Technical comments only: car to car crash safety

[Jolle]

If we take the Anthoine Hubert accident as a case study, there are a few things to consider:

-Anthoine Hubert already crashed side to side into barriers before the car to car crash. Meaning the side impact structures already were very much compromised, and possible none existent at all. Impact structures are made for "one time use only", meaning they crumble on impact. They are certainly not made, nor can they be made, for several consecutive impacts.

-Juan Manuel Correa crashed very unluckily into Hubert, right at cockpit area. That means Hubert's side crash impact structure did not got significantly involved even if he still had those. If the dice fell differently and Correa crashed more into the front or back of Hubert's car, not only would that have avoided hitting the vital cockpit area, but the car would probably been hit way less into the CoG, which would have resulted alot of the energy of the crash being transferred into Hubert's car spinning around, dissipating it that way. When we are dealing with odds, Correa hitting Hubert's car the way he did were very low odds.

-Correa's front impact crash structure completely got demolished, to the point his legs were easily visible. Now the front impact structure is made for extreme high deacceleration crashes. It being completely ripped off and not able to mitigate all damage to Correa tells you something about the impact involved and why the side impact structures, even if not damaged, even if at the cockpit area instead of the sidepod area, would probably not have made a difference. You'd effectively need the front structures as the side structures to mitigate fatal risk.

It will take the FIA long years of research to get an adequate answer to that. It's a very difficult matter to resolve, especially because as my good friend jjn9128 said, you'd need forensic research on this. And a lot actually. These cases are extremely rare (and thank god they are), and will probably involve changing the completely silhouette of the car, maybe adding a lot of additional crumble structure in the cockpit area, or some structure to glans off a T-boning car. But as said, it's difficult. We are speaking of a 300 km/h car-sized projectile.

I agree totally, and the type of crash that was the second impact, the t-bone at high speed, is almost impossible to countermeasure. But, with common sense, as I mentioned in the other threat about this accident, this corner is one that is aways featured in the crash reel of most big accidents. The switchback with the small margin of error makes for big crashes. Luckily up till yesterday, always with just one car and we (as in racing) walked away lucky on more then just one occasion. Zanardi, Magnussen, Villeneuve, Zonta, Comas, and that's just F1 that spring to mind. If you look at a similar "balls to the wall" corner combination, Maggots and Beckets, there aren't any... at least not that spring to mind. More space to the wall, better view and no places to take the runoff as part of the track. The easy and possible best solution would be to reintroduce the 1994 chicane into that corner and take a close look at other corners that come multiple times to the top of the "worst crashes ever" lists.

[rscsr]

What about a rubber like material flexible fence along the crash boundaries, say 3/4 meters away from it at like an 30 degree angle or so to the surface that you can slide over when sliding of track, but will then pop back up so that when rebounding from the barrière you cannot return to track as in that direction the fence will not drop down under the cars weight.

Maybe it can even be a more rigid material but hidden in the track and then popping up only where needed (sensor based) to divert the rebounding car back away from track.

I think something like that would have a very high chance of making cars airborne. We see this with any real curbs already. So anything passive would be a very bad idea.
But even an active system has the issue that it can't move instantaneously. So this also could be dangerous.

But instead of popping up, a barrier could be pushed from the actual barriers. This has the big disadvantage that it would need to massive to provide significant protection, or if it would have crash structures on both sides it could actually work. Because all it would need to would be to reduce the energy of the second car.
But anyway to deploy it at the necessary speed would be very hard to do and could also mean making a car crash that wouldn't have crashed in the first place.

[mcjamweasel]

What about a rubber like material flexible fence along the crash boundaries, say 3/4 meters away from it at like an 30 degree angle or so to the surface that you can slide over when sliding of track, but will then pop back up so that when rebounding from the barrière you cannot return to track as in that direction the fence will not drop down under the cars weight.

Maybe it can even be a more rigid material but hidden in the track and then popping up only where needed (sensor based) to divert the rebounding car back away from track.

And what happens when a second car follows, does that hit this raised barrier instead of the actual tyre wall (or whatever)? How does this system reset? Would it require a several lap safety car, or a red flag period?

[Jolle]

What about a rubber like material flexible fence along the crash boundaries, say 3/4 meters away from it at like an 30 degree angle or so to the surface that you can slide over when sliding of track, but will then pop back up so that when rebounding from the barrière you cannot return to track as in that direction the fence will not drop down under the cars weight.

Maybe it can even be a more rigid material but hidden in the track and then popping up only where needed (sensor based) to divert the rebounding car back away from track.

I think something like that would have a very high chance of making cars airborne. We see this with any real curbs already. So anything passive would be a very bad idea.
But even an active system has the issue that it can't move instantaneously. So this also could be dangerous.

But instead of popping up, a barrier could be pushed from the actual barriers. This has the big disadvantage that it would need to massive to provide significant protection, or if it would have crash structures on both sides it could actually work. Because all it would need to would be to reduce the energy of the second car.
But anyway to deploy it at the necessary speed would be very hard to do and could also mean making a car crash that wouldn't have crashed in the first place.

If a car goes off track, at 300 km/h it's traveling around 80 meters per second. If the fence is 10 meters from the track and the car goes off track at a 45 degree angle, the time to deploy anything just isn't there. Certainly not for a second impact 0.2 seconds later. Anything active, warning lights, etc etc, just doesn't work. That is also why this corner is so dangerous, there is no time to react to anything. Solutions should be passive and simple.

[rscsr]

If we take the Anthoine Hubert accident as a case study, there are a few things to consider:

-Anthoine Hubert already crashed side to side into barriers before the car to car crash. Meaning the side impact structures already were very much compromised, and possible none existent at all. Impact structures are made for "one time use only", meaning they crumble on impact. They are certainly not made, nor can they be made, for several consecutive impacts.

-Juan Manuel Correa crashed very unluckily into Hubert, right at cockpit area. That means Hubert's side crash impact structure did not got significantly involved even if he still had those. If the dice fell differently and Correa crashed more into the front or back of Hubert's car, not only would that have avoided hitting the vital cockpit area, but the car would probably been hit way less into the CoG, which would have resulted alot of the energy of the crash being transferred into Hubert's car spinning around, dissipating it that way. When we are dealing with odds, Correa hitting Hubert's car the way he did were very low odds.

-Correa's front impact crash structure completely got demolished, to the point his legs were easily visible. Now the front impact structure is made for extreme high deacceleration crashes. It being completely ripped off and not able to mitigate all damage to Correa tells you something about the impact involved and why the side impact structures, even if not damaged, even if at the cockpit area instead of the sidepod area, would probably not have made a difference. You'd effectively need the front structures as the side structures to mitigate fatal risk.

It will take the FIA long years of research to get an adequate answer to that. It's a very difficult matter to resolve, especially because as my good friend jjn9128 said, you'd need forensic research on this. And a lot actually. These cases are extremely rare (and thank god they are), and will probably involve changing the completely silhouette of the car, maybe adding a lot of additional crumble structure in the cockpit area, or some structure to glans off a T-boning car. But as said, it's difficult. We are speaking of a 300 km/h car-sized projectile.

I agree totally, and the type of crash that was the second impact, the t-bone at high speed, is almost impossible to countermeasure. But, with common sense, as I mentioned in the other threat about this accident, this corner is one that is aways featured in the crash reel of most big accidents. The switchback with the small margin of error makes for big crashes. Luckily up till yesterday, always with just one car and we (as in racing) walked away lucky on more then just one occasion. Zanardi, Magnussen, Villeneuve, Zonta, Comas, and that's just F1 that spring to mind. If you look at a similar "balls to the wall" corner combination, Maggots and Beckets, there aren't any... at least not that spring to mind. More space to the wall, better view and no places to take the runoff as part of the track. The easy and possible best solution would be to reintroduce the 1994 chicane into that corner and take a close look at other corners that come multiple times to the top of the "worst crashes ever" lists.

I think that it doesn't take many adjustments to make this corner "safe". Just make the barriers follow a more direct path with no significant kinks in them. Therefore allowing a shallower angle and making cars less likely to be bounced onto the track again. And it would also would make rejoining safer.

[Sieper]

The low tech solution (rubber) is always there and just by the angle (steep away from track, say at 30 degrees to the ground) it is at will allow cars to slide over it when exitting track, but not the other way. As then it sits Say 30 centimeter above ground and from this side it is perpindicular to the ground.

The high tech solution (with sensors) will require a fence just as big as the car to pop up exactly at the moment the rebounding car arrives. After the initial impact in the normal barrier speeds are much reduced. Once stopped it can return back in the ground. These will need to be far enough away from track to stop the rebounding car from getting extremely in the path of others. It is not perfect but it might help in places like this.i think it is technically possible, airbags etc can also deploy super quick. In fact, this no return pop up fence could be in airbag form.

[Jolle]

If we take the Anthoine Hubert accident as a case study, there are a few things to consider:

-Anthoine Hubert already crashed side to side into barriers before the car to car crash. Meaning the side impact structures already were very much compromised, and possible none existent at all. Impact structures are made for "one time use only", meaning they crumble on impact. They are certainly not made, nor can they be made, for several consecutive impacts.

-Juan Manuel Correa crashed very unluckily into Hubert, right at cockpit area. That means Hubert's side crash impact structure did not got significantly involved even if he still had those. If the dice fell differently and Correa crashed more into the front or back of Hubert's car, not only would that have avoided hitting the vital cockpit area, but the car would probably been hit way less into the CoG, which would have resulted alot of the energy of the crash being transferred into Hubert's car spinning around, dissipating it that way. When we are dealing with odds, Correa hitting Hubert's car the way he did were very low odds.

-Correa's front impact crash structure completely got demolished, to the point his legs were easily visible. Now the front impact structure is made for extreme high deacceleration crashes. It being completely ripped off and not able to mitigate all damage to Correa tells you something about the impact involved and why the side impact structures, even if not damaged, even if at the cockpit area instead of the sidepod area, would probably not have made a difference. You'd effectively need the front structures as the side structures to mitigate fatal risk.

It will take the FIA long years of research to get an adequate answer to that. It's a very difficult matter to resolve, especially because as my good friend jjn9128 said, you'd need forensic research on this. And a lot actually. These cases are extremely rare (and thank god they are), and will probably involve changing the completely silhouette of the car, maybe adding a lot of additional crumble structure in the cockpit area, or some structure to glans off a T-boning car. But as said, it's difficult. We are speaking of a 300 km/h car-sized projectile.

I agree totally, and the type of crash that was the second impact, the t-bone at high speed, is almost impossible to countermeasure. But, with common sense, as I mentioned in the other threat about this accident, this corner is one that is aways featured in the crash reel of most big accidents. The switchback with the small margin of error makes for big crashes. Luckily up till yesterday, always with just one car and we (as in racing) walked away lucky on more then just one occasion. Zanardi, Magnussen, Villeneuve, Zonta, Comas, and that's just F1 that spring to mind. If you look at a similar "balls to the wall" corner combination, Maggots and Beckets, there aren't any... at least not that spring to mind. More space to the wall, better view and no places to take the runoff as part of the track. The easy and possible best solution would be to reintroduce the 1994 chicane into that corner and take a close look at other corners that come multiple times to the top of the "worst crashes ever" lists.

I think that it doesn't take many adjustments to make this corner "safe". Just make the barriers follow a more direct path with no significant kinks in them. Therefore allowing a shallower angle and making cars less likely to be bounced onto the track again. And it would also would make rejoining safer.

There were three crashes.
1. Alesi, high speed, lost his rear wing and clipped off his rear wing. His impact was not hard enough to be caught in the fence and he bounced back on track and could continue.
2. Hubert's crash into the barrier. This barrier is in line with the track, where he crashed.
3. Correa crashes into Hubert, not on track but on the runoff. probably avoiding Alesi who is, limping on the racing line (without intent).

Crash 1, from Alesi, you can't do anything about. If someone doesn't crash 100%, you can't "catch" them into the barrier or something, certainly not at a part of the track where it's not that common to go off.
crash 2, first impact from Hubert: classic crash on top of the hill. Just no room for mistake there. One flinch and you're in the barrier.
crash 3, That Hubert's car bounced back from the impact occupying the same space where you take avoiding actions is the big mistake in the track. Hubert didn't bounce back on track!

There just isn't enough space there to have a (high speed) crash and avoid a slow driver on track. More space, what gives you more time, even could have prevented Hubert's first crash but certainly Correa's crash that was fatal for Hubert.

[izzy]

I agree totally, and the type of crash that was the second impact, the t-bone at high speed, is almost impossible to countermeasure.

It's very easy to countermeasure, if as TurboF1 says the striking car missed the side impact structure and its own nose impact structure was pushed aside or crushed easily: they make the impact structures bigger and better. Of course it's hard or impossible to prevent injury in such an impact, but a countermeasure in safety just reduces the probability of any given level of injury.

And injuries are a sliding scale. As you reduce their severity, some fatal crashes become non-fatal.

So it's important to do the primary safety as you say but also not to give up on secondary safety. Without knowing the injuries in this case we can't know how inevitable the fatality was, but people do survive very high energy impacts, sometimes.

And for example Bianchi lived for a year: how close was he to surviving? An inch, possibly. Lots of people say he had no chance with that energy and the weight of the crane, but you could stand that entire crane on a halo, and so they did find a countermeasure even tho lots of people would've said it wasn't possible for that scenario. So it needs both. They mustn't give up on crash performance, and I'm sure they won't.

[roon]

The low tech solution (rubber) is always there and just by the angle (steep away from track, say at 30 degrees to the ground) it is at will allow cars to slide over it when exitting track, but not the other way. As then it sits Say 30 centimeter above ground and from this side it is perpindicular to the ground.

As in a sawtooth pattern array of curbs? Interesting idea for solving the roll-back issue. Something like traffic spikes might provide a similar function.



For quickly scrubbing speed from out of control cars, why not parachutes? Relatively lightweight.

[Just_a_fan]

1 second of warning in advance could've saved a life yesterday. We certainly have the technology to build a not so complicated automated crash warning system fed by g sensors or other means.

The cars are at the limit, not sure that 1 second of warning to a driver would do much more than give the driver time to swear in to his helmet.

[Jolle]

I agree totally, and the type of crash that was the second impact, the t-bone at high speed, is almost impossible to countermeasure.

It's very easy to countermeasure, if as TurboF1 says the striking car missed the side impact structure and its own nose impact structure was pushed aside or crushed easily: they make the impact structures bigger and better. Of course it's hard or impossible to prevent injury in such an impact, but a countermeasure in safety just reduces the probability of any given level of injury.

And injuries are a sliding scale. As you reduce their severity, some fatal crashes become non-fatal.

So it's important to do the primary safety as you say but also not to give up on secondary safety. Without knowing the injuries in this case we can't know how inevitable the fatality was, but people do survive very high energy impacts, sometimes.

And for example Bianchi lived for a year: how close was he to surviving? An inch, possibly. Lots of people say he had no chance with that energy and the weight of the crane, but you could stand that entire crane on a halo, and so they did find a countermeasure even tho lots of people would've said it wasn't possible for that scenario. So it needs both. They mustn't give up on crash performance, and I'm sure they won't.

We are at a point now where not the strength of a structure is the issue, of course they can make a casing where that would withstand a impact with 300 km/h, but the acceleration (or deceleration) is what kills you. This is why Zanardi survived his t-bone, the force of the impact shattered his car and the back (with his torso) didn't suffer lethal acceleration. If he had a stronger cockpit, he would have had the same injury as Jules.

Drivers at the moment have, next to about 40cm of impact structure on the sides (for barriers) about an inch of foam around their legs. The tip of a car has also around 40 cm of impact structure, so in the worst case, you go from zero to 300 k/h in 42 cm.

[Jolle]

1 second of warning in advance could've saved a life yesterday. We certainly have the technology to build a not so complicated automated crash warning system fed by g sensors or other means.

The cars are at the limit, not sure that 1 second of warning to a driver would do much more than give the driver time to swear in to his helmet.

one second at the speed of the impact yesterday is 80 meters of travel.

between when it goes wrong to impact is more around 0.2 seconds, 0.4 at best. The fastest a human can react on a visual warning is 0.2 seconds. at best.

[Sieper]

@roon, yes, very good ideas also. Just throwing them out. The tire slicer fence functionality is something I had in mind indeed. In my head it was a continue length.

Lots of very Sticky goo injectors instantly spraying the last 3 meters or so directly in front a barrier when a car is on a certain hit trajectory with a barrier? Will slow it down twice.

Arrestor wire cable fence popping out of the ground once a car passed it on the way to the crash barrier?

[Just_a_fan]

For quickly scrubbing speed from out of control cars, why not parachutes? Relatively lightweight.

https://cdn.hswstatic.com/gif/top-fuel-dragster-3.jpg

Parachutes need a long time to deploy (relative to the time taken for the whole accident). They also need to correctly deploy in order to be effective.

[izzy]

[
We are at a point now where not the strength of a structure is the issue, of course they can make a casing where that would withstand a impact with 300 km/h, but the acceleration (or deceleration) is what kills you. This is why Zanardi survived his t-bone, the force of the impact shattered his car and the back (with his torso) didn't suffer lethal acceleration. If he had a stronger cockpit, he would have had the same injury as Jules.

Drivers at the moment have, next to about 40cm of impact structure on the sides (for barriers) about an inch of foam around their legs. The tip of a car has also around 40 cm of impact structure, so in the worst case, you go from zero to 300 k/h in 42 cm.

Yes they have to manage the acceleration. But say the struck car ends up at a little under half the initial velocity of the striking car, at about 33 m/s - if they have 60 cm in nose deformation and 40 on the side, that's 1m of distance they have to spread the acceleration, which according to my elementary physics is about 112g. That's for the car, then there's some more movement possible for the driver within the car.

100G is not unsurvivable, for a very short period, at least not for everyone. According to this paper it's below the threshold of severe injury if the duration is less than .002s. Severe injury may not be fatal. And racing drivers are best-case for fitness.

So there's something for them to work on. They can take the side out to 50 cm. It's not a lost cause, is all i'm saying.