G-force info

[nextgen]

With today's specs with aero, suspension, and V8 engines, what are the maximum g-loads that a driver experiences? Braking, lateral, acceleration, and crash testing requirements. Anything will help. I am doing a presentation on the topic.

[vis]

About
4.5 G cornering
5 G braking
1.5 G accelerating

Figures for cornering and braking are achieved at high speed with a high downforce setup, when the downforce itself multiplies the grip of the tires by adding virtual weight to the car.

[Ciro Pabón]

We talked about the G forces on crashes here:

viewtopic.php?t=2415

From the links given in that thread you might like (if you haven't found them already) these:

Foil Lab on barriers: http://www.tfhrc.gov/about/foil.htm
Barriers on Gp.com: http://www.grandprix.com/ft/ftpw016.html
Typical effects and ranges of G-forces, vertical and horizontal: http://hypertextbook.com/physics/mechanics/frames/
Holloman track experiments: http://history.nasa.gov/afspbio/part4-2.htm

I wonder if you could use the lateral G forces I calculated roughly (or the braking G forces taken from Brembo by Reca) for Catalunya track. Look for the Autocad drawing in the last paragraph of this page. It has an Excel worksheet into the zip file you can download. You can understand quickly, watching the simple formulas, that, as long as lateral G-forces are involved, it all boils down to the radius of the curve and the speed of the cars, no matter what other pizzazz you add to the car...

You can also google for "basilar skull fracture". You'll get a load of data on G forces and the HANS device (and very good reasons to use it, if you race).

[nextgen]

Absolutely brilliant! Thank you guys so much. This will make for a much more professional presentation than the rest of the students in my class. This is for a physics class at my high school by the way.

thanks again

[Ciro Pabón]

You're welcome, nextgen, keep coming.

Pleeze, tell us how your presentation went...

If your schoolmates are like mine, I think they will like a good description of the Colonel Stapp efforts to test 200 Gs on himself, bleeding eyes and all. I doubt very much they are going to forget that class... Maybe you can find something in YouTube, I've seen some b&w movies of the tests at Holloman.

BTW, post for us any other links you may have found, please. You DID find some other links, did you?

[Tom]

Apparently the highest G's ever survived was experienced by a formula 1 driver:

David Purley survived an estimated 178 g in 1977 when he decelerated from 173 km·h−1 (108 mph) to 0 in a distance of 66 cm (26 inches) after his throttle got stuck wide open and he hit a wall.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-force

It also says Strapp only experienced 46.2G

Edit, Thanks Ciro, the guys name was in fact Stapp, I didn't read it properly

[Ciro Pabón]

Tom, you're prosaically right. The guy's name is Stapp. However I agree Strapp would be a much more appropriate surname.

He sustained 25 G's for a second, with peaks of 40 G.

'Colonel Stapp's own words, on entry into the water brakes his vision became a "shimmering salmon," followed by "a sensation in the eyes ... somewhat like the extraction of a molar without an anesthetic."'

The guy wasn't as crazy as to take 200 Gs... and he got black eyes, not bleeding eyes. I had to reread the article, wondering where have I seen the 200 Gs figure...

Actually, (I think this is the sinister part of the story) they had chimps... poor little cute, furry things.

"Deceleration runs began again, on the 5000-foot track, in October 1956, and fifteen were conducted from then through the following March. Subjects were exposed to peak decelerations above 200 g's, with rates of onset ranging as high as 16,800 g's per second."

[m3_lover]

Hmm I thought Alex Wurz held the record when he smashed a Mclaren into a wall