Cockpit material

[supercc]

I know the F1 cockpit (safety cell) is made from composite materials but does someone have more specific information on the exact materials used?

[eragon]

hi supercc,

isn't carbon fiber?
I'm not sure but I think so.

Someone technician can help us about?

eragon

[alice]

I'm sorry to reply this late ... this is not really our core business, but I asked one of our collaborator to be the more precise possible.
To be exact, the cockpit is precisely occupied by the driver, while the safety cell is a continuous structure that contains the cockpit and the fuel tank.
The material used for the safety cell is a composite material composed by carbon fibre and epoxy resin. The carbon fibre can be unidirectional or fabric, opportunely combined. The safety cell will have an internal leather realized with fibre and resin and between the two leathers there will be an intermediary leather called the "bees' nest" (or oleicom) which can have various thicknesses.

I hope this could help you!!!

ciao,
Alice

[Jeff]

In a very simple way, F1 chassis ( or other composite formula chassis ) are produced by bonding together the chassis upper part with the chasis lower part, as these parts are produced separetely ( basically a chassis has a bonding line on the longitudinal axis ).
Upper or lower chassis part are made from large quantity of plies of unidirectionnal carbon fiber ( usually T800/T1000 from various thickness - 200grs to 600grs mainly produced by Advanced Composite or Cytek ) and resin ( usually MTM 49-3 from Advanced Composite , or other from Cytek - but don't remember the ref , maybe 9-19) including some honeycomb ( usually from Hexell or Eurocomposite ).
All numbers and direction of plies depending of future calculated stress
There is also obviously some full carbon or aluminium area , or rohacell for any future fitting and insert.
Both top and lower chassis parts are bonded together through jig adding the vertical bulkheads
Hope these infos will help