The J Damper and its Inventor

[Leithen]

Fascinating video with an interview of the Inventor of the J Damper / Inerter, its history and a fairly detailed (you have been warned) explanation of its concept and how it works.

[AlmondGreen]

Thanks for sharing. Very interesting insight into the complex development world of F1, the role of Cambridge University in this amazing device, and how it got drawn into the Spygate scandal.

[Jonny_]

Glad I'm not the only nerd who watched that

Was drawn in by the Meccano in the thumbnail and stayed for the electrical analogies!

[Otispunkmeyer]

This popped up randomly on my feed as well. Really good video and the Channel owner provided some really great graphic overlays to explain what was going on. I too was drawn in by the mechano...

I could relate really well to the Prof's thought process as I was already familiar with being able to cinch down electrical systems into models of R L an C (Resistor, Inductor, Capacitor) and using Laplace transforms to derive equations for how such systems would behave under certain dynamic inputs and values of components. Its a really powerful technique and it was cool to see you could basically apply something similar to a mechanical system.

Absolutely love how Renault went to the FIA with this to claim McLaren were up to no good but basically hadn't understood at all how the device actually worked.

I also liked how McLaren engineers changed all the units on graphs and things to keep what it was hidden.

[samoht]

Bump as I just saw this come up on YT. Great video, I now understand the J-Damper.

It's absolutely typical Cambridge Uni that the guy started out by worrying that there was a hole in the theory, and only later on discovered that it might be useful in F1. Great to think that Lewis' early successes with McLaren were in some part due to this guy's Meccano!

[fooman]

Thanks for highlighting this video, I wouldn't be able to wade through YouTube to find gems like this