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Adrian Newley is aerodynamist and the current chief designer of Red Bull (current champions and top of the season). He has won more F1 champions than any other

Adrian Newley is aerodynamist and the current chief designer of Red Bull (current champions and top of the season). He has won more F1 champions than any other designer. He draws his cars on paper. Granted, I'm sure someone digitizes his designs and runs them through a CFD suite, if for no other reason that wind tunnel time rule limited. Still.

kingkongjaffa 4y ago
It’s a nice story to read about rock star engineers but F1 race car aerodynamics is not done on paper. Sure concepts to try can be sketched out on paper. Things like wing arrangements, rough intuitive ideas about where the clean and dirty air is. But everything in F1 is an iterative loop between a lap time simulation, vehicle dynamics, and aerodynamics. Vehicle performance is largely a trade off between Cornering dynamics (typically demanding more downforce) and straight light speed (typically demanding less drag) which is why different tracks have different setups. Basically balanced between cornering sections and straight line sections to figure out the optimal balance of lift/drag and the dynamic behaviour of the rest of the car in response to those aero set up effects.
- sbaiddn 4y ago
  Obviously they use computers. My point is that Newley, (claims at least) to do his design work on paper. Which, is not that surprising. If you're good enough to have a draughtman digitize your designs for you, you're free to draw what you want on a five by four foot surface and not fiddle with a GUI and a 30?, 40? inch screen. Overnight they print you the latest drawing on the plotter and you're back to you doing you. Id live to have a secretary print me my work and then digitize it in the evening.
  - kingkongjaffa 4y ago
    His name is Newey BTW. What you're describing is not how engineering is done. There's no overnight printing of the drawings. The 3D CAD models are designed and available in real time, they are used in various CFD and FEA models. The only time drawings are printed out are dimensioned production drawings sent to manufacture the parts. https://fractory.com/engineering-drawing-basics/ https://fractory.com/engineering-drawing-basics/ There are no digital draftsmen, it's sort of semantics but design engineers are working directly with parametric 3D models, they can produce 2D drawings from the models. As a senior engineer Newey is likely reviewing Wind tunnel data, CAD designs of concepts, CFD/FEA Data, laptime sim results, and collaborating "over the shoulder" of less senior engineers responsible for specific aerodynamic packages, who then feed that info in collaboration with design engineers and surface modelers to update the CAD models.
    - sbaiddn 4y ago
      Im sure the workflow is complicated, just like you said. Im sure lots of Console licenses and Ansys licenses are being used. And yet here's Newey drawing on a piece of paper. And he hardly looks like a young chap in the 80s. Who knows, maybe this photo was for the cameras. Maybe he lies that he draws his cars to throw off the competition. But, for what it's worth he claims in interviews that he draws his cars in pencil. https://www.racetechmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Screen-Shot-2017-01-19-at-14.12.33-e1484835414730.png https://www.racetechmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Scree...

kingkongjaffa 4y ago

It’s a nice story to read about rock star engineers but F1 race car aerodynamics is not done on paper. Sure concepts to try can be sketched out on paper. Things like wing arrangements, rough intuitive ideas about where the clean and dirty air is. But everything in F1 is an iterative loop between a lap time simulation, vehicle dynamics, and aerodynamics. Vehicle performance is largely a trade off between Cornering dynamics (typically demanding more downforce) and straight light speed (typically demanding less drag) which is why different tracks have different setups. Basically balanced between cornering sections and straight line sections to figure out the optimal balance of lift/drag and the dynamic behaviour of the rest of the car in response to those aero set up effects.

sbaiddn 4y ago
Obviously they use computers. My point is that Newley, (claims at least) to do his design work on paper. Which, is not that surprising. If you're good enough to have a draughtman digitize your designs for you, you're free to draw what you want on a five by four foot surface and not fiddle with a GUI and a 30?, 40? inch screen. Overnight they print you the latest drawing on the plotter and you're back to you doing you. Id live to have a secretary print me my work and then digitize it in the evening.
- kingkongjaffa 4y ago
  His name is Newey BTW. What you're describing is not how engineering is done. There's no overnight printing of the drawings. The 3D CAD models are designed and available in real time, they are used in various CFD and FEA models. The only time drawings are printed out are dimensioned production drawings sent to manufacture the parts. https://fractory.com/engineering-drawing-basics/ https://fractory.com/engineering-drawing-basics/ There are no digital draftsmen, it's sort of semantics but design engineers are working directly with parametric 3D models, they can produce 2D drawings from the models. As a senior engineer Newey is likely reviewing Wind tunnel data, CAD designs of concepts, CFD/FEA Data, laptime sim results, and collaborating "over the shoulder" of less senior engineers responsible for specific aerodynamic packages, who then feed that info in collaboration with design engineers and surface modelers to update the CAD models.
  - sbaiddn 4y ago
    Im sure the workflow is complicated, just like you said. Im sure lots of Console licenses and Ansys licenses are being used. And yet here's Newey drawing on a piece of paper. And he hardly looks like a young chap in the 80s. Who knows, maybe this photo was for the cameras. Maybe he lies that he draws his cars to throw off the competition. But, for what it's worth he claims in interviews that he draws his cars in pencil. https://www.racetechmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Screen-Shot-2017-01-19-at-14.12.33-e1484835414730.png https://www.racetechmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Scree...