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Currently driving the two MercedesGP drivers Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton the successes in the F1 in series home. Even if you, as Lewis Hamilton has to start from the pits in the field in Hungary today, you end up on the carpet.
A visit to the heart of the Formula 1 team will clarify which factors have led to success this year.
Efficiency is the new performance
The current superiority of the MercedesGP team has a reason.
The meadows around Oxford are green, for once it doesn't rain, it is calm and contemplative. Tourists flood the heart of Oxfordshire and many people are likely to drive home again, completely unaware of the high-tech goings-on around Oxford. Here, very close to the north-west of London and in the direct vicinity of the “Home of British Motorracing”, around 1.300 employees work for the success of the Silver Arrows. 700 work directly in Brackley, a small town between Silverstone and Oxford, another 500 employees work at the neighboring Brixworth site, where they are responsible for the pulsing and pounding petrol heart of the Silver Arrow.
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[/one_half]“There is a subtle process in the exchange of technology between the F1 team and series production”
Paddy Lowe | Technical Director of Mercedes-Benz
The entry into the premier class as a factory team
In 2010 Mercedes entered the premier class of motorsport as a works team and since 2014 Formula 1 has had a completely new set of regulations. Since 2009 there has been a new direction of development. High performance became “highest efficiency”. Without maximum efficiency, a minimum lap time is no longer worth anything. It was the end of “blowing the fuel”.
Since that point in time when the massive rule change was decided, the new “power unit” has been worked on in Brixworth. Because a set of rules in which efficiency takes precedence over maximum performance turns the simple combustion engine into a complex “power unit” with new standards in terms of efficiency. For the first time, the engineers had to deal with a challenge that had never been seen before in motorsport: There was a limit to how much gasoline burned. 100 kilograms of racing fuel, more is no longer allowed and yet after this limit of the amount of fuel, which corresponds to almost halving, the same racing speed must be achieved. Up until now you were allowed to chase what was possible through the cylinders and exhaust pipes, but now the race win is about maximum efficiency. In addition to the total volume, the maximum amount of fuel flow was also limited. Here too, 100 kilograms per hour is the limit. The secret to the fastest lap times lies in the efficiency of the entire drive train.
The regulations prescribe a 1.6 liter V6 large turbo engine, which is equipped with a clever technology for the recovery of energy.
MGU-K / MGU-H
Already 2013 drove the formula 1 with a system called KERS. The effect was similar to the technology in modern hybrid vehicles. As soon as the driver releases and brakes, electric motors in the drive train work as dynamos and convert superfluous kinetic energy into electrical energy. Once the power is demanded, the electric motors with the juice from the previously fed batteries support the thrust. For the new system in 2014, the technological structure has been extended by one component. Now additional energy is drawn from the exhaust system of the engines. And although everything is prescribed in the formula 1, the maximum energy that can be recovered from the exhaust gas flow is not prescribed.
Thermal power plant
About half of the energy is converted into heat in an internal combustion engine, which was not so important in racing engines, because you just simply burned more fuel, nobody was interested in the consumption, you have in the 1 Formula 2014 the maximum energy of Skim off fuel. When an engine develops power to the 500 PS, almost as much power remains in the form of hot exhaust gases. The secret, then, is the maximum extraction of power from every drop of fuel. With a powerful XX-VX V600 turbo there is a lot of power in the form of the previously unused exhaust gas jet.
In addition to the electric motor (MGU-K = Engine Generator Unit Kinetic) sitting in the turbocharger, the MGU-H unit (Motor Generator Unit Heat), this component consists of an electric motor whose shaft, the turbine wheel in the exhaust system and the compressor in the Powertrain connects. This MGU-H can both convert the energy of the turbocharger (speed) into electricity, as well as increase the speed of the turbos by operating as an electric motor and thus bypass the turbo lag as an electric turbocharger. The complex control of this unit allows for an electrically assisted turbo.
In addition to the complex system of energy recovery and battery-fed power for the turbocharger and electric motor in the drive train (MGU-K), internal engine friction has been reduced by around 35%.
Who thinks now, all this is developed in racing and may even find the way into the series. He is wrong. Because just under the keyword "friction" was gone in the MercedesGP team the reversed way. When it came to further reducing the friction of the V6 engine, 40% of the internal engine friction arises directly between the piston and the block and here a call in the engine development department in Untertürkheim helped.
NANOSLIDE
Mercedes-Benz has developed a process with the help of which the raceways of the aluminum engine blocks are provided with an iron coating in order not only to use aluminum for the temperature-critical raceways, but also to minimize internal engine friction. For this purpose, the motors are cleaned with a rotating water lance and 3.000 bar water pressure, followed by a thermal spray made of molten iron. This process was first used in 2006 on the V8 engines of AMG models. Since 2013, the V6 petrol (M276) and diesel engines (OM642) have been treated with it and since 2014 the Formula 1 engines too. A clear proof of the technology transfer, however not, as one would expect, from Formula 1 to series production, but from the Swabian town of Untertürkheim to the English engine plant in Brixworth. That's what Paddy Lowe meant by subtlety. Sometimes it's the details.
But usually formula 1 techniques can not be easily dismantled from the race car and installed in a production vehicle. It is also fascinating that the V6 engine blocks for the 1 formula in Untertürkheim are on the same footing as the series engines when they receive their NANOSLIDE treatment. There were already 100 pieces this year and the last engines for this season were recently coated.
S500 Plug-in hybrid
Maximum efficiency, which is now prescribed by the regulations in the formula 1. In the series, it remains one of several development goals. When the S500 plug-in hybrid comes out in September, it still has to be as comfortable as possible and lap times will not matter. But efficiency, maximum efficiency is the goal. Just like in the formula 1. And both will share the NANOSLIDE technology.
The S500 Plug-in hybrid will roll in addition to the turbo gasoline engine and its 650 Nm with additional 85 kW and 340 Nm from the electric motor at the start. On the electric side, 33 kilometers should be possible. In the hybrid system, however, we will have to wait for a while, until we find here the energy recovery from the exhaust line of the silver arrows in everyday life.
For a 325 kW strong V6 bi-turbo, there are still more 300 kW hiding there.
And even if both go completely contrary to the weight, the MercedesGP F1 racer is optimized to a regulatory weight of 691 kg (including driver), whereas the S-Class certainly not for the sake of comfort, do not give up the last gram can.
This is how the colleagues from Brackley took their inspiration and achieved a standard consumption of 500 liters on 2.8 kilometers with the S100 plug-in hybrid.
Efficiency is gaining importance. Not only in the formula 1.