29/07/2011
An engine won’t last long without lubricant, and ensuring that the lubricant in the Renault engine of the LRGP R31 does its job is Total.
Here, Philippe Girard, Total’s Assistant Scientific Director, gives an insight into what’s involved.
What would happen if ordinary consumers used motor racing oil in their engines?
PG: Their engines would run all right. They’d just have to change the oil a lot more often.
And if Vitaly Petrov’s F1 car used ’conventional’ oil?
PG: The V8 would run, but because the viscosity would be far from optimal, the engine wouldn’t deliver the power needed.
What type of racing offers the biggest benefits for series-produced engines?
P.G: The main benefit motor racing gives series-produced engines is methods and procedures. Because our engineers are focused on “cars” and “applications,” they can develop specific tests that are representative of circuit or regular road conditions. We develop test methods and procedures for motor racing, to study or simulate friction conditions for different engine components and then adapt these methods to series-produced components. That saves us a lot of time. It’s an important two-way advantage, not just for the engineers’ research and development process, but also for technical solutions related to testing and formulating lubricants and greases.
When designing vehicles, both for the road and racing, computer tools are critical assets. Have computers made lab experiments obsolescent in your area too?
P.G: More and more, we’re using digital simulations to fast track optimization of a development when we know that the mathematical models are accurate. For example, computers let us identify the optimum viscosity of oil films faster. We started doing this sort of study for combustion four years ago, and extended it to lubricants for all types of bearings in 2005. Today, formulators use this tool to optimize lubricant bases. But simulations have to be accompanied by actual physical experiments. It’s the combination of the two that allows us to develop the most appropriate products.
Credit: Lotus Renault GP (www.lotusrenaultgp.com)
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