a structural member then, as it is the case with road cars? The absence of such regulation made Porsche to develop a V4 instead of a more relevant straight-four engine.

Porsche has always been doing this since RS Spyder.(Even LMP2000 and WSC95 maybe?)

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Pingguest

The ACO mandates four-stroke piston engines for the purpose of road relevance. But why did they not mandate the engines to be bolted in the chassis and hence outlawing the engine to be a structural member then, as it is the case with road cars? The absence of such regulation made Porsche to develop a V4 instead of a more relevant straight-four engine.

I get your point, but it doesn't really make sense given the road relevance of V6 and V8 solutions which are also compact and can be/are used as a structural member (and would still be used if not allowed to be a structural member). It really would seem to just target something like the Porsche V4 only. I am really not sure what if any positive impact that type of change would have.

Richard

[Pingguest]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

I get your point, but it doesn't really make sense given the road relevance of V6 and V8 solutions which are also compact and can be/are used as a structural member (and would still be used if not allowed to be a structural member). It really would seem to just target something like the Porsche V4 only. I am really not sure what if any positive impact that type of change would have.

Richard

I am not necessarily targeting Porsche - and neither their V4 or any V-configuration -, but used their choice of configuration as an example and not without a reason. When Porsche revealed their specifications, they stated a straight-four engine would have been a more obvious choice if it was not that such an engine cannot be a structural member and thus would add weight and complexity in terms of chassis architecture compared to a V4.
As the ACO has mandated four-stroke engines for the sake of road relevancy, it is quite incomprehensible that they did not create a level playing field for both the more relevant and the less relevant engine configurations. To me it is simply inconsistent.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Pingguest

I am not necessarily targeting Porsche - and neither their V4 or any V-configuration -, but used their choice of configuration as an example and not without a reason. When Porsche revealed their specifications, they stated a straight-four engine would have been a more obvious choice if it was not that such an engine cannot be a structural member and thus would add weight and complexity in terms of chassis architecture compared to a V4.
As the ACO has mandated four-stroke engines for the sake of road relevancy, it is quite incomprehensible that they did not create a level playing field for both the more relevant and the less relevant engine configurations. To me it is simply inconsistent.

Again, I understand what you are saying and understand your point. I agree that there are plenty of inconsistencies in the entire "road relevancy" topic. But I think also think there is a large list of technologies that could potentially have more road relevancy than structural member. Variable valve timing is the first that comes to mind (however it is relatively mature technology).

And who is to say that using the engine as a structural member is not road relevant? While road cars are not hanging the tail of the car off the engine (I wouldn't be surprised to hear that some super cars do this), there is some level of "structural member" aspect of production engines. The engine and transmission is commonly suspended as a unit in road cars and the engine and transmission does have to be engineered to handle those stresses.

Regarding Porsche, I don't seem to remember them saying they would have preferred an I4 solution (would have to check all various interviews and press releases), but rather that the V4 was more compact and works better as a structural member than an I4 solution.

Richard

[hcl123]

Originally Posted by Pingguest

The ACO mandates four-stroke piston engines for the purpose of road relevance. But why did they not mandate the engines to be bolted in the chassis and hence outlawing the engine to be a structural member then, as it is the case with road cars? The absence of such regulation made Porsche to develop a V4 instead of a more relevant straight-four engine.

I don't think that is why Porsche choose a V4... and besides structural integration is only a *weight* reduction measure, it was good for F1, which are Moto 4 with big engines (used to be).

I think "endurance" contributed far far more to our road cars then F1... ACO is right to be proud of the contribution, hope they will not shut the door on the possibilities of more further "innovations" by a senseless politics of performance equalization...

And in that respect the "fuel flow metrics" are distorted (provable by numbers), there is a clear petrol bias IMHO ( unless there is "special fuels" tailored by SHELL, which i think is not the case at all, and which would turn *road going* contributions bragging to nothing but propaganda)

also

* Free air inlets: air restrictors cancelled, variable admission systems allowed

* Very costly exotic materials and systems banned (electromagnetic valves) ??

Doesn't the FIAT MultiAir tech use Valeo magnetic valves ? ... for dirty cheap house maids FIAT 500's ? ... how can they say such thing ??

[hcl123]

Originally Posted by TF110

*Being handicapped by what?* Whats its full potential anyway? We havent seen the full potential of any car imo. The #3 got better late in the race, even if it was still off pace, that could be from a number of things. They dont need bop, and the rules state no lmp1 team will receive bop (eot they call it) before Le Mans.

*By the fuel metrics of course, isn't it obvious ??* ( maybe not, maybe a help is needed)

comes in previous posts in another thread
http://tentenths.com/forum/showthrea...07659&page=232
http://tentenths.com/forum/showthrea...07659&page=233

special by my accounts, attending is B20 & E10 -> biofuels mixed
http://tentenths.com/forum/showpost....postcount=3480
http://tentenths.com/forum/showpost....postcount=3487

there are different methods of calculating, and any fuel is a mix anyway... **and it can be distorted like hell** ... until FIA/ACO releases the energy content of their fuel by proper direct chemical analyses of what is delivered (and the teams better do their counter analyses ), its nothing but a stupid charade base for "arbitrary distorted" rules...

Example following encyclopedic numbers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_fuel

Says Petrol 43.2MJ/Kg Diesel 43.1 MJ/Kg... so the fuel flow of diesel Kg/hour should even be a little higher than petrol, not > 11% in favor of Petrol

Says Petrol 32.18MJ/L Diesel 35.86 MJ/L, around 11% more capacity fuel tank for Petrol, not >22%.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline

Says petrol 42.4MJ/kg

Says density ~0.71 to 0.77 average 0.74kg/L makes 42.4x0.74 = 31.38MJ/L

So it can vary a lot according to the mixture of substances you analyze, yet the worst is that by the name diesel there is even a lot more of substances... truck fuel ??... how about *rocket fuel* ?? ... would you like to take a ride on a air force fighter jet ? ... a F22 Raptor as example ? ... they cannot function without *diesel*, there isn't such thing as a "gasoline" jet ( well there is, but so lame small experimental things lol), either fighter or airlines.

Example following wikipedia in a try to approach the correct numbers (averages)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_content_of_biofuel
( petrol 48.3 MJ/Kg 34.8 MJ/L ; Ethanol 26.8 MJ/Kg 21.2MJ/L ... diesel 48.1 MJ/Kg 40.3MJ/L ; Biodisel 37.8ML/Kg 35.7MJ/L )

Specially following
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_ef...ontent_of_fuel
( petrol premium 46 MJ/Kg 34.8MJ/L ; Ethanol 31.1 MJ/Kg 23.5MJ/L ... diesel 48 MJ/Kg 38.6MJ/L ; Biodisel 39.9ML/Kg 35.1MJ/L )

concludes very very close to reality i think ( no bias no second intention)

* Gravimetric energy density

Petrol =(((48.3x0.8)+(26.8x0.2)) +((46x0.8)+(31.1x0.2)))/2 = 43.51 MJ/Kg ( its a B20 20% ethanol)

Diesel = (((48.1x0.9)+(37.8x0.1)) + ((48x0.9)+(39.9x0.1)))/2 = 47.13 MJ/Kg ( its a E10 10% biodiesel)

Diff 8.3% in favor of diesel

* Volumetric energy density

Petrol = (((34.8x0.8)+(21.2x0.2)) +((34.8x0.8)+(23.5x0.2)))/2 = 32.31 MJ/L ( its a B20 20% ethanol)

Diesel = (((40.3x0.9)+(35.7x0.1)) + ((38.6x0.9)+(35.1x0.1)))/2 = 39.04 MJ/L ( its a E10 10% biodiesel) (wikipedia diesel fuel says 35.86 MJ/L, add biodiesel and is even lower)

Diff 20.8 % in favor of diesel

The problem is that 39.04MJ/L drops inside the JP10 diesel numbers, its *rocket* fuel, not a car fuel... http://www.greencarcongress.com/2012...-20120604.html

Is the R18 riding on *rocket* fuel.. JP10 ? ... frankly it shouldn't be allowed, not only would it need an engine made of special alloys to withstand, but is a gross distortion of what is for road cars... BUT i don't think Audi is riding on JP 10 at all, though FIA/ACO calculations numbers seems to indicate so

---------------------------------
The allocations until Le Mans is in (after LM, there will be new deliberations-> machinations lol)

http://www.24h-lemans.com/wpphpFichi...ation_2014.pdf

(its a calculation of "Liters per Lap"... but we'll get there)

Tank 53.3 L diesel
64.4 L petrol

diff 20.8%, lol what a stupid charade! ( sigh heil! ) lol .. that contradicts their own volumetric numbers

Max Fuel Flows

4.5L/lap for petrol 6MJ hybrid
3.93L/lap for diesel 2MJ hybrid

is 14.5% diff LOL

and if we follow by comparison the more correct numbers of diesel fuel and gasoline wiki pages

Petrol (32.18 + 31.38)/2 = ~ 31.78 MJ/L
Diesel 35.96 MJ/L

13.1% diff volumetric

Petrol (43.2 +42.4)/2 = ~ 42.8 MJ/Kg
Diesel 43.1MJ/kg

diff 0.7% gravimetric BIG LOL

Conclusion for those that don't like numbers, attending is B20 and E10 fuels, not plain gasoline or diesel, the *volumetric* differences should be between 16 and 18% for the tank capacity ... and the *gravimetric* differences should be between 1.5 and 2% for the kg/hour fuel flows

No wonder with fuel flows >10% kg/hour in favor of petrol that the R18 can't go as used before

--------------------------------------------
Oh! look, for Le mans

In Le Mans if this EoT applies http://www.fia.com/sites/default/fil...T_07042014.pdf will be

Tank 54.3 L diesel
68.3 L petrol

diff 25.78% big LOL -> its more fuel for both, but what happened to the 20%... deltawing is right they give 1 more liter to diesel lol... but 3.9 more liters to petrol LOL

flows 80.2kg/hour
89.5Kg/hour

diff ~11.6% when should not even be 2% ... that is why i think there is a very big wall that Audi has to climb... the game is rigged, the table is tilted... those with hopes and analyses are missing the big picture... hardly an audi will ever ride in front or have higher top speeds again, and win if only they are lucky, no matter if they can find an ever bigger "efficiency" gap.

[TF110]

Just my opinion, I dont think having a better fuel is a handicap They even went 2mj to get the highest fuel flow in the hybrid diesel class.

[hcl123]

What started already distorted (doing a direct comparison diesel 2MJ H, and Petrol 6MJ H )

http://www.fia.com/sites/default/fil...2013-FINAL.pdf

Flows: 87.9 kg/hour petrol 83.3kg/hour diesel ( 5.5% favor petrol)
F tank: 66.9 L petrol 54.8 L diesel ( 22% in favor of petrol)

But there is a good thing about the various PDFs, if a lap at Le Mans, 139.5MJ/lap corresponds to 4.5 L/lap petrol ; and 138.7MJ/lap corresponds to 3.93L/lap diesel... now we know from the "horse mouth" FIA/ACO fuels are 31MJ/L Petrol and 35.29MJ/L for diesel... which makes my previous post numbers ~correct

and if we follow by comparison the more correct numbers of diesel fuel and gasoline wiki pages

Petrol (32.18 + 31.38)/2 = ~ 31.78 MJ/L
Diesel 35.96 MJ/L

13.1% diff volumetric

Petrol (43.2 +42.4)/2 = ~ 42.8 MJ/Kg
Diesel 43.1MJ/kg

diff 0.7% gravimetric BIG LOL

What a distortion, from 5.5% compared to less than 1% gravimetric flow (should be)... to 22% compared to 13.1% (should be) fuel tank capacities.

--------------------
Got worst for the 2 first races... cars lighter ( 850kg) favors more petrol than diesel
http://lemans.hu/lemans_extra/techni...tions_2014.pdf

Flows: 89.5 kg/hour petrol 80.2kg/hour diesel ( ~11.6% favor petrol, more than doubled of previous distorted view -> and you wonder top speeds LOL)

F tank: 64.4 L petrol 53.3 L diesel (20.8 % in favor petrol... 2 % less than original set, and a diesel is already doing 1 less pit stop in 6 h lol)

-------------------
And worst... for Le Mans it drops back to 870 Kg i think
http://www.24h-lemans.com/wpphpFichi...T_07042014.pdf

Flows: 89.5 kg/hour petrol 80.2kg/hour diesel ( ~11.6% favor petrol, the same )

F tank: 68.3 L petrol 54.3 L diesel ( 25.78% in favor petrol... we can't have this fuel truckers doing one less pit stop in 6 h, can we ? ... no jokers! LOL )

-------------------

What a confusion this ACO ... nothing is ceirtain... in a proper enterprise/company they all will be fired by gross incompetence ( if no other criticisms), teams signing in should demand a contract, going to R&D for "X", if for some reason the goals change for "Y" , then a correspondent sizable compensation is due by the FIA/ACO.

[TF110]

P1-L is 850kg, P1-H is 870kg. Audi chose 2mj, they wanted more fuel or so they say. Why did Audi choose 2mj when they had the chance to do 4mj? The efficiency of electric motors is much much better than any fuel. Even the flywheel solution was able to do 3.5mj last year at LM, .Imo, 4mj is not a huge step. Instead they focused on ers-h. Well I guess that failed to meet their goals. I still think the diesel has more than enough performance and the LM package just isn't dialed in yet. I doubt theyre in trouble.

[hcl123]

Originally Posted by TF110

Just my opinion, I dont think having a better fuel is a handicap They even went 2mj to get the highest fuel flow in the hybrid diesel class.

They went for 2MJ exactly because of that and nothing else... it was already too penalizing to start with... and if you follow the numbers, the higher the Hybrid factor the less the fuel flows corespondent , that is, the energy gained in hybrid release is much less than the energy lost in fuel flow.

An don't get hopes... With the so called original FINAL draft numbers, Audi could compete, and the story would be totally different... and FIA/ACO is already owing Audi a lot of millions, because for the initial numbers there was an different engine with a MGU-H, then they were about to change those numbers, and had the decency of warning Audi ( no MGU-H and this stroked 4L engine)...

Nevertheless is tantamount of a shylock mafiosi behavior... an extortion coup a shake down... first give a carrot, let them take the expense to enter and have hope ( big announcements and presentations( and Audi presented a MGU-H car) and lot $$$ in R&D for a new car)... then cut them hard.

No doubt in my mind, if Audi knew how distorted things would be in 2014, by last PDFs... in a reasonable time in 2013... most probably they had not entered the 2014 season, the all team would had been out in glory not only Alan MacNish ( its a shake down).

Yes FIA/ACO behaves like a *criminal organization*... its what most cold and rational can be said.

[hcl123]

IF i were Audi... and since Joest is a private company... perhaps drop out of Hybrid and let Joest continue as a privateer on diesel, to fulfill contracts (transfer contracts if due, and add support)... they can gain ~5.7% more in fuel flow and the tank capacity is the same

2 MJ is next to nothing... perhaps use a smaller electric motor only for recuperation instead of an alternator, and put all ancillaries and then some on electric mode.

The coming back of the Joest R18 Ultra (powered by Audi)...

[ and the 850kg for car.. also a benefice -> go privateer Audi, for the first time since long a private team has a chance to win Le Mans, you don't as it is ]

[TF110]

Im perplexed concerning Audi. They went 2mj after the ers-h didnt work to their liking. Then figured more fuel would be better than trying for 4mj with their flywheel? That seems like an iffy decision. If there IS a so called "ers incentive", what would be the reason behind choosing the lowest ers class?

Imo, its not like Audi are incapable of going to the next class up, 4mj, so what made them choose 2mj, if they and every other team knew there would be an "incentive" to doing more mj? Did they not know? I dont believe that if this incentive business is actually true in the first place. Say it is true, would they not tell every team? Of course they would, so then the only thing left to assume was timing of this. I know some say it was only presented to teams before the prologue. Then I recall there was something being mentioned in december. But what of Porsche's 'mj class' decision? If they were so late to decide, how is it unreasonable to assume Audi could have made a decision around this time?

My thoughts are instead of arguing over the fairness, we should look at the teams and their decisions and why. Im putting up two theories here. This is just my guess because I dont think they didnt know before too late about this incentive, or there is no incentive. So either Audi made a bad calculation, or they have just been unlucky. I think its more the latter.

[JoestForEver]

Ok, some more numbers here based on Spa 6hrs race.
Toyota #8
Total race time: 21691.765sec
total pit time: 499.833s
total time on-track running=21191.932s
6MJ option average lap energy allocation: 79.6MJ/lap，so
0.642MJ/s=79.6MJ/lap*171laps/21191.932sec
that is 2312.284MJ/h
that is 71.3l/h, if 32.43MJ/L is the case.
Theoretically, a tank of petrol lasts 0.958h=57.4min=27.19laps (7.004km of Spa and 198.8kph average of #8)
53.76kg/h average fuel flow，60% of maximum 89.5kg/h
244.397kw average ICE output
6mj=4.78mj=38.57kw average ERS power and 282.967kw of average total power.

Audi #1
Total race time: 21765.601sec
total pit time: 448.588s
total time on-track running=21317.013s
2MJ option average lap energy allocation: 79.1MJ/lap，so
0.634MJ/s=79.1MJ/lap*171laps/ 21765.601sec
that is 2284.277MJ/h
that is 64.89l/h, if 35.2MJ/L is the case.
Theoretically, a tank of diesel lasts 0.836h=50.2min=23.64laps (7.004km of Spa and 198.1kph average of #1)
55.549kg/h average fuel flow，69.26% of maximum 80.2kg/h
284.87kw average ICE output(195g/kwh of BSFC) or 290.36kw(1.150 of BSFC petrol/diesel ratio)
2mj=1.59mj at spa=12.75kw average ERS power and average total power 300kw

Conclusion: Audi is driven much more closer to the limit than Toyota, albeit its much slower pace, partly because of sufficient downforce enables R18 to flat out where neither Toyota nor Porsche can. The more twisty a circuit is, the more likely Audi might be less crippled.
BUT there's far more potential from Toyota to be explored than we can expect, partly because of nearly 40% of maximum fuel flow waiting to be used, and partly because adding downforce is much easier than improve BSFC figures.

BTW, as far as the status quo is unchanged, Shanghai and Bahrain will likely be Toyota's race (Toyota will slaughter everyone like Mercedes did) but Sao Paulo and COTA are sure to be excited.