Motorsports Thread

[glasgowcyclist]

137Mph & 35G was recorded

The BBC report it as 53G at impact. (Maybe you've transposed the digits...)

 

[Bonefish Blues]

I think if you smash enough 800kg objects into enough miles of steel armco, at enough different angles and speeds (in the 100-150mph range), eventually there will be a bad outcome; it's probably not practicable to test every car design vs armco section vs velocity vector.

So of course they will look into it and hopefully find a root cause, with a preventive action that can be rolled-out to other armco (or alternatives/replacements). But it is fundamentally a dangerous thing that these drivers do

Apropos testing variants, the Regulations are such that if you test one, you test all (in F1, that is) because of the standardisation effect that comes with those specs.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

The BBC report it as 53G at impact. (Maybe you've transposed the digits...)

Quite possible dislisyia rulz ko

 

[classic33]

I don't know how much fuel was involved tbh - I do know a fuel burn is deeply impressive, having seen a relatively few mills go up a couple of times (US woman starting a BBQ with it was particularly worrying for the Brits gathered around it, and we'll not discuss the time I personally did something deeply foolish ) - there's part of me wonders that if the whole of the 160kgs of fuel load had gone up, anything could have been done?

My point re the angle of impact is that at 130-140 mph, wheels locked, a car cannot change direction, it can only rotate around its own axis. It should have speared off that barrier such that we were only briefly mentioning Grosjean having another avoidable accident this morning.

Fuel limit is 110kg.

 

[Bonefish Blues]

Fuel limit is 110kg.

You're quite right - not sure where I dredged that up from

 

[Edwardoka]

From my untrained eye I don't think so, I think he saw that the way forward was blocked &the returning Alpha Tauri was just going to make it worse, decided to go right & either didn't see Kvyat or presumed he would give him room, but he had no chance to.

The pack was already jittery, lots of nudges, 3 cars wide into the corners. Stroll's car was shedding bits, and several cars ran wide.
Given those circumstances, someone as experienced as Grosjean and as far back as he was should know to ease off to let things settle.

137Mph & 35G was recorded, how Grosjean's organs survived that is amazing, but as the the barrier was coming out into the track at that point I can see it being head on, although to rotational skid marks left appears to suggest it was rotating. The weight of the car is 740Kg with another 100Kg of fuel, not sure what else they could put up as an alternative, they replaced it with concrete blocks, but what would have happened if he had hit concrete at 137mph? I suspect there would have been leg damage.

The body is capable of dealing with instantaneous G-forces up to about 150-160. A decent boxer delivers 50+ Gs of force (although they're not decent for long if they take too many of those in return)
It requires much higher instantaneous G-forces to turn your innards to goo. Sustained G-forces are much more situational - e.g. airforce pilots can handle up to 9G towards the legs with training and G-suits, but no-one can handle much more than 2-3G towards the head before redout.

Your thoughts on the crash angle are correct. The angle would have been much sharper than 45 degrees.

As you say, the armco approaches the track there because of the access point.
(I did not add the marker)

I was very disappointed with the marshals, one came from the marshal post with the extinguisher already fired & wasted most of it, one ran across the track, not sure if it was the same one then just stood & didn't use his extinguisher until the medical car arrived.

If you look closely the marshal in question is spraying at a point where the ground is already wet, my guess is that there's a protocol about this - some fuels burn clear and even if it wasn't burning, it would have been a further risk of conflagration.

I will agree that his extinguisher did seem to be mostly ineffectual, though. I'm not convinced that any handheld extinguisher is going to do anything to a fire that size. I think the reason for them is to prevent a fuel fire, not to put one out.

 

[Reynard]

The weight of the car is 740Kg with another 100Kg of fuel, not sure what else they could put up as an alternative, they replaced it with concrete blocks, but what would have happened if he had hit concrete at 137mph? I suspect there would have been leg damage.

No - the shape and lay-up of the nose cone has been developed specifically to prevent leg damage. It will concertina and then shatter to dissipate the energy away from the driver. I've been involved with the impact testing on the survival cell and front of the car. Although it was only as recently as 1988 / 89 that the drivers' feet were moved behind the line of the front suspension. Prior to that, leg injuries ended the careers of drivers like Didier Pironi and Jacques Lafitte amongst others.

 

[Reynard]

Also, I've been thinking how the hell the car went *through* the barrier, and I think I may have a plausible explanation.

The impact itself, given the forces involved, would have generated a fair amount of heat, as energy conversion isn't perfect. Then throw in the additional heat generated by the fuel fire, and it would have made the steel of the Armco malleable for just long enough to allow the survival cell and halo to pass through the metal rather than bounce off it.

 

[matticus]

No - the shape and lay-up of the nose cone has been developed specifically to prevent leg damage. It will concertina and then shatter to dissipate the energy away from the driver. I've been involved with the impact testing on the survival cell and front of the car. Although it was only as recently as 1988 / 89 that the drivers' feet were moved behind the line of the front suspension. Prior to that, leg injuries ended the careers of drivers like Didier Pironi and Jacques Lafitte amongst others.

That's kinda interesting ... one thing I thought straight away is that the cars (including the criticial Halo thingy) aren't tested in this specific scenario i.e. 137mph offset impact that squeezes between 2 beams of the armco. But I guess they are tested for impact with a rigid flat surface i.e. concrete wall? So could concrete have actually been a kinder material for Grosjean to hit, due to the car's crash design?

 

[Reynard]

That's kinda interesting ... one thing I thought straight away is that the cars (including the criticial Halo thingy) aren't tested in this specific scenario i.e. 137mph offset impact that squeezes between 2 beams of the armco. But I guess they are tested for impact with a rigid flat surface i.e. concrete wall? So could concrete have actually been a kinder material for Grosjean to hit, due to the car's crash design?

No, but you can guarantee that the technical team will be already looking at how to take this into account for the upcoming regulation changes and see if anything needs amending.

Some of the tests are done dynamically - namely shoving bits of car or complete survival cell into a wall at speed or firing projectiles at them. Others are done statically, which involves putting components in a machine that gradually increases the loading until they fail catastrophically.

Yes, likely if that had been concrete, he'd have bounced off it. Although you then could possibly end up in a similar scenario that led to Antoine Hubert's death at Spa last year, if he rebounded back into the path of another car.

 

[matticus]

Yeah, ideally you don't want cars bouncing around the venue in random directions; thus tyre-walls and structures that are less rigid/brittle.

Looking at Romain's bandaged hands; i have a feeling that burns take a looong time to heal properly, so although he's not badly hurt he may be out of the cockpit for several weeks.

 

[Edwardoka]

Also, I've been thinking how the hell the car went *through* the barrier, and I think I may have a plausible explanation.

The impact itself, given the forces involved, would have generated a fair amount of heat, as energy conversion isn't perfect. Then throw in the additional heat generated by the fuel fire, and it would have made the steel of the Armco malleable for just long enough to allow the survival cell and halo to pass through the metal rather than bounce off it.

I'm no metallurgist but this doesn't ring true at all to me.

It takes a lot more heat to change the molecular properties of steel than can be explained in the microseconds that the impact lasted for.
If the impact generated that much heat in an instant there'd have been nothing left.

Bear in mind that double height armcos are literally two armcos on top of each other, with a gap between, rather than a single piece of metal.
My guess is that the collision punched a hole in this gap and the survival cell acted like a wedge, forcing them apart.

 

[Illaveago]

Grosjean was lucky that the Armco barrier spread enough to enable him to escape through . If it hadn't had spread that amount he could have been trapped inside with no means of escape .
From what I could see on the highlights it looks like the car ended up on its side .

 

[Bonefish Blues]

The pack was already jittery, lots of nudges, 3 cars wide into the corners. Stroll's car was shedding bits, and several cars ran wide.
Given those circumstances, someone as experienced as Grosjean and as far back as he was should know to ease off to let things settle.


The body is capable of dealing with instantaneous G-forces up to about 150-160. A decent boxer delivers 50+ Gs of force (although they're not decent for long if they take too many of those in return)
It requires much higher instantaneous G-forces to turn your innards to goo. Sustained G-forces are much more situational - e.g. airforce pilots can handle up to 9G towards the legs with training and G-suits, but no-one can handle much more than 2-3G towards the head before redout.

Your thoughts on the crash angle are correct. The angle would have been much sharper than 45 degrees.

As you say, the armco approaches the track there because of the access point.
(I did not add the marker)
View attachment 561011


If you look closely the marshal in question is spraying at a point where the ground is already wet, my guess is that there's a protocol about this - some fuels burn clear and even if it wasn't burning, it would have been a further risk of conflagration.

I will agree that his extinguisher did seem to be mostly ineffectual, though. I'm not convinced that any handheld extinguisher is going to do anything to a fire that size. I think the reason for them is to prevent a fuel fire, not to put one out.

I'm sorry, but it's 45 degrees at most. Grosjean left the main track at an angle of only 10-15 degrees from it. That barrier is itself at quite a shallow angle.

View the footage here (first post, of the Sky footage from above), freezing after 6 seconds, and note the tyre marks:

https://www.sportbible.com/f1/f1-ne...eans-miraculous-escape-from-f1-crash-20201129

 

[matticus]

Antoine Hubert's death at Spa last year

jeez - just watched that. Horrific - easy to forget how badly things can go wrong with such a high-speed corner, we're so used to the amzign way drivers get through there like they're on rails, lap after lap, year after year.