Counter Balance Weights

A modern Formula One car is a single-seat, open cockpit, open wheel race car with substantial front and rear wings, and an engine positioned behind the driver. The regulations governing the cars are unique to the championship. The Formula One regulations specify that cars must be constructed by the racing teams themselves, though the design and manufacture can be outsourced.

As this type of car needs very high speed to win in the competition, this requires not only the excellent performance of the professional racers, but also requires wonderful capability of the formula racing cars.

Reasons for Choosing Tungsten Alloy as Counter Balance Weights in Formula 1 Racing Cars

As this type of car needs very high speed to win in the competition, this requires not only the excellent performance of the professional racers, but also requires wonderful capability of the formula racing cars. The most important thing to top speeds are in practice limited by the longest straight at the track and by the need to balance the car's aerodynamic configuration between high straight line speed (low aerodynamic drag) and high cornering speed (high downforce) to achieve the fastest lap time.  During the 2006 season, the top speeds of Formula 1 cars were a little over 300 km/h (186 mph) at high-downforce tracks such as Albert Park, Australia and Sepang, Malaysia. These speeds were down by some 10 km/h (6 mph) from the 2005 speeds, and 15 km/h (9 mph) from the 2004 speeds, due to the recent performance restrictions (see below). On low-downforce circuits greater top speeds were registered: at Gilles-Villeneuve (Canada) 325 km/h (203 mph), at Indianapolis (USA) 335 km/h (210 mph), and at Monza (Italy) 360 km/h (225 mph). In the Italian Grand Prix 2004, Antônio Pizzonia of BMW WilliamsF1 team recorded a top speed of 369.9 kilometers per hour (229 mph).

Tungsten Alloy Counter Balance Weight

Tungsten heavy alloy (WHA) counter balance weight of racing car is now becoming the most popular material for ballast, due to its main advantages as follows:

Highest density
Adding WHA counter balance weight into the whole framework of a racing car is helpful to optimize the performance of the racing car during the racing progress, which contributes to the better control of the car’s movement.

High tensile strength and good creep resistance
Tungsten has high tensile strength and good creep resistance with a high mass/size ratio, so it will be the ideal to work in a restricted space. Its high density also gives enhanced sensitivity by increasing the control of load distribution.

Machined Easily
WHA is also easily machineable which gives designers greater flexibility in deciding on the final shape of components and offer counter balance weight designers several advantages over conventional counter balance weight materials e.g. lead or steel. 
Tungsten heavy alloy is becoming more and more popular for counter balance weight, balance weights for flywheels, ballast for F1 formula car, racing weights, dynamic balancing, etc. It is the best material of tungsten alloy for the counter balance weight, and has been widely known and applied.

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