If there’s one lesson the period of turbo-hybrid Components 1 vehicles has taught us, it’s how essential and complicated the position of the stream meter is. Limiting the quantity of gas the vehicles may carry, in addition to its stream charge, pressured producers to innovate to enhance combustion effectivity – making this instrument the important enforcer of these limits.
From 2026, with the arrival of recent energy models with a unique cut up {of electrical} and inner combustion energy, this element will endure a profound evolution – not solely in how measurements are taken but in addition by way of the provider.
After years by which Sentronics outfitted each automotive with two stream meters – one for the groups and one encrypted for the FIA – the provision will go to Allengra, the corporate that gained the tender for the brand new technical cycle. It is a duty of the best order, as a result of among the most delicate parameters in Components 1 go by the stream meter – particularly in gentle of the controversies in 2019, which prompted the FIA to specify a second meter for each automotive.
Exactly because of this, a extra superior and practical unit was wanted. Among the many key developments has been the consolidation of the 2 separate meters – one devoted to the groups and the opposite one encrypted and solely accessible by the FIA – inside one machine in a suitably compact kind issue.
Why the brand new stream meter is considerably extra superior
“One may say they’re like two models in a single. A significant benefit is that the pipes have a unique geometry, which makes it mechanically troublesome to synchronise them completely on the similar on the spot, even when utilizing the identical measurement frequency,” says Niels Junker, co-CEO of Allengra, talking completely to Motorsport.com.
Photograph by: Erik Junius
“Nonetheless, we use totally different measurement frequencies on the 2 pipes, mixed with anti-aliasing features, so the groups can not synchronise with the frequency.”
This structure makes it way more difficult for groups to avoid the aim of the stream meters. The 2 pipes by which the gas stream runs have totally different geometries, offering a primary degree of safety that makes it mechanically troublesome for groups to synchronise the measurements.
Added to it is a second degree: every pipe makes use of its personal measurement frequency, additional protected by anti-aliasing features that stop any sign alignment.
The 2 models, in reality, don’t monitor the stream on the similar frequency, because it varies over time. It is a essential side: even when, hypothetically, a crew managed to synchronise with the frequency of its personal stream meter, it couldn’t replicate that of the opposite unit, which stays encrypted and accessible solely to the FIA in actual time. The result’s a multi-level safety system designed to forestall any makes an attempt to synchronise with or manipulate the recorded values.
A system that measures 6,000 instances per second
The Allengra stream meter operates between 4 and 6kHz, roughly 3 times quicker than present sensors. This implies the measurement course of is repeated as much as 6,000 instances per second.
Photograph by: Allengra
Such a quick system can’t be calibrated with a standard Coriolis sensor – typically utilized by groups within the manufacturing unit – which operates at 300Hz. For that reason, Allengra has developed its personal in-house 20kHz ultrasonic reference sensor, able to validating the measurements obtained.
The system has already been validated by a number of on-track assessments in 2025. Throughout the coronary heart of the unit is actually a flattened “U”-shaped construction: the gas enters from one aspect, follows a predefined path, and exits from the opposite.
Alongside this path, two opposing ultrasonic transducers are positioned, exchanging a sign. The “time of flight” the sign takes to journey by the system and attain the opposite transducer is the important thing parameter: underneath static situations, the system has all the required parameters to find out how lengthy this journey ought to take.
Nonetheless, when the gas flows by the system, the scenario adjustments: the stream accelerates the sign within the path of journey, like a ship being carried by the waves – and slows it down in the other way when it is transferring in opposition to the present, because it had been. By measuring the distinction between the 2 transit instances and realizing the space between the transducers, the system is ready to exactly decide the speed of the fluid.
From this, realizing the interior diameter of the pipe, the volumetric stream charge is obtained. However the system does not cease at quantity, which might differ with temperature and working situations. For that reason, mass is measured as an alternative.
By a particular calibration for every sort of gas, which takes under consideration components such because the fluid’s density and the velocity of sound inside it, the stream meter derives the mass stream charge, the regulatory parameter expressed in kilograms per hour. In 2026 this restrict will drop to simply over 70 kg/h, lowering gas consumption.
This gas flow-rate determine is prime, but it surely represents only one side of how the stream meter will contribute from this season onwards. The Allengra sensor will proceed to measure mass stream, but in addition monitor an extra management parameter on the behest of the FIA.
Power worth turns into the important thing parameter
From 2026, the Federation may also confirm the power stream charge of the gas fed into the engine. The traits of every gas and its respective power values per unit of mass shall be licensed by a 3rd, unbiased physique earlier than arriving on the observe. This implies there’ll now not be only a stream meter tasked with calculating mass stream in kg/h, however a extra advanced system that may then measure the full power stream of the gas.
In essence, the worth obtained from the stream meter in kg/h shall be transformed by the engine’s ECU (additionally a homologated element from a single provider) into gas power stream utilizing the gas’s power density and decrease heating worth, licensed by a 3rd get together, based on procedures set out in an FIA doc particular to every gas. General, the ultimate worth should not exceed 3000 MJ/h. For instance, under 10,500 rpm, the permitted power stream should not exceed that calculated utilizing the system EF (MJ/h) = 0.27 × N (engine velocity in rpm) + 165.
What does all this indicate? That, relying on the standard of the gas developed by every producer, variations might emerge within the mass stream required to succeed in the fastened restrict of 3000 MJ/h. In different phrases, the power content material of the gas will change into a strategic variable: if a gas is extra energy-dense, a smaller mass shall be wanted to realize the identical power stream.
Photograph by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Photographs
This additionally interprets into a possible benefit by way of on-board weight. A producer that succeeds in growing a gas with greater power density will be capable of carry fewer kilograms of gas whereas nonetheless supplying the engine with the identical required quantity of power.
This is without doubt one of the many the reason why a improvement race is brewing between the gas suppliers. However it’s solely the primary a part of the story…
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