Anyone worked in F1?

NicktheNorse

NicktheNorse

NicktheNorse

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Has anyone worked in F1 or more specifically, been to an interview?

I've got an interview with the Computational Aerodynamics section at Renault next week, and I've got absolutely no idea what to expect in terms of the technical side. I've been scheduled quite late in the day to have an intervew with the head of the department so I doubt the process will take very long - its not a full day assessment day as has become so common in engineering these days.

My CFD knowledge is pretty good, aerodynamics knowledge even better and due to me being a bit of a F1 geek I know quite a lot about the Team and its history, as well as current F1 technology, rules etc etc. I just hope he doesnt sit me down with a sheet of paper and asks me to solve PDEs or derive the potential flow around a cylinder or something silly along those lines - I've forgotten most of that crap!
 
Thanks for the kind words! I hope I do well also :p

I'm not quite sure it can be considered the best job in the world - It requires extreme amounts of hard work - and long hours 7 days a week during the busy testing periods. I'd be working for the CFD department - churning out numerical predictions of the flow over different spoilers/fins/nacelles and then passing that information on to the chief aerodynamicist - he'll decide whether or not the potential gains are worth testing in the wind tunnel.

According to some people who have worked with F1 (but not in F1, if that makes any sense), young engineers (ie, me) tend to burnout quite quickly and many leave before the end of 2 years.

I also had word from my supervisor yesterday that he'd been contacted by Ferrari and he said they will almost definitely have me flown to Maranello for an interview in their F1 Aero department in the next month :D

Still, the original question stands - I'm still trying to find out how the interview will be structured!
 
Hodders said:
I know that marine fluid-dynamicists are looking at things that replicate fish skin in order to reduce drag/turbulance on submarines - has the same thing ever been considered for aero drag ? The peregrine falcon can reach over 100mph in level flight - low drag or what !
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Funny you should mention it, this type of flow effect has been studied for a long time, including applications within F1.

[big breath]

The "fish skin" contains lots of scales - if you look at the surface of the fish its not perfectly flat but instead is quite rough - almost bump-mapped to use a PC/graphics analogy. You would perhaps think that this "bumpiness" would increase the fluid drag, but instead the bumps act as tiny vortex generators - and importantly, they don't protrude outside of the boundary layer.

This has the effect of energising the flow (the bumps add vorticity to the fluid - that is, they spin the fluid and therefore accelerate it) which means the boundary layer stays attached all along the surface and also remains quite thin. All in all this means reduced drag, although it is not the primary effect.

This exact same concept is currently widely in use on cars and aircraft, but generally speaking these vortex generators stick out beyond the boundary layer and into the general flow (the "free stream"). Although they keep the flow attached to the surface (which is good!), they stick out into the free stream which causes an added drag penalty.

So there has been lots of research on keeping these vortex generators within the boundary layer (literally just making them shorter) - and several studies have even been funded by Renault F1 (hows that for continuity!) in an attempt to reduce drag from the rear wing on the F1 car.

So:

Type 1: Vortex generators that stick out into the free stream = good
Type 2: Vortex generators that dont stick out in the free stream = excellent

Fish scales = Type 2. And yes, they have been used in "aero" drag.

pedantic: there is no difference with drag in air or water - the principles are all the same - and they fall under fluid mechanics. its just the viscosity that changes.
 
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Hodders said:
Its the same kind of thing with golf balls - everybody thought a smooth golf ball would have less drag. It turns out the pimpled golf balls help the seperation layers and prevent the airflow 'holding on' to the sphere. The result is less turbulance and less drag....
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Don't mean to sound like a smart ass, but the pimples in the golf ball actually help the air to "hold on" to the sphere. The pimples actually add turbulence (or cause the boundar layer to transition, more specifically), and this causes the flow to separate later.

The earlier the air "lets go" of the golf ball = the more drag because of a greater pressure difference between the front and rear of the golf ball.

Now whoever said that fluids wasn't fun :p
 
Flibster said:
IMHO - Don't go with Renault.

I'm expecting them to announce their departure from the sport at the end of 2007.
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Eh? How does that make any sense? Why would a team who looks like they are going to win their second world championship title in a row leave the sport the year after?

Flibster said:
Also wouldn't go with Ferrari - but for entirely different reasons *worked with them before - and never, ever again*

Personally I'd be looking at McLaren, Honda and Red Bull/Toro Rosso *just for the experience of working under Adrian Newey - who frankly is a god.*
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I'm sure I don't have to tell you, but as a graduate I'm not in any sort of position to actually be able to pick and choose which team I try to go for. Getting a foot in the F1 door is all I'm looking to do atm.

flibster said:
Although best for fun while working for them was McLaren - They look utter professionals and they are - but they can still have fun. Plus Mika was great and would always be happy to have a chat about any changes he wanted rather than just going to his race engineer and saying "Get it sorted out"
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McLaren just isn't going to happen - they have the strictest employment regime out of any team. The only way to get a parking permit at Paragon is to have significant F1 experience or do a PhD for them.

I'm gonna go along to the Renault interview with an open (and excited!) mind and give it my best. Hopefully I'll be able to convince the head of the CFD department that I'm exactly what they are looking for. If the job doesn't agree with me I can always leave - and its not as if having F1 Aerodynamics experience on my CV is going to hurt my future endeavours.

Thanks for the words of advice.
 
Vertigo1 said:
They had a test on Mythbusters a while back to see if a pickup truck created more drag with the tailgate up or down and discovered that it was more efficient with it up as a vortex of air became "trapped" in the load bay area which sort of helped the airflow above it. I presume this was the same effect you're describing?
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Actually no, this effect is different. The use of the word "vortex" in the case of the pickup truck is different to the use for a vortex generator.

You are right though in saying air gets trapped in the bay area. For a pickup with the tailgate up you get a region of recirculation inside the load bay, and its classically defined as an "open cavity flow." My final year project is actually on acoustic emissions from different cavities, so I happen to know quite a bit about this particular field :p

If you limit yourself to looking at the time-averaged situation, effectively what you have is a dividing streamline between the airflow outside of the bay created by the top "surface" of the recirculation bubble. This does help keep external flow from dipping below the top of the loadbay, and reduces the overall pressure drag compared to the situation of having the tailgate down.

Essentially what you get is this (very simplified!):
cavity.png


However this type of situation does have several other important effects - most noticeably potentially destructive vibrations caused by vortex shedding from the front edge of the load bay, and a dynamic oscillation of what becomes the free shear layer over the top of the load bay. This is all taken into account in the pickup design, so it doesnt really make too much difference to the driver. It'd be pretty uncomfortable to lie inside the loadbay when the pickup is doing 100mph+, you'd feel like your ears were constantly popping!

If the loadbay is covered the drag is much much lower than if its exposed - irrespective of the position of the tailgate.
 
JRS said:
Why stay in it?
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Err because it earns them millions and millions of £ every year!

JRS said:
Renault can't keep funding an F1 effort forever, and since it's highly unlikely that they're selling any more Clios after a World Championship win than they were beforehand.
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Financially speaking, the Renault F1 team is completely separate from the French manufacturer. In fact, the F1 team is a British limited company. This is actually the case with most of the teams.

JRS said:
Probably the best way to play it. Good luck!
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Thanks :)
 
cheers for the wishes of good luck :)

Just got back, was a very interesting day. The factory, although in the middle of absolutely nowhere, is very swish and good looking - the main construction floor was spotless. I think the interview went quite well, about an hours worth of chatting to the head of the department. Was not as technical as I had expected, was mostly focused around asking me about a f1 car's aerodynamics. I managed to answer most the questions pretty well, and some of the harder computational questions which they couldn't have expected me to know I think I answered as well as I could.

Seems like an absolutely awesome career, I'm staying pretty calm at the minute and I dont want to get my hopes up but I would absolutely love to work there. They only interviewed 6 people so it seems my CV impressed them in some way or another :D They told me they would hear from them within two weeks....
 
no, it wasn't really CFD related at all - which is one of the concerns floating around in my head at the minute (but they know that anyway because we spent a fair bit of time talking about it at the first interview).

I studied acoustic transmission from a cavity in subsonic flow - I've actually ended up with some pretty interesting results. I did play around with some of QinetiQ's in-house CFD code (my project is hosted by qinetiq in farnborough) I have nothing to show for it. o well.

I'm guessing they just want to see how I'm able to present the information, and that they aren't so worried about the content itself.
 
Well it seems my second interview did go reasonably well. Just got a 2 inch thick letter through the post with my contract to start sometime over the summer :)

Looks like I'll be the ninth member of Renault F1's aerodynamics team :D
 
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