Nanotechnology to power F1 cars.

August 24, 2005 2:03 PM

Formula One car "skin" provides it's own power. A potentially very cool application of nanotechnology might appear on F1 cars as early as next season.
posted by Jazznoisehere (34 comments total)

Neat stuff, is there anything these nanotube sheets can't do?
posted by fenriq at 2:13 PM on August 24, 2005

Are you telling me an F1 car has that big-ass engine but no alternator? Dude, that's whack.
posted by ToasT at 2:14 PM on August 24, 2005

Is the link dead? Also for next season the teams have their hands busy making the switch from V10 to V8.
posted by riffola at 2:16 PM on August 24, 2005

Ah here we go. That's neat, it does provide for thigns such as a HUD in the helmet, or something to power the various sensors while reducing the size of the main battery used.
posted by riffola at 2:21 PM on August 24, 2005

ToasT: "Are you telling me an F1 car has that big-ass engine but no alternator?"

Well, I'm no expert, but that might make some sense. An alternator, being driven by the engine, is just a drain on power, so long as you have enough electricity to start with. And I don't guess they have air conditioning or radios in those cars.

It'd be nice to read the article, however. The link does indeed return no results, at least for me.
posted by koeselitz at 2:22 PM on August 24, 2005

...whoops. Just a really slow link is all.
posted by koeselitz at 2:26 PM on August 24, 2005

I keep getting a proxy error. I WANT SKIN DAMMIT!
posted by Eekacat at 2:33 PM on August 24, 2005

Irony!
posted by TwelveTwo at 2:33 PM on August 24, 2005

i can't wait till they start using Nanotech to reduce air friction.
posted by countzen at 2:37 PM on August 24, 2005

Totally rad, and I say that as someone who cares not at all for F1 racing.
posted by OmieWise at 2:46 PM on August 24, 2005

There's a photo I didn't manage to pull down, but the link only reads:

Nanotechnology ‘Coming to F1’

24th August 2005

A recent report in the American journal Science says that advances in nanotechnology could lead to its introduction in Formula One in the near future.

Nanotechnology is the science of engineering materials with the properties of strength, lightness and electrical conductivity at the molecular, or nanometer, scale. According to Science the technology could be used to create artificial muscles, superstrong electric cars and wallpaper-thin electronics..

Scientists from the University of Texas and Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization have reported the creation of industry-ready sheets of materials made from nanotubes -tiny carbon tubes with remarkable strength that are only a few times wider than atoms – that can also act as the semiconductors found in modern electronics.

The new material is self-supporting, transparent and stronger than steel or high-strength plastics, the sheets are flexible and can be heated to emit light. In laboratory tests, the sheets demonstrated solar cell capabilities, using sunlight to produce electricity.

One future application that scientists have discussed is the creation of racecars with stronger, lighter bodies that could also serve as batteries. Andrew Barron, a chemist at of Rice University in Houston. TX said, "We could see this on Formula 1 (racing) cars by next season. This is a jumping-off point for a technology a lot of people will pursue."

(Sources: Science, USA Today)
posted by koeselitz at 2:48 PM on August 24, 2005

Pretty poor article, but I think they meant they would use the "stronger than steel" material in the body as a replacement for steel, you know since it's stronger and lighter.
posted by parallax7d at 2:50 PM on August 24, 2005

That's pretty damn sweet. How long until we can use nanotechnology to make me a bottle that produces its own beer?
posted by klangklangston at 2:56 PM on August 24, 2005

I dream of one day owning a bright red nano-suit I can use to fight crime.
posted by disgruntled at 3:09 PM on August 24, 2005

Pretty poor article, but I think they meant they would use the "stronger than steel" material in the body as a replacement for steel, you know since it's stronger and lighter.

F1 cars aren't made of steel anyway. They're all fiberglass, right?
posted by knave at 3:17 PM on August 24, 2005

No, F1 cars do have alternators. They use a battery to power all on board electrical systems, and it runs on a total loss principle; it's big enough to power everything for the duration of the race before it runs out of juice.

The do not have on board starters either.
posted by Relay at 3:25 PM on August 24, 2005

Is it just me, or is the word "nanotechnology" starting to loose its luster? I'm starting to think that teflon pans would be called a "nanotechnology" if released today.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 3:25 PM on August 24, 2005

OOOPS!

do NOT, they do NOT have alternators ... damn opposable thumbs ... fricking state funded typing class ...
posted by Relay at 3:26 PM on August 24, 2005

They're all fiberglass, right?

Carbon fiber mostly.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 3:30 PM on August 24, 2005

From the Australian researchers' press release:

Starting from chemically grown, self-assembled structures in which nanotubes are aligned like trees in a forest, the sheets are produced at up to seven meters per minute. Unlike previous sheet fabrication methods – using dispersions of nanotubes in liquids – this dry-state process produces materials made from the ultra-long nanotubes required to optimise their unique set of properties.

Maybe we'll see one-piece nanotube bodies 'grown' to spec.
posted by cenoxo at 3:30 PM on August 24, 2005

The cars are made from carbon fiber. Everything from the radios to the various electronics such as the onboard computers are all driven by a battery.
posted by riffola at 3:32 PM on August 24, 2005

More details from PhysOrg.Com:

Strength normalized to weight is important for many applications, especially in space and aerospace, and this property of the nanotube sheets already exceeds that of the strongest steel sheets and the Mylar and Kapton sheets used for ultralight air vehicles and proposed for solar sails for space applications, according to the researchers. The nanotube sheets can be made so thin that a square kilometer of solar sail would weigh only 30 kilograms.
posted by cenoxo at 4:01 PM on August 24, 2005

And we can probably expect to see this on stock cars in another hundred years or so.
posted by gyc at 5:02 PM on August 24, 2005

I'd like to see an F1 constructor use light-transmissive fibers embedded in a composite structural element as a channel for data transmission around the car. It could replace those anachronistic copper wires in the telemetry systems. In the 60's, steel tube-framed sports-racers used the frame members for oil plumbing, so a structural data bus would be a 21st C. twist on an old idea.

And while we're at it, I'd like to see Max Mosley frogmarched out of the FIA. The new tire rules have ruined F1.
posted by Triode at 5:30 PM on August 24, 2005

I'd like to see an F1 constructor use light-transmissive fibers embedded in a composite structural element as a channel for data transmission around the car

I'm thinking that what you gain in the reduced weight of the "wires", you'd lose in the increased weight of the lights / sensors on either end of the wires, wouldn't you? I mean, a copper wire just solders onto a circuit. Fibre optics requires more hardware on either end to work. I dunno, maybe it wouldn't make that much difference.
posted by Jimbob at 6:32 PM on August 24, 2005

Not to be too much of a pedant, but people making posts really ought to remember that "it's" with an apostrophe is a contracted form of "it is," not the posessive form of "it."
posted by sindark at 6:57 PM on August 24, 2005

Erm... it's 'possessive.'

/snark
posted by koeselitz at 7:29 PM on August 24, 2005

Ok, you grammar losers can go get a room.
posted by angry modem at 8:33 PM on August 24, 2005

Whatever new technology is invented, you can always count on Max bloody Mosley establishing some new rule forbidding its use. What a wanker.
posted by clevershark at 11:14 PM on August 24, 2005

Also eventually this will be used on NASCAR vehicles to assist in the broadcast of local C&W stations wherever they're racing.
posted by clevershark at 11:15 PM on August 24, 2005

And while we're at it, I'd like to see Max Mosley frogmarched out of the FIA. The new tire rules have ruined F1.

Tyre rules, and the new engine rules. Nowadays if you want to watch racing excitement, WRC is your best bet - which, while exciting, has no real home in the States and is timed, not head to head.

No way Mosley will allow this new technology.
posted by somethingotherthan at 11:29 PM on August 24, 2005

Oh sure, we always HEAR about nanotechnology... but when are we ever going to SEE it?
posted by Davenhill at 1:17 AM on August 25, 2005

Good pun, Davenhill, but nobody's trying to BS you. Here ya go...
posted by cenoxo at 8:54 AM on August 25, 2005

I think it was in popular science, but I remember reading an article about racing and it said that basically without the rules on the cars it would be much too dangerous, because nowadays (if you had tons of money) you could make a car that would go and turn much to fast for human reflexes and for human bodies to withstand the g's.
posted by Iax at 3:27 PM on August 25, 2005