Love to see what you come up with and glad you're willing to share. That failure looked a lot like something did fatigue and caused a delamination from the core material, but I can't really tell from just pics. A camera or accelerometer mounted to the front splitter would be cool to monitor how the splitter is bending/oscillating under those loads. Do you have any pressure taps around the car? Also any chance the rules allow active aerodynamics to bleed off downforce/drag at higher speeds?
Is there some reason it's being made out of a composite material? Is it a pressure cast piece or laid sheet type? If you need to keep it composite the pressure cast carbon has far higher multidimensional strength and fracture resistance because no part of the fiber structure is aligned. Raw materials are far cheaper because its essentially scrap I do think that while there is a weight penalty to using braced metal components, they don't have the same unexpected, cumulative stress failure issues like composites usually do (I don't know what composite you are using) so high load things like wheels, or ground effects should be made out of high strength, low cost, fracture resistant materials, and the ductility (maybe thats the wrong property its been a while) of composites, unless you somehow create the largest hot isostatic press mold machine, and use a fiber impregnated ceramic, are super inferior to metals. Love the proper mindset of a scientist...failure doesnt exist, there are only attempts and data to learn from, whether the part or test "fails" or "succeeds" is sort of irrelevant, because you can always learn a bunch regardless. IMO breaks and more catastrophic events are quick teachers, its much harder to continue thinking about complex/compound stress variables if nothing apparently breaks. You might also look into the very inexpensive monitoring technology that uses even remedial camera footage, and processes the fractional pixel information in a way that accentuates the vibrations and movements not visible by the naked eye or normally processed footage. You could have a few small cameras angled at key mounting points of the splitter or other components you are worried about such as driveshaft oscillations, and very quickly be able to pinpoint areas that are seeing much more movement than you could otherwise detect.
Have you considered putting the car into a wind tunnel? This would allow you to replicate the different speeds the car will see on track and better understand the aerodynamics and tune the balance of the car.
July 13 2024, blue dot indicating a new video... AWESOME!... wait.. nope. this video is the most recent, and on todays date this video is SIX MONTHS OLD. wtf.. YT is pure trash in what it offers up these days. I even forgot this channel existed because they never upload. Ya gotz a week to upload something or I am outta here.
Love to hear the direction y'all are going. Feels like the path to greatness to me
Please include any aero stuff you can. Thanks Mike, great video!
Love to see what you come up with and glad you're willing to share. That failure looked a lot like something did fatigue and caused a delamination from the core material, but I can't really tell from just pics. A camera or accelerometer mounted to the front splitter would be cool to monitor how the splitter is bending/oscillating under those loads.
Do you have any pressure taps around the car? Also any chance the rules allow active aerodynamics to bleed off downforce/drag at higher speeds?
Is there some reason it's being made out of a composite material? Is it a pressure cast piece or laid sheet type? If you need to keep it composite the pressure cast carbon has far higher multidimensional strength and fracture resistance because no part of the fiber structure is aligned. Raw materials are far cheaper because its essentially scrap
I do think that while there is a weight penalty to using braced metal components, they don't have the same unexpected, cumulative stress failure issues like composites usually do (I don't know what composite you are using) so high load things like wheels, or ground effects should be made out of high strength, low cost, fracture resistant materials, and the ductility (maybe thats the wrong property its been a while) of composites, unless you somehow create the largest hot isostatic press mold machine, and use a fiber impregnated ceramic, are super inferior to metals.
Love the proper mindset of a scientist...failure doesnt exist, there are only attempts and data to learn from, whether the part or test "fails" or "succeeds" is sort of irrelevant, because you can always learn a bunch regardless. IMO breaks and more catastrophic events are quick teachers, its much harder to continue thinking about complex/compound stress variables if nothing apparently breaks.
You might also look into the very inexpensive monitoring technology that uses even remedial camera footage, and processes the fractional pixel information in a way that accentuates the vibrations and movements not visible by the naked eye or normally processed footage. You could have a few small cameras angled at key mounting points of the splitter or other components you are worried about such as driveshaft oscillations, and very quickly be able to pinpoint areas that are seeing much more movement than you could otherwise detect.
Have you considered putting the car into a wind tunnel? This would allow you to replicate the different speeds the car will see on track and better understand the aerodynamics and tune the balance of the car.
July 13 2024, blue dot indicating a new video... AWESOME!... wait.. nope. this video is the most recent, and on todays date this video is SIX MONTHS OLD. wtf.. YT is pure trash in what it offers up these days.
I even forgot this channel existed because they never upload. Ya gotz a week to upload something or I am outta here.