I’m curious to know how the F1 teams typically construct a nose cone for the cars. Are they a complex multi peice mold which completes the whole nose cone/front wing assembly in one peice or are multiple componants made, cured in an autoclave then bonded or bolted together later? Anyone have any images of a nose cone/front wing being made?
Thanks
Splint
http://www.sport24.com/auto-moto/formule-1/diaporamas/les-insolites-f1/heikki-kovalainen-en-espagne__1/#blocsDiaporama
http://www.structures.ethz.ch/education/master/intro/compulsory/composites/151-0307-WS0607-Uebung4_Text.pdf
…could be helpful, but I don’t have the final answer.
Had too…
Since all the parts are made of prepreg, and given the structural requirements of a nose, I’m gonna say that the nose is made on a single female mould (ensuring a smooth outer surface)before it is bagged/autoclaved.
But then again, because of the frequency of changes in F1 design, maybe the nosecone and front wing are separate…or the mould itself is easily re-configurable. This has got me thinking now…I’d actually enjoy building a F1-style front end. It’d be one helluva conversation piece! I do believe I shall spend some time thinking on this one…
The nose cone and wing are definitely separate pieces. Each wing element has its own tooling. Every other little bit on the car has its own tooling, and the parts are put together mostly with adhesives and some fasteners.
But there are many ways to go about making just the nose cone part of the front end.
As luck would have it, looky what I just found!
And that really makes sense…there’s been numerous front wing changes @ Ferrari this season, but only 2 or 3 nose cone changes that I can think of. The whole process must be super fast, though…the engineers come up with a new wing shape/profile, they create a 3D mould to fit it, CNC machine it up, lay up the part in CF and on to testing!
Which is actually a pretty cheap and fast way of getting things done…I’d imagine a new concept could be modeled and prototyped in a matter of days.
Yeah, I think you’d find almost every team has in house facilities for making the tooling and parts, they’re probably working round the clock in many situations making parts to send to the wind tunnel, probably only a small part of the parts they make ever make it to the race.
Maybe no mold what so ever for the wings?..CNC lite weight PUR and CF pre-preg warp it, bag it and cook it. Remove sand and paint…
Next project, I’m gonna make one of these to hang on my wall. I think I’ll be doing it using the method you’re talking about. Just…you know…no autoclave or CNC machining…or pre-preg. Unless, of course, I do the freezer pre-preg method.
Youtube has a pretty cool Honda/F1 factory tour. Each cars cloth is litteraly sitting in a bag, pre-cut prepreg, labeled with each drivers name.
Absolutely amazing, really…
It blows me away that with the technologies in F1 manufacturing, we’re not producing more composite road vehicles. Switching to majority composite parts in your average car would essentially leave the vehicle price the same, yet the car would weight half as much.
No way! There’s a reason cars with carbon chassis and body panels are in the half mil $ range.
Because they’re not mass producing them.
Also, have you seen the video of the carbon fiber bowl. They’ve come up with a way to stamp out parts in carbon fiber.
Initial costs would be insane, but parts could be made relatively cheap, compared to the hand made F1 car parts.
ETA, My BMW M3 has a carbon/kevlar bumper support. The new M3’s have carbon roofs. We’re getting closer. I know these are on high end cars, but it all starts somewhere.
I was looking online at a Porsche GT … maybe it was this site? They had the car half disassembled to fix a wiring issue… so darn sweet… all the carbon fiber in that car.
Yes, and those reasons are simple - Tooling, technology, and time. The technology of mass produced steel is a hundred or so years old.
The tooling/process/material costs to produce a given panel in steel versus CF is likely identical - whether you’re making one or a million.
The way CF is being produced for production (heh) cars currently is akin to using an english wheel to make car fenders. Which, if we did things that way today, would result in steel fenders costing as much as carbon composite ones.
Make no mistake about it - I’m a fan of what you do, I’ve seen your posts - but what you do by hand now, machines will be doing in a fraction of the time in a decade or so, for a fraction of the cost. People will always find cheaper, faster ways of doing the things they want to get done.
Dont forget. A composite car does not have to be made of carbon. At least for body panels, S glass is fine.
6871 would lower the cost substantially (times 4 cloth wise), and still be way lighter than steel.
This scenario is way off though:
You park your car. Someone bumps it in the lot. Your car is damaged to where the glass needs repair. At this point, your repair cost goes through the roof.
My guess is, that bumpers will never be made of anything other than what they are now. Cheap plastic.
I think technology for crash absorption will evolve from where we are today - the plastic bumpers are completely aesthetic, no impact absorbing ability at all - with honeycomb and EPS materials under that to absorb and dissipate crash energy. Maybe adding a composite layer to that will further improve things?
The way I see it, the smallest fender bender already seems to cost $1000 with new vehicles, since more often than not, the plastic panel cannot be repaired, so it’s a new, freshly painted panel anyhow…I expect it’ll just be a matter of replacing the panel and it’s inner absorbing materials, whatever they may be.
I’ve seen a couple people online who make wings this way… pu foam wraped in carbon fiber… usually wrapped in 12K or higher tow.
PU foam coated with epoxy and carbon is very strong stuff.
go fish.
There are many efforts to change “cheap plastic” into something that works well for impact damage, and pedestrian damage (I think in england, or the EU, there are guidelines on how much damage a PERSON will receive in a hit.
Many composite materials are used, like glass and carbon filled plastics. Some normal like ABS/PP. Some nylons, TPUs and TPEs.
Now, as far as the standard def. of composites goes, no…fiberglass and CF epoxies and stuff will not happen. The research is in thermoplastics. Bloody cool research really! I also have to spend my monday evenings piss bored waiting for my wife to finish a 4hr class…i read lots of mags and journals!