2014 Japanese Grand Prix - Suzuka

[the_end90]

it was said that Bianchi went out of the track at almost 200km/h so it is possible to assume that it was capable to slow down a bit and Crash at... to say... 160?

[SectorOne]

I used Google Earth to locate the approximate location of the amateur camera. From that i know the distance to the crash scene. I assumed a probable path that Bianchi took from the racing line to the position just before the impact.

I then measured some angles in Google Earth and together with the video timing information from the frames, this speed was my best guess. I would say that the error range lies within +- 20% because of all the assumptions and measurments i made.

Oh wow, i never expected that sort of level.

I thought at first you maybe figured out the width of the truck and used that as a gauge on how far Bianchi´s car has traveled in that distance. But that´s probably not possible to do.

[MadMatt]

I still don't know how he can be alive today. He must have very very severe brain/neck/spline damage looking at how his head took the impact. IF he goes out of coma, I don't think his situation will be much different from Michael unfortunately. The fact that Michael's doctor arrived at the hospital just confirms my thoughts. Sad

[Phil]

I used Google Earth to locate the approximate location of the amateur camera. From that i know the distance to the crash scene. I assumed a probable path that Bianchi took from the racing line to the position just before the impact.

I then measured some angles in Google Earth and together with the video timing information from the frames, this speed was my best guess. I would say that the error range lies within +- 20% because of all the assumptions and measurments i made.

Good stuff Blanchimont. If I had the tools, I think I would have simply used Bianchi's own car to see how far he traveled in how many frames (or how many frames it took him to cover the length of his own car).

[Shrieker]

I thought about that myself yesterday as well, I'm sure so did some others. But not like how many frames it takes to travel the length of his car, that's smarter than what i thought i must confess.

[SiLo]

If you have figured out the speed, you can figure out the force that went through the car. I'm about to go to work so don't have the time to do it, but I'm sure you could estimate the weight of the tractor, simple mechanics of how much force it takes to lift a 4-5 tonne tractor a few feet of the floor. Could be scary to know that number.

[CBeck113]

If you have figured out the speed, you can figure out the force that went through the car. I'm about to go to work so don't have the time to do it, but I'm sure you could estimate the weight of the tractor, simple mechanics of how much force it takes to lift a 4-5 tonne tractor a few feet of the floor. Could be scary to know that number.

Since the static tipping weight of the 910 is about 4500kg, you can safely say that the impact force exceed 44kN (i.e. 4500 x 9.81). Better would be to know the length from the front axle to the rear bumper [Edit: 4190mm for a 910K], and calculate the lever along with the weight that was actually moved over the lever. That, along with the lifting height, would be the energy necessary to move the wheel loader, then factor in the angle of impact to estimate the actual energy in Jules' car. But I'm at work...any one out there with a bit of time?

Edit: found the specalog for the 910K, could be used for an estimate:
http://s7d2.scene7.com/is/content/Caterpillar/C10162499

[Blanchimont]

So, my first estimation gave a distance of 17,5m and a time of 0,44s, the time it takes for the car to enter from the left side in the video until contact with the vehicle is made. That's 40m/s or 140km/h.

If i just measure the approximate distance of the asphalt part leading to the marshal's post in Google Earth, then the distance is 16m and the speed 36,4m/s or 130,9 km/h.

If i use the approximate length of the car to compare the distance travelled, then the distance is 2*5,3m = 10,6m and the speed 24,1m/s or 86,7km/h.

The confidence in the last approach for me seems to be the greatest and would also be the best for Bianchi as the speed is the lowest for these estimations.

[morefirejules08]

If you have figured out the speed, you can figure out the force that went through the car. I'm about to go to work so don't have the time to do it, but I'm sure you could estimate the weight of the tractor, simple mechanics of how much force it takes to lift a 4-5 tonne tractor a few feet of the floor. Could be scary to know that number.

Since the static tipping weight of the 910 is about 4500kg, you can safely say that the impact force exceed 44kN (i.e. 4500 x 9.81). Better would be to know the length from the front axle to the rear bumper [Edit: 4190mm for a 910K], and calculate the lever along with the weight that was actually moved over the lever. That, along with the lifting height, would be the energy necessary to move the wheel loader, then factor in the angle of impact to estimate the actual energy in Jules' car. But I'm at work...any one out there with a bit of time?

Edit: found the specalog for the 910K, could be used for an estimate:
http://s7d2.scene7.com/is/content/Caterpillar/C10162499

You would also need to account for the mass of Sutil's Sauber hanging at the other end!

[Shrieker]

I did a quick survey. The car's wheelbase is estimated at 3.681 m at the 2014 car comparison thread. Taking the fence posts in the vid as reference, i estimated that it takes about 4.2-4.4 frames for the car to travel it's wheelbase. According to BSplayer, the video is recorded (or displayed ?) at 29.97 fps. Crunching the numbers yields a speed of 25.07 - 26.26 m/s or 90.25 - 94.53 km/h, 4-8 frames before the impact. Of course this takes into account neither the angle at which the car travels related to the camera (ie it's not a perfect side view at any point in the video) nor the angle change between posts, nor lens distortion of the camera, nor the camera wobble. Though to the cameraman's credit, the camera is held fairly static during the measurement points. All in all, the figures are maybe a tad better than an educated guess, and I'm not too sure about the frame rate of the video; BSplayer shows it as 29.97 fps but VLC shows it as 1000 (clearly wrong), so could some1 check it in some other program ?

This is the video i worked on : http://mirror.ninja/sc60

[lebesset]

as I said in a previous post , fingers crossed

but thanks to the slow motion clip posted by our new member I am much more hopeful than I was to begin with ; having watched the video several times it seems to me that the front wheel started to lift the machine , a process continued by the sidepod ; my estimation is that this was high enough for Bianchi's helmet to pass alongside the rear of the digger but UNDERNEATH the towing bracket on the rear of the machine , the bracket then demolishing the roll hoop etc

if I am correct then there was no real damage to the crash helmet [ does anyone know if it had to be cut off or just removed ?] but the deceleration caused by the roll hoop catching on the tow bracket has caused the severity of the brain injury

stirling moss suffered such an injury 50 years ago and was in a coma for a month , although he said it was 3 years before he completely recovered ; keep hoping guys and girls

[guy]

I'm sorry... but what about deceleration?

[Phil]

Those are some good numbers. As for the framerate; the 29.97fps could very well be correct for the output, but the original file might have been different. Seeing that the video is a webm file, it most likely has been converted while it was uploaded to the site it's on. In other words; The source file could be for all we know 25fps, but upconverted using some fancy process/algorithm). Best case, it's 29.97 -> 29.97, but I'm not sure. I was trying to convert the video into still "frames" to count them by hand or see if the video looks smooth enough to know if the framerate was altered or not. If I could, I would see how many frames make up a full second accoarding to the timeline of the video and go from there. With that you could cross examine how much time constitutes a single frame.

[SectorOne]

Nice work guys.

[thedutchguy]

Just my 2 cents for this investigation: In the opening shots of the video (http://mirror.ninja/sc60) you can clearly see that the camera looks straight down the middle of the track where Bianci was supposed to be headed. From that, it's easy to estimited to within a few meters where the camera man was seated: