Longer Wheelbase

Cars are believed to be at least 15 cm longer than in ‘09. The longer wheelbase is actually necessitated due to the  demands of accomodating a larger fuel tank. However, a longer car woluld be lazier through the corners, and therefore, this is where the designers ingenuity could come into play. Moving the driver cockpit slightly forward, and building shorter gearboxes could be two ways of making more space for the fuel tank. Among the cars launched, some have looked longer than the rest. It would be interesting to see how they all perform on track.

Larger Fuel Tank

With the banning on refuelling for this season, the capacity of the fuel tank needs to be almost doubled. It is believed that a fully fuelled car and a near-empty one wuld weigh different by at least 200kg. This would lead to change in ride heights(and the centre of gravity) as the race goes on. A heavier car also tends to be more brutal on it’s tyres and brakes. It is believed that drivers like Jenson Button and Micheal Schumacher who know how to nurse their car through the race stand to win big this year, in comparison to the Hamiltons and the Alonsos wo go hard at their machinery. Also, it is believed that some engines are more fuel-efficient compared to the others, and that could affect race performances more this year. The Mercedes engine is widely regarded to be the best at the moment; however the Renault engine is supposedly the most fuel-efficient.

Narrow Front Tyres

When slicks were reintroduced last season, it led to a sudden increase in the mechanical grip. However, the tyre sizes  remained to be the same as that for previous seasons, since all the design work had gone forward with the previous dimensions. However, this had led to much greater grip at the front, causing the rear end of the car to be ‘loose’. Last season, designers had to come up with things to address this grip imbalance. But, for 2010 FIA has reduced the front tyre width. This would increase straight line speed by reducing drag. Also, a higher volume air can funnel between the tyres (space between the tyres has increased by 50mm in total), which will improve the efficiency of vanes and bargeboards in this region. However, this comes at the cost of lower front grip, which affects cornering speed. The net effect will be to give the car more of an understeer feeling.

For the 2010 season, DDD or the double decker diffuser is legal(although they would be banned from the next season), and all the teams have invested big in this area. Also, none of the teams would be having KERS this season and so there would be no ‘magic button passes’ this time round. Along with all these technical changes, we have 4 (possibly 5, if Villeneuve gets to race) world champions in the grid. With introduction of some new teams, Toro Rosso and Force India would no longer be the back markers and they are expecteed to fight in the mid-field. The wide range of fuel loads everybody are testing with, it is impossible to judge the pace. Only the Bahrain race weekend can give us answers about the pecking order for the season. Let’s wait and watch, as it’s racing time again.

Bahrain Grand Prix 2010

Two questions are addressed in this article First is what is a hybrid vehicle??? and secondly how it works??Addressing the first question, Any vehicle that combines two or more power sources and can directly or indirectly provide propulsion power is a hybrid automobile.A simple example is the mo-ped which combines the pedaling power of the rider and the fuel ignition power.Submarines are another example of hybrid vehicles, which runs on nuclear as well as electric power.Most hybrid cars in market are either petrol-electric or diesel-electric hybrids.Hybrids are combination of both technology.Before going on to this let’s understand how each of this is working on its own.A petrol or gasoline powered vehicle has a fuel tank which on ignition powers the engine and turns the transmission(gears), which rotates the wheels.An electric vehicle, on the other hand, has a set of batteries that provides electricity to the electric motor. The motor turns a transmission, and the transmission in turn rotates the wheels. Now what a hybrid vehicle does is, increases the fuel efficiency and trying to avoid the bad effects of the electric vehicle, like keeping up with traffic, travelling a certain distance without re-fueling.A bio-fuel powered vehicle meets all these requirements but at the cost of pollution and wastage of non-renewable resource.When an electric car rectifies the ill-effects of the other, it falls short of the basic requirements of speed, large re-fueling times etc

Petrol-Electric Hybrid:
Petrol-electric hybrid automobile contain the following parts:
A Petrol engine – The hybrid car has a petrol engine like the one we find on most vehicles. However, the engine on a hybrid will be smaller and uses advanced technologies to reduce emissions and will provide us with a better efficiency.
An Electric motor – Its advanced electronics allow it to act as a motor and as a generator. That is when it needs to, it can draw power from the batteries to accelerate the car and in the role of a generator, it can slow the car down and return energy to the batteries or charge the batteries.
A Fuel tank – The fuel tank in a hybrid is the storage for the petrol engine. Petrol has a much higher energy density than batteries do.
A Generator – is similar to an electric motor, but it acts only to produce electrical power.
Batteries - The batteries in a hybrid are the energy storage device for the electric motor. Unlike the petrol engine the electric motor on a hybrid vehicle can put energy into the batteries as well as draw energy from them.
The two power sources explained above are combined in the hybrid in different ways, parellel and series hybrid. In the parallel hybrid both the engine and the electric motor can turn the transmission at the same time, and the transmission then turns the wheels.That is both the mechanisms can give the propulsion.In a series hybrid the fuel engine turns a generator, and the generator can either charge the batteries or power an electric motor that drives the transmission. Thus in a series hybrid the fuel engine never directly powers the vehicle.The direct benefits that emerged due to this complex engineering are less emissions and great mileage.Which in turn has many benefits like less production of green house gases, more impact on customers due to less spending on fuel etc.The key to a hybrid vehicle is that the fuel engine is much smaller than the one in a conventional vehicle and therefore more efficient. In a small engine, the efficiency can be improved by using small and light parts, by reducing the number of cylinders and thus the aim of fuel efficiency is achieved.

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The front end of an automobile typically carries more weight compared to the rear, and the EBD ensures that lesser braking pressure is applied to the rear brakes, so that the rear wheels do not lock-up. When this system is also coupled with the ESC(Electronic Stability Control), it helps a driver who is panick-braking to stop earlier, steer better, and not to loose control under braking. The ESC works in the background all the time, monitoring whether the vehicle is moving as per the steering inputs given by the driver. When the system detects a loss of steering control(when the vehicle is skidding, for example), the ESC kicks-in and applies the brakes to individual wheels asymmetrically in order to create torque about the vehicle’s vertical axis, opposing the skid and bringing the vehicle back in line with the driver’s commanded direction. Additionally, the system may reduce engine power or operate the transmission to slow the vehicle down.

A skilled driver can try and mimic the ABS system by using a technique called ‘threshold braking’ – applying just enough braking force, above which the wheels would start skidding. However, no driver can do what the EBD does for a vehicle. Slamming the brakes in a non-EBD enabled car would surely provide equal stopping force to each of it’s wheels. Thus, the EBD is an innovative introduction to automobile safety, and would surely make the roads safer.

Disadvantage
In low-traction surfaces such as gravel, sand and deep snow, ABS tends to increase braking distances. On such surfaces, locked wheels tend to dig-in and would stop the vehicle more quickly. ABS would prevent this digging-in of the wheels and thus, increases braking distances. Some manufacturers provide an off-road button, which would turn ABS off. This seems a good solution around this problem.

ABS was widely believed to be a breakthrough as far as safety features of an automobile was concerned. However, it has been found that ABS enabled vehicles do get involved in road accidents. There are talks that ABS tends to create a false sense of security in some drivers, who may drive more aggressively. Also, ignorance about the system may lead to some drivers pumping the brake pedal when they feel the ABS pulsating, eventually leading to increased braking distances. These could be some of the reasons for an ABS-enabled vehicle to be proving to continue being susceptible to mishaps. However, there is no denying the fact that ABS does reduce braking distances, and that the system is a piece of engineering excellence.

At the present state of research, there are two ways in which KERS can be implemented – energy can be stored as mechanical energy(as in a flywheel) or as electrical energy(as in a battery or supercapacitor). The electrical system uses a motor-generator incorporated in the car’s transmission which converts mechanical energy into electrical energy and vice versa. Once the energy has been harnessed, it is stored in a battery and released when required. The mechanical system captures braking energy and uses it to turn a small flywheel which can spin at up to 80,000 rpm. When extra power is required, the flywheel is connected to the car’s rear wheels. Since there is no transforming the form of energy invloved, the mechanical KERS is more efficient in comparison. A concern involved with the KERS is in the safety-front. A high voltage battery could be dangerous, although surely this can be dealt with and a solution reached which promises adequate safety levels as well.

The KERS is used by some of the participating teams in the Formula1 2009 season. Once the KERS develops further, it would feature in road cars as well. This wouldn’t be to provide a ‘power-boost’ for a road-car driver to overtake other vehicles(as in Formula1). KERS could help improve fuel-efficiency of cars, by powering them without burning fuel. A typical example could be in case of stop-start driving situations when real-world fuel economy is often at its worst. In these conditions, KERS-power could assist the launch of a vehicle which has slowed down or come to a standstill, by utilising the kinetic energy stored in the flywheel. In heavily congested traffic, where a car is frequently stopped and restarted, the system can help alleviate the heavy fuel consumption and emissions of greenhouse gasses normally associated with these conditions. If things move according to plans, ‘KERS’ could be a boon to the automotive world!

A turbocharger as well as a supercharger works on this same principle. However, a turbocharger differs by the fact that the compressor system is powered by a turbine driven by the engine’s own exhaust gases. A supercharger, however, would be powered mechanically by a belt, gear, shaft, or chain connected to the engine’s crankshaft. The turbocharger is thus,  far more efficient. It usese the exhaust flow from the engine which spins a turbine, which in turn spins an air pump. The turbocharger is bolted to the exhaust manifold of the engine. The exhaust from the cylinders spins the turbine, which works like a gas turbine engine. The turbine is connected by a shaft to the compressor, which is located between the air filter and the intake manifold. The compressor pressurizes the air going into the pistons. The exhaust from the cylinders passes through the turbine blades, causing the turbine to spin. The more exhaust that goes through the blades, the faster they spin. Due to the high speeds in which the turbine has to spin, it is supported using a fluid bearing. Oil is constantly pumped around the shaft. This cools the shaft and some other parts and also allows the shaft to spin without much friction. Also, air when compressed would heat-up. At higher temperatures, air would expand. So, it is necessary to cool down the compressed air, and for this purpose, a cooling system is used as well.

A turbo is expected to provide a 30 to 40 percent power improvement. However, one of it’s major shortcomings is the fact that there is a considerable delay in providing the power-boost. This is because, it takes some time for the turbine to get up to speed when you step on the gas. This results in a feeling of ‘lag’ when one steps on the throttle. However, this can be reduced by reducing the inertia of the rotating parts. Reducing the weight of the turbine would help it to get rotating faster, and provide the boost earlier without any ‘lag’. Thus, a small turbocharger will provide boost quicker and at lower engine speeds, while a larger one would be able to provide lots of boost at higher engine speeds. Some engines thus have two turbos – a small one acts at lower speeds reducing lag and spinning up to sped quickly, whereas a larger one takes over at higher speeds.

At high altitudes, where the air is thinner, a normally aspirated engine would struggle as it’s air intake for each stroke is lesser in comparison. A turbocharged engine would also have reduced power, but the reduction would be les dramatic in comparison. Once a turbocharger is fitted into a car, it’s fuel-injection system normally steps-up the amount of fuel to be injected. Older cars with carburetors automatically increase the fuel-rate, whereas modern cars with fuel-injection system might sometimes have some difficulty. At times, the software programmed into the controller will not allow greater fuel-injection, or the pump and injectors are not capable of supplying more of fuel. Another disadvantage with the turbo-engines, is that it leads to increased chances of knocking. (Knocking happens because, as the air is compressed, it’s temperature might increase enough to ignite the fuel before the spark plug fires). This can be kept in check by using high-octane fuels. Whatever be the cons, turbochargers are in widespred use in the racing fraternity. Formula1, the pinnacle of motorsport, has banned turbochargers now, but F1 used the system until then.