JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #79 - March 2013 - 22

formula 1

interview

sports car. Then, I moved onto the Marussia
F1 project at Wirth Research and transferred
over to Marussia as chief designer when they
decided to take over the design and build of
their own car.
JCM: Cars are almost 100% new at every race.
What are the biggest challenges you need to
overcome in such an environment?

John McQuilliaM, chief designer,
Marussia f1 TeaM

JEC Composites Magazine: -What was your
career before joining Marussia as chief
designer?

John McQuilliam: I have been work-

ing with composites in aerospace and motor
racing since 1983. I was head of composite
design at Jordan GP (now Force India F1)
from 1992 until 2001, when I became their
chief designer. In 2008, I joined Wirth Research to help create the composite production facility required to produce the firms’
first complete race car, the 2009 ALMS
championship-winning ARX-02A Le Mans

About the Marussia F1 team
The ambitious Anglo-Russian challenger Marussia F1 team have now completed 3 seasons
in F1 in the FIA Formula One World Championship. Headquartered at the new Marussia
Technical Centre in Banbury, UK, the team
is majority-owned by the Russian supercar
marque, Marussia, based in Moscow. With only
three seasons of F1 competition under its belt,
the team has enjoyed an extraordinary journey.
It was founded in 2009, under the Resource
Restriction Agreement that has redefined the
sport’s commercial landscape, paving the way
for exciting new entrants to challenge tradition
and expectation.

J.McQ. : A Formula 1 car is constantly

evolving. For each race, the car is aerodynami
cally improved and tailored for that specific
track. Most aerodynamic improvements
involve replacing part of the car, mainly
composite bodywork and wing structures.
These aerodynamic improvements are also
an opportunity to improve a part’s design by
optimizing the material and manufacturing
process based on experience of the previous component. We are constantly trying to
reduce the time taken to design and the cost
to make these improvements so that more of
them can appear on the car earlier, within the
restraints of the team’s design and manufacturing resources and operating budget.

Building the chassis with PlyMatch

analysis package. This ensures that we are
analysing the actual laminate, not an interpretation of it. The material properties are also
correct with respect to local orientation and
draping distortion. The Laminate Tools files
support the manufacturing process; for instance, lay-up booklets and ply templates can
be quickly and easily created by the designers.
JCM: How do you enhance every part for each
race?

J.McQ. : Ply Match gives our manufactur-

ing staff a complete definition of a laminate,
without the need for any detail drawings or
separate lay-up books to be produced by the
J.McQ. : From the very beginning of the
designers. The production staff does not need
Marussia project, we chose to use Laminate
to make any in-mould measurements, so this
Tools and PlyMatch from Anaglyph to speed speeds up the lay-up and insert positioning
up our composite design, analysis and proprocesses. The PlyMatch system removes induction processes. Every structural composite terpretation from the manufacturing process,
part of every Marussia car has been designed thus improving the repeatability of compousing this program. Laminate Tools allows us nent weight, stiffness and strength. Another
to accurately define a laminate with each ply
benefit is the video capture of the manufacboundary fully defined within the 3D CAD
turing process for quality assurance.
environment as it will be in the real component. Ply properties such as material type
More information:
www.anaglyph.co.uk &
and orientation are also part of the laminate
www.marussiaf1team.com
definition. The Laminate Tools file can then
sales@anaglyph.co.uk
be imported straight into our finite element
JCM: How did you know about Anaglyph products and how do they help you in your tasks?

22 jec composites magazine / No79 March 2013

http://www.anaglyph.co.uk http://www.marussiaf1team.com http://www.jecmagazine.com

JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #79 - March 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #79 - March 2013