Would a covered cockpit have helped Bianchi ?

[Tim.Wright]

Well, winth, that's not what the report says. It says that "without either destroying the driver’s survival cell, or generating non-survivable decelerations".

This means that if:

a) you use a less rigid material, it would be destroyed or

b) you use a more rigid material, you destroy the driver.

I think what they were getting at with this sentence is that to slow the car down at a survivable rate, the "crush zone" would have to be so long that it would include the survival cell. At which point it stops being a survival cell.

That´d be the case if they´re thinking about stopping the car completely. Then ok, no material will stop the car at that speed with a rigid object without killing the driver.

If the worst case (impact with a skirt on the crane) results in a guaranteed serious injury, why bother discussing the solution any further?

[mrluke]

If a cockpit had prevented the bracket on the back of the crane from catching the cars roll hoop then the outcome could have been significantly different.

However you are so far into a hypothetical situation that it would be very difficult to say.

Its all irrelevant really, the outcome from the report / investigation will be the new enforced speed limits which should prevent a occurance.

Nevertheless F1 cars would be safer with some sort of cockpit and it is inevitable that future cars will have one, the question is not if but when.

[Andres125sx]

That´d be the case if they´re thinking about stopping the car completely. Then ok, no material will stop the car at that speed with a rigid object without killing the driver.

If the worst case (impact with a skirt on the crane) results in a guaranteed serious injury, why bother discussing the solution any further?

If it´s worst case what dictate the rules, then F1 should be banned. Marshals risk their lifes, drivers risk their lifes, even audience risk their lifes...


Crane skirts would be more rigid than a concrete wall?



Obviously no, rigidity is not the only parameter that matters. Kubica didn´t suffer any serious injury because his crash was not perpendicular and his car was deflected, so decelaration was asumible

Jules accident was at a slower speed and he hitted a less rigid object (the crane was displaced by the Marusia), but it wasn´t deflected because it was embebed under the crane, so deceleration was disastrous

With crane skirts, Jules car could have been deflected the same as Kubica´s car, and Jules probably would be at home.

[Tim.Wright]

I'm not going to keep pushing the point forever...

But I will just say that any safety device (i.e. a skirt on a recovery vehicle) that is designed to take an impact, but doesn't actually work if you hit it head on, is basically a useless device.

In addition to being useless, it would also be expensive and make the recovery job even harder than it is now.

Consider also that now that the root cause of the accident has been addressed, so the skirts aren't actually needed any more.

[Blanchimont]

Regarding Kubica's accident, if you stop the video at 0:36 min, you notice that the barrier has moved where the impact happened. This clearly decreased the acceleration and acted as a kind of deformable crash structure.

[Sulman]

The best thing that would have helped was the accident being unlikely in the first place. Bianchi was cracking on (he's a racing driver, it's what they do) the vehicle was in a spot with a historical precedent for an accident (not an outlier) and the rest is history.

I doubt a cockpit structure would have made any difference.

[turbof1]

I'm not going to keep pushing the point forever...

But I will just say that any safety device (i.e. a skirt on a recovery vehicle) that is designed to take an impact, but doesn't actually work if you hit it head on, is basically a useless device.

In addition to being useless, it would also be expensive and make the recovery job even harder than it is now.

Consider also that now that the root cause of the accident has been addressed, so the skirts aren't actually needed any more.

I think the biggest issue is that the car hit the crane where there wasn't any deformable structure involved.

A skirt would help in that aspect: it would have lowered the contact point right down to side crash structure of the car. Remember, the car got hit at the side of the roll hope, not a deformable structure.

I'm not inmediately saying it would have kept Jules from harm, but having the contact point at the right position makes a whole lot of difference. Take Kubica's example at Canada: imagine the concrete wall being at the height of the tractor. Kubica would probably got the same injury as Bianchi.

Maybe we are looking this at the wrong way: a skirt would only fix the symptom. The real issue is objects or projectiles being above or at the side of the impact structures, and not simply ON the crash structure. A lower and squared tractor would allow the crash structures do their work.

[user001]

Well, winth, that's not what the report says. It says that "without either destroying the driver’s survival cell, or generating non-survivable decelerations".

This means that if:

a) you use a less rigid material, it would be destroyed or

b) you use a more rigid material, you destroy the driver.

yes, you may be right in detail. but overall the covered cockpit wouldn't have saved bianchi.

[Andres125sx]

Regarding Kubica's accident, if you stop the video at 0:36 min, you notice that the barrier has moved where the impact happened. This clearly decreased the acceleration and acted as a kind of deformable crash structure.

Yes and that clearly shows the violence of Kubica´s crash, a concrete wall being displaced is something you will see few times in your life

But even so it was displaced much less than the crane with the Marusia, so it´s a lot more rigid object/structure than the crane, and the crash was much faster, but even with these two aspects in favour for Jules, he was seriously injured while Robert wasnt

The reason is deceleration

Take it this way, imagine a concrete wall like that Kubica crashed with, or a bit higher if you want, someone crashes with it perpendicullary at 100km/h.

Now imagine the wall is not vertical, the higher part is closer to the car coming, and the lower part is further. Let´s say with 40º angle. When crashing, the car will be embebed under the wall going from 100 to 0 in no time, decelerations will be fatal, driver is dead.

Now imagine the same case with the wall with the opposite inclination, like a ramp. It´s not a ramp because it´s inclined only 40º from vertical so the car will crash with it. But instead of being embebed the car will be deflected, will probably jump (at least the survival cell), so the car will go from 100 to whatever speed it keep while jumping over the wall, let say 30-40km/h. This means deceleration will be lower than in first case so the driver could survive.

Jules crane acted like first case, it´s stopped his car completely producing huge decelerations. Robert Kubica wall acted like second case, with horizontal inclination instead of vertical, but it´s the same case, the important thing is his car was deflected instead of stopped so decelerations were lower, even when his crash was much faster and the object he crashed with was more rigid


The more I think about this, more conviced I am crane skirts would have saved Jules. And I´ll repeat one more time I´m not saying they´re the root of the problem, but can´t understand how they said on the report crane skirts would have changed nothing

[turbof1]

It's debatable if it would have saved Jules Bianchi. It would have increased the chance, but it's nowhere a safety no harm would have come to him. It will always do something; nothing is not the correct word. But how will we ever be able to quantify that? Therefore I agree with the main conclusion of the report: instead of desperately trying to make such horrible crashes survivable, the focus should be on avoiding the crash all together.

A change in protocol to avoid having a crane on that spot when cars are approaching the corner at high speed, that's what is needed.

[user001]

It's debatable if it would have saved Jules Bianchi. It would have increased the chance, but it's nowhere a safety no harm would have come to him. It will always do something; nothing is not the correct word. But how will we ever be able to quantify that? Therefore I agree with the main conclusion of the report: instead of desperately trying to make such horrible crashes survivable, the focus should be on avoiding the crash all together.

A change in protocol to avoid having a crane on that spot when cars are approaching the corner at high speed, that's what is needed.

with the angle bianchi hit the truck there is nothing to do or gain with a covered cockpit i think.

as mentioned earlier kubica had higher speed but the angle of impact is decisive. kubica's car deaccelerated and spilled over and then slowly came to a stand. bianchi crashed and came to a stand immediately. all the energy at once. no chance

[turbof1]

It's debatable if it would have saved Jules Bianchi. It would have increased the chance, but it's nowhere a safety no harm would have come to him. It will always do something; nothing is not the correct word. But how will we ever be able to quantify that? Therefore I agree with the main conclusion of the report: instead of desperately trying to make such horrible crashes survivable, the focus should be on avoiding the crash all together.

A change in protocol to avoid having a crane on that spot when cars are approaching the corner at high speed, that's what is needed.

with the angle bianchi hit the truck there is nothing to do or gain with a covered cockpit i think.

as mentioned earlier kubica had higher speed but the angle of impact is decisive. kubica's car deaccelerated and spilled over and then slowly came to a stand. bianchi crashed and came to a stand immediately. all the energy at once. no chance

We were talking about skirts underneath the crane . A cockpit would be probably be insignificant, although do mind it could change the angle of impact. If we assume for a moment the cockpit is indestructable, yes a fairly useless assumptions, and the angle goes from 90 degrees to let say 40 degrees, less deacceleration will occur (the car would bounce off and continue on with less velocity).
However, reality would be that the cockpit shatters inmediately and then hit a part with practically the same velocity and angle as Jules' crash.

I see many people referring to Kubica's 2007 crash. Do mind that the front crash structure absorbed a huge chunk of the blow. Without it he would definitely never have survived it. It's oh so crucial in a crash that a crash structure comes first in contact with an object. It's the difference between a mild concussion like Kubica's case and severe Diffuse Axonal Injury like Jules. Kubica had a higher speed and a more frontal angle then Jules. Without the crash structure, the nose would have just burrowed into wall and Kubica would have gotten the same instant deacceleration.

Looking back at the crash, it seems that for a moment Jules car just deflected off, but then the roll hoop (or his helmet) got stuck underneath the crane.

We also have to note this:

9. Bianchi’s helmet struck the sloping underside of the crane. The magnitude of the blow and the glancing nature of it caused massive head deceleration and angular acceleration, leading to his severe injuries.

So the crucial deacceleration wasn't applied on the car, but directly on his head!

[lebesset]

I find quote 9 to be counter intuitive

so the glancing blow caused the injuries , what about the huge deceleration when the roll hoop was snagged by the tow hitch ? that didn't cause the major part of the injury ?

as I have said before I would be most interested to hear of the damage on his helmet ...I note that the only medical man on the panel was not from the field of brain injuries but Todt's appointed chum , an orthopedic specialist

[Blanchimont]

I see many people referring to Kubica's 2007 crash. Do mind that the front crash structure absorbed a huge chunk of the blow. Without it he would definitely never have survived it. It's oh so crucial in a crash that a crash structure comes first in contact with an object. It's the difference between a mild concussion like Kubica's case and severe Diffuse Axonal Injury like Jules. Kubica had a higher speed and a more frontal angle then Jules. Without the crash structure, the nose would have just burrowed into wall and Kubica would have gotten the same instant deacceleration.

I looked at some pictures from Canada and it appears that the front crash structure didn't work as intended( http://youtu.be/7d6ttJqOzyw?t=1m39s ). In this video the nose absorbs energy by destroying about 70% of the nose, but if you look at this next picture, you'll see that the nose is almost complete(between the two tyres in the air). It is seperated from the survival cell and only the energy that was necessary to destroy the tip and the fasteners between the nose and the monocoque was absorbed. This also means that the moving concrete wall took the majority of the energy, a rigid concrete wall (connected rigidly to the ground) would have had severe consequences for Kubica.


http://contour.org/ceg-vb/forum/general ... ca-s-crash

In addition, the right side of the car and the front of the survival cell were destroyed.

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/8426726

[turbof1]

I see many people referring to Kubica's 2007 crash. Do mind that the front crash structure absorbed a huge chunk of the blow. Without it he would definitely never have survived it. It's oh so crucial in a crash that a crash structure comes first in contact with an object. It's the difference between a mild concussion like Kubica's case and severe Diffuse Axonal Injury like Jules. Kubica had a higher speed and a more frontal angle then Jules. Without the crash structure, the nose would have just burrowed into wall and Kubica would have gotten the same instant deacceleration.

I looked at some pictures from Canada and it appears that the front crash structure didn't work as intended( http://youtu.be/7d6ttJqOzyw?t=1m39s ). In this video the nose absorbs energy by destroying about 70% of the nose, but if you look at this next picture, you'll see that the nose is almost complete(between the two tyres in the air). It is seperated from the survival cell and only the energy that was necessary to destroy the tip and the fasteners between the nose and the monocoque was absorbed. This also means that the moving concrete wall took the majority of the energy, a rigid concrete wall (connected rigidly to the ground) would have had severe consequences for Kubica.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v445/goonz12/2-31.jpg
http://contour.org/ceg-vb/forum/general ... ca-s-crash

In addition, the right side of the car and the front of the survival cell were destroyed.
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/8426726.jpg
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/8426726

Very good spot Blanchimont. Yes it indeed looks to have broken off. Luckily the wall wasn't secured to the ground! I also believe they changed the side impact structure this year for that reason.