Technical comments only: car to car crash safety

[turbof1]

No, Bianchi would still have sustained brain damage due the heavy deacceleration. The halo was I believe already being developed before Bianchi and more as a response to the incidents of Massa and Surtees.

Bianchi's car didn't see a heavy deceleration, it stopped over 4.1m iirc. His ear saw a huge acceleration because his helmet glanced off the counterweight - edit and this is what a halo would have prevented or reduced.

Oh yes halo was being introduced in 2015 and Jules' accident was July 2014. At some point they raised the test tho, i think, from 94 to 112 kN

4.1m doesn't sound right when he rammed the bulldozer right on without moving it horizontally. EDIT: well, rewatched it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJLQt3tiSp4

Guess I remembered it differently. A halo might, and that's no assumption by any means, have glanced him off. Might.

[izzy]

The FIA did an in-depth analysis of all the crashes where the HALO might or might not made a difference. They did the analysis on Bianci's crash, the conclusions was that that crash was outside the operating window of the HALO, on balance no difference. On Massa's incident it was positive on balance, but only by 14%. Both incidents were countered by other regulation. In the case of Bianci, the VSC and for Massa the new zylon strip and the current helmet regulations.

yes but, do we believe them? Their official investigation was a complete whitewash, with the Bianchi family threatening to sue them. The helmet wasn't cracked, there was no skull fracture but the roll hoop was ripped out and the counterweight was angled. The car was deflected 2 m sideways as it slid basically under the counterweight while the roll hoop caught fully and move the crane before it was ripped out.

So it's pretty obvious his helmet had a glancing contact off the edge of the steel counterweight, and a halo would have been intercepting that and deflecting the car down and sideways. Halo is fantastically strong. He lived for a year. So the evidence is a small deflection could have saved him and a halo would have given that deflection. Halo is almost the exact countermeasure you'd come up with for that accident - deflection as you were saying.

[turbof1]

The FIA did an in-depth analysis of all the crashes where the HALO might or might not made a difference. They did the analysis on Bianci's crash, the conclusions was that that crash was outside the operating window of the HALO, on balance no difference. On Massa's incident it was positive on balance, but only by 14%. Both incidents were countered by other regulation. In the case of Bianci, the VSC and for Massa the new zylon strip and the current helmet regulations.

yes but, do we believe them? Their official investigation was a complete whitewash, with the Bianchi family threatening to sue them.

I think that is stepping outside the topic's boundaries, which clearly indicated "technical comments only". Let us not dillute the topic with discussion about credibility; the FIA made a very well detailed and well explained presentation on their findings under Laurent Mekis, and we don't have anything else to go on. So lets keep it technical.

[izzy]

4.1m doesn't sound right when he rammed the bulldozer right on without moving it horizontally. EDIT: well, rewatched it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJLQt3tiSp4

Guess I remembered it differently. A halo might, and that's no assumption by any means, have glanced him off. Might.

yes there's no way to be sure but for us now it's an example of how it's generally not safe to write off an accident as 'unsurvivable'. It's an instinct to start from the injury and work backwards, i think.

[turbof1]

4.1m doesn't sound right when he rammed the bulldozer right on without moving it horizontally. EDIT: well, rewatched it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJLQt3tiSp4

Guess I remembered it differently. A halo might, and that's no assumption by any means, have glanced him off. Might.

yes there's no way to be sure but for us now it's an example of how it's generally not safe to write off an accident as 'unsurvivable'. It's an instinct to start from the injury and work backwards, i think.

Which reminds me: we don't exactly know the injuries Anthoine Hubert incurred. We can guess based on the footage, but as you said to get a better possible solution we do need the exact injuries and work from there.

[UlleGulle]

I think the tarmac runoff area and the regulations for using them should be changed. I'm not blaming Correa here, he is just doing what everybody else is doing. I'm just pointing out the change compared to grass or a gravel trap.

"Not gaining a advantage" is simply not enough, a car leaving the track should be obliged to "reduce to a safe speed". Time and again we see drivers driving mere meters away from a tyrewall, clearly not designed to take the full impact of a high speed collision, full throttle or with just a small liftoff in order to minimise the time lost. Well, if that tarmac was a gravel trap, you wouldn't loose some positions, you would loose the whole field, and so should you for leaving the track.

[DChemTech]

On the Dutch GPtoday (not always the most reliable source) It's mentioned they will indeed install a gravel trap at radillion.

https://www.gptoday.net/nl/nieuws/f1/25 ... ood-hubert

[Jolle]

On the Dutch GPtoday (not always the most reliable source) It's mentioned they will indeed install a gravel trap at radillion.

https://www.gptoday.net/nl/nieuws/f1/25 ... ood-hubert

That would be a bold fast move from anybody involved. Especially in that corner, a good way to arrive faster at the speed of the accident (gravel traps don't work at those speeds) plus, the most dangerous corner of the calendar, then without run-off would be littered in gravel while cars behind are still on racing speed. Not to mention that the pitlane exit stops there at the moment.

[hollus]

Gravel traps used to be a liability because they tend to trip the cars, hence increasing the chance of a head landing. But I guess the halo is a massive improvement over the roll hoop in that sense (and the roll hoop is still there), so gravel traps might see a revival.

[Just_a_fan]

Gravel isn't good for motorbikes either. It makes the riders tumble instead of sliding along. On tarmac, the riders slide along wearing away the leathers but on gravel, an arm of leg digs in and they flail about increasing injury risks quite a lot.

I wonder if the tyre barrier should be moved forward so that it has a gap behind it. The barrier then would be pushed by the car a short distance. This would reduce/remove the rebound risk.

[izzy]

On the Dutch GPtoday (not always the most reliable source) It's mentioned they will indeed install a gravel trap at radillion.

https://www.gptoday.net/nl/nieuws/f1/25 ... ood-hubert

Wow it'd be an unbelievably stupid kneejerk to put gravel in. As Jolle and hollus say, cars just skip across gravel hardly slowing at all, or trip and take off in a roll. Fortunately FIA know this and will put a stop to it. The circuit will end up with Tecpro there, and more runoff if there's space. High grip paint perhaps.

Plus they'll update the car to car issue as well (not instead), and massively hopefully. There will always be car to car after all.

[Just_a_fan]

I think a strip of gravel just in front of the barrier might be useful in reducing bounce back, but I have no way of proving that. I still think a barrier that moves in the direction of impact is the answer to preventing bounce back. Not sure whether Tecpro is anti-bounce back. If it is, then that's the way to go obviously.

[Jolle]

I think a strip of gravel just in front of the barrier might be useful in reducing bounce back, but I have no way of proving that. I still think a barrier that moves in the direction of impact is the answer to preventing bounce back. Not sure whether Tecpro is anti-bounce back. If it is, then that's the way to go obviously.

There’s not really a trouble with a little bounce back, as long as there is room enough. Even with the barriers so close to one of the fastest corners, the car didn’t bounce back on track right away. The second crash happened in the runoff area.
A corner this fast just needs more space.

[Formula Wrong]

Has there been any thought to implementing SAFER barriers (https://mwrsf.unl.edu/safer.html)? These are designed to absorb energy without deflecting the car back onto the track. Used heavily on IndyCar and Nascar sanctioned tracks.

I know this technology has made it to a few F1 tracks.

yes in F1 it's called Tecpro, and yes it absorbs/converts energy whereas tyres store energy of course and return it to the car with a delay. it should definitely be part of the solution. It doesn't have to be everywhere. It's used in Monaco already.

Does it really have an advantage over tyre barriers in terms of not bouncing cars back? I remember a few cases where that happened with Tecpros, so doesn't it rather depend on the impact angle?

[izzy]

Does it really have an advantage over tyre barriers in terms of not bouncing cars back? I remember a few cases where that happened with Tecpros, so doesn't it rather depend on the impact angle?

They're filled with polyurethane foam, so depending on the exact formulation it'll recover its shape very slowly and not return the energy to the car. Tyres are made to be bouncy of course. But there's the barrier behind that can give bounce, and yes at an acute angle a car will glance off whatever, but less, but in that case it probably hasn't stopped

So Mods have we exhausted roon's original subject with its limits? Can we discuss circuit safety but still technically?