High cost of precision engineering

[Spectric]

This article about the manufacture of pistons for formula one engines really shows precision engineering without limits, that DMG MORI DMU 50 CNC machine they use is fascinating to see.



Then when you think that a single piston is around £50,000 and you need at least six then some eyewatering sums of money for what is essentially a consumable component.

If you now think of all the other components which will be as equally expensive then is this an area that will become all electric racing at some point because of cost. I am sure you could get more races out of an electric motor than a very complex petrol engine simply on the basis that there is so little friction or wear surfaces in the motor compared to a high reving piston moving up & down a cylinder.

Downside is that we would lose more skilled jobs, albeit rather niche but maybe move the emphasis from powertrain technology to driver skills. I am sure what this would achieve is advancement in battery technology, there would be a race for lightweight high density batteries but maybe without the range needed for the road.

 

[Terrytpot]

Don’t necessarily agree on a few points:
A) The loss of specialist jobs? Pretty sure that the company selling pistons at that price aren’t churning out that many of them and the price reflects the cost of the equipment and the set up costs for such small batches. You don’t survive long by doing a few quick jobs with very expensive equipment if you haven’t got lots of other work to occupy your capacity. There’s also the fact that more jobs could well be created within the ev research and design industries along with the construction associated.

B) Whilst lighter is relevant I think range is the more immediate issue for racing (unless you embrace the idea of swapping a battery mid race as being akin to a refuel) as with races that average a distance of 190 miles (ignoring Monaco) those electrons will soon get depleted driving a car like you stole it.

Can’t help but agree with your other points though, electric seems the logical direction as the existing cars are rapidly becoming irrelevant. Time was you could aspire to driving something that was designed and bred on the track or that your run of the mill motor would employ technology that came from there.
I think the world of F1 has perhaps reached the point now where those transitions of tech from the track seeping through to cars on the road is probably not as open to fiscal opportunities as that of electric vehicles.

 

[Spectric]

Time was you could aspire to driving something that was designed and bred on the track or that your run of the mill motor would employ technology that came from there.

I think all technologies have a finite life, with the ICE it began in a very crude form in as much as it once used a naked flame rather than a spark and has progressed to where we are today with better materials and complex electronic control but at the end of the day you still have the same basic engine with pistons and a crankshaft just like at the begining so what more can be done to progress the ICE ?

The electric motor is just angular movement created by a revolving magnetic field, the ICE has to convert the linear motion of it's pistons being pushed down a cylinder by the expansion of burning fuel into this angular movement which is at the heart of all ICE's and there is nothing you can do to change this so you have to reach an endpoint where further advancement cost ever more for less progress.

I would say that using an ICE to power a generator to drive the wheels is a good next step, ie hybrid but although the motor is well evolved the power source has a way to go until perfection.

 

[Ollie78]

Those dmg machines are amazing, there is a specialist company near me that has a bunch of them, I think they do composite stuff as they have a load of autoclaves as well. I always want to go in and have a nose around when I walk past and the door is open.

The great thing with F1 is it lets engineers go wild within a rule set with little other restrictions, there is a freedom and purity to that I think.
Everytime they change a rule designed to restrict or slow them down the engineers figure a way to go just as fast.

I think there is still room for internal combustion, the efficiency of the newest engines is incredible. I think the issue is the fuel. JCB and others are developing hydrogen combustion engines for heavy plant with some some success.
The elctric motor is an amazing thing too, especially some of the new compact ones like the Koenegsegg one, incredible power from tiny size. The trouble is the energy density of current batteries is not that good compared to a tank of petrol, there will likely be breakthroughs pretty soon.

I look at it a bit like watches, a £10 casio tells perfect time but there is something amazing about a high end mechanical watch like a Gruebel Forsey or A Lange and Sohne. The casio is the electric runabout but the others are like the high end unrestricted F1 where only perfection will do.
There is room for both and many levels in between.

I don`t think we need to worry about losing the skilled jobs, people that good will find something to do.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

In think electric is the future. ICE engines hugely complex with numerous bearing surfaces, and they also need gearboxes of similar complexity. The capacity of an electric motor to deliver maximum torque from the start is a further advantage.

ICE is close to its optimum efficiency after 120 years of operating experience and development. Whilst electric motors are a mature technology, it is plausible material development in batteries will reduce cost, weight and increasing power density.

Conventional F1 with ICE motors is likely to become an anachronism as legislation removes ICE from daily use, and sadly may even get banned through environmental pressure.

Although I can admire the engineering precision behind traditional timepieces, functionally they are a pointless extravagance. I do wonder whether younger folk appreciate the quality - many/most rely for the time upon a smart phone.

We also need to balance the impact on jobs impacted in precision engineering with those created in other high end industries. Although I can't quantify it, the impact may be minimal - I suspect there is a far greater demand from other aerospace and precision machinery industries.

 

[Sideways]

Not many engineers have the ability to program a 5 axis CNC well. Optimising tool paths in X, Y, Z plus two axes of rotation needs a rare grasp of spatial geometry.

 

[Ollie78]

Not many engineers have the ability to program a 5 axis CNC well. Optimising tool paths in X, Y, Z plus two axes of rotation needs a rare grasp of spatial geometry.

Agreed, it hurts my brain just trying to work it out. What about a 9 axis machines. That is a 5 axis machine with a lathe in it !

 

[Agent_zed]

The thing that boggles my mind is that at 6000rpm the piston is going up and down 6000 times per minute
or
600 x every 6 secs and therefore 100x every 1 sec.

In an F1 engine doing 18,000rpm it is going up and down 300x a sec!

So every second the valves are opening and closing 300 times as the piston moves up and down 300 times.

Say 'one Mississippi' and the piston has gone up and down 300 times?! I can't even comprehend how it even manages to do that and not blow itself apart from the forces involved in changed direction so rapidly.

 

[Vulcan]

In think electric is the future. ICE engines hugely complex with numerous bearing surfaces, and they also need gearboxes of similar complexity. The capacity of an electric motor to deliver maximum torque from the start is a further advantage.

ICE is close to its optimum efficiency after 120 years of operating experience and development. Whilst electric motors are a mature technology, it is plausible material development in batteries will reduce cost, weight and increasing power density.

Conventional F1 with ICE motors is likely to become an anachronism as legislation removes ICE from daily use, and sadly may even get banned through environmental pressure.

Although I can admire the engineering precision behind traditional timepieces, functionally they are a pointless extravagance. I do wonder whether younger folk appreciate the quality - many/most rely for the time upon a smart phone.

We also need to balance the impact on jobs impacted in precision engineering with those created in other high end industries. Although I can't quantify it, the impact may be minimal - I suspect there is a far greater demand from other aerospace and precision machinery industries.

I agree with you 100%.

 

[Amplidyne]

I am sure you could get more races out of an electric motor than a very complex petrol engine simply on the basis that there is so little friction or wear surfaces in the motor compared to a high reving piston moving up & down a cylinder

Not sure about that, although I may of course be talking through my fundamental orifice.
I'll bet they overdrive those motors as much as they can, to keep weight down, and get the maximum power out of them. Power = heat, and heat is electric motor's enemy. They're probably extremely high tech, but that just means that they'll be driving them (in the electrical sense) that much harder.

I've seen it on TV a while back, and TBH, I think that F1 generally is pretty boring, but I reckon slot car racing is more exciting than Formula E or whatever it's called.

 

[Yojevol]

there is nothing you can do to change this

Wankel? Gas Turbine?

All right, I know, both tried and failed

 

[Spectric]

The gas turbine is the same as an electric motor in that it is all angular motion and in a small compact form would be able to run a generator to drive electric motors in a hybrid EV but not many garages sell parifin or aviation fuel.

 

[Hypnotic Chimera]

The gas turbine is the same as an electric motor in that it is all angular motion and in a small compact form would be able to run a generator to drive electric motors in a hybrid EV but not many garages sell parifin or aviation fuel.

Jaguar ran a concept car that had a small form-factor gas turbine running a generator to power the electric motors. Funky, but the concept didn't take-off (teehee).

 

[Fergie 307]

The thing that boggles my mind is that at 6000rpm the piston is going up and down 6000 times per minute
or
600 x every 6 secs and therefore 100x every 1 sec.

In an F1 engine doing 18,000rpm it is going up and down 300x a sec!

So every second the valves are opening and closing 300 times as the piston moves up and down 300 times.

Say 'one Mississippi' and the piston has gone up and down 300 times?! I can't even comprehend how it even manages to do that and not blow itself apart from the forces involved in changed direction so rapidly.

One reason is they tend to have a very short stroke, and very light components like the skeleton piston pictured. If you could spin your regular car engine at that speed it certainly would suffer spontaneous disassembly

 

[Amplidyne]

One reason is they tend to have a very short stroke, and very light components like the skeleton piston pictured. If you could spin your regular car engine at that speed it certainly would suffer spontaneous disassembly

They do indeed. Not a car, but a motorbike. August Bank Holiday 1971, a couple of mates and myself decided to go to Bridgenorth on the one guy's M21 Combo. We went puttering happily along, and when we came to the Stanmore straight, this Tiger Cub that had been knocking around our area and was reputed to be a "100 mile an hour Cub" came past us like we were standing still. He got a few yards past us, and there was a huge bang and smoke. We stopped, the chap was sitting on what was left of his bike. (Nice bike, quality build by the look of it) Literally all that was left of the engine was the brackets. He was luckily unhurt.
He said he was OK, and there was nothing else we could do so we left him there.

 

[Doug71]

I enjoy watching the F1, it certainly is an expensive sport with the cars costing millions to develop and the drivers also getting paid millions.

Out of the 24 races last year the Williams drivers had I think 17 major crashes, 6 of those happened in just 3 race weekends, it must be disheartening for the engineers when you do all you can building the car then the driver just goes and sticks it in the wall.

 

[Fergie 307]

They do indeed. Not a car, but a motorbike. August Bank Holiday 1971, a couple of mates and myself decided to go to Bridgenorth on the one guy's M21 Combo. We went puttering happily along, and when we came to the Stanmore straight, this Tiger Cub that had been knocking around our area and was reputed to be a "100 mile an hour Cub" came past us like we were standing still. He got a few yards past us, and there was a huge bang and smoke. We stopped, the chap was sitting on what was left of his bike. (Nice bike, quality build by the look of it) Literally all that was left of the engine was the brackets. He was luckily unhurt.
He said he was OK, and there was nothing else we could do so we left him there.

What I have always found impressive was the production four stroke bike engines that will happily rev to 10,000 rpm and more and still be reliable. I have a Suzuki GSX 750. Four cylinder four stroke with DOHC, and that was in 1985.
Or in racing engines the famous 1960's Honda straight six 250, an amazing piece of engineering.

 

[Amplidyne]

What I have always found impressive was the production four stroke bike engines that will happily rev to 10,000 rpm and more and still be reliable. I have a Suzuki GSX 750. Four cylinder four stroke with DOHC, and that was in 1985.
Or in racing engines the famous 1960's Honda straight six 250, an amazing piece of engineering.

They're built to considerably better tolerances than those 50s designs like the cub though. Had a Honda 400 / 4 I think that was redlines at 10500. Looked at the GSX 750, and the Honda 750 in 1977. Ended up buying the Yamaha 750 triple instead.
With hindsight I wish I'd kept the 400 / 4

 

[Terrytpot]

What I have always found impressive was the production four stroke bike engines that will happily rev to 10,000 rpm and more and still be reliable. I have a Suzuki GSX 750. Four cylinder four stroke with DOHC, and that was in 1985.
Or in racing engines the famous 1960's Honda straight six 250, an amazing piece of engineering.

Had me a Suzuki GSF400 Bandit from new back in 88 I think…that sucker red lined at 14,000RPM and hilariously they even did a version with variable valve timing that had an even higher red line! Back then I actually worked in a motorcycle shop so got to play on all sorts of tackle and soon grew to appreciate the difference in quality between different makes and models although the first time I saw a CBR 900 pulled apart was the first time I saw a skeletal piston like in the op. Not many bikes prior to that had embraced that level of technology which was so obvious when you looked at the dry weight of bikes from the 70’s upto the mid 80’s at which point it plummeted. Lifting the engine out of my GS550 and up onto a bench was a chore, with the GS650 I had after it was border line stupid to attempt on my own but with a Fireblade anyone could do it as it was so light in comparison.

 

[Fergie 307]

They're built to considerably better tolerances than those 50s designs like the cub though. Had a Honda 400 / 4 I think that was redlines at 10500. Looked at the GSX 750, and the Honda 750 in 1977. Ended up buying the Yamaha 750 triple instead.
With hindsight I wish I'd kept the 400 / 4

Always wanted a 400 four, a mate had one and it was a really nice bike, and that exhaust ! A work of art in itself.