Seb Buemi's Chinese GP practice incident

[David]

Now we know the real reason they've been having so many #3 drivers doing the 1st practice session!!!

[Neilk]

Originally Posted by fumanchu

Word is that Torro Rosso used a new material for the uprights. Fail! You know, the limited testing or no testing F1 has in place currently may have some safety issues to it.

This is an ultra competitive series and teams push the boundaries to win at all costs.... even taking risk for the drivers lives. I always thought that they should allow testing based on the constructors points of the previous year. The winning constructors get the least amount of testing while the lowest points teams get the most testing time. May level the playing field a bit and improve the show. Sorry for the rant, but that video is pretty scary. Did you see Seb get pissed at his team for that one too!

I agree with you in principle, but all that would mean is that the junior teams would be testing stuff for the main teams, e.g. Torro Rosso and Red Bull. They should allow unlimited Thursday testing to give the teams testing time and the circuit owners a chance to recoup their costs.

[Por_sha911]

I'm thinking that he was actually better off that both wheels ejected at the same time. Otherwise he might have made a hard right or left turn when one side dropped down.

[herr_oberst]

Looks like the consensus is: TIME TO ALLOW SOME TESTING!!!!

F1 isn't some 8th grade science fair, the designers of these cars are brilliant and they have massive egos that don't let them contemplate the failure of their new ideas; computers cannot possibly simulate all the theoretical failures.

TRACK TESTING OF ALL NEW COMPONENTS SHOULD BE REQUIRED.

Just my 2 cents.

[sammyg2]

How would you like to be a lucky fan who caught one of those free wheel souvenirs when it was going 150 mph?

[nostatic]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

How would you like to be a lucky fan who caught one of those free wheel souvenirs when it was going 150 mph?

I bet Bernie would try to charge him/her extra for the special souvenir.

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Originally Posted by herr_oberst

Looks like the consensus is: TIME TO ALLOW SOME TESTING!!!!

F1 isn't some 8th grade science fair, the designers of these cars are brilliant and they have massive egos that don't let them contemplate the failure of their new ideas; computers cannot possibly simulate all the theoretical failures.

TRACK TESTING OF ALL NEW COMPONENTS SHOULD BE REQUIRED.

Just my 2 cents.

Hope you don't mind I correct you on one point, most F1 designers I know don't carry a big ego. In F1 when you are pushing the boundaries it's only a very small step from clever f****r to mother f***r or hero to zero. Most good designers I know are too busy worrying about the stuff they don't know than not contemplating a failure.

You are correct that computers can't simulate every failure which is why most of the big teams have ways of making sure a part is fit for race and on track failures are very rare.

Usually a safety critical part is created by the designer who will work with a FEA stress engineer to make sure the part will take the loads it's expected to see with certain safety factors. Depending on the load case safety factors can be as low as 1.1x the working load.

Before the components are made there will be quality checks on the materials before anything has been machined or laminated. After machining every single component in a batch will be dimensionally inspected and non-destructive tested by either crack checking, real time x-raying etc and again the material spec will be tested. With laminated composite components these will be ultra-sonically, x-rayed, etc.

Once the first of component has passed inspection it will be proof tested to a load that includes the safety factor. During this test a stiffness tolerance band will be created for each component for a set working load.

After this the component will be fatigue tested to simulate track miles. Taking the example of the front suspension assy a mult-axis corner test rig will simulate 1000's of miles of different loads which would include braking, cornering, bump etc in a very short time span.

Before the ban on in season testing all new component would have to complete a set amount of miles before it could be signed off for race use. Now with the ban on testing the reqirements for in house rig testing would be used as proof the component is fit for race.

When a component is used on the track each individual one will have it's own unique serial number which will allow a record of the miles it has done to be recorded. These components will have a limited total racing life and a service life. During each service it will be tested on the rig to check it's stiffness is still with in the tolerance set during the proof test. They will also be dimensionally inspected again and non-destructive tested to check for any signs of damage.

Hope this clears up your misconception

[herr_oberst]

Originally Posted by Captain Ahab Jr

Hope you don't mind I correct you on one point, most F1 designers I know don't carry a big ego. In F1 when you are pushing the boundaries it's only a very small step from clever f****r to mother f***r or hero to zero. Most good designers I know are too busy worrying about the stuff they don't know than not contemplating a failure.

You are correct that computers can't simulate every failure which is why most of the big teams have ways of making sure a part is fit for race and on track failures are very rare.

Usually a safety critical part is created by the designer who will work with a FEA stress engineer to make sure the part will take the loads it's expected to see with certain safety factors. Depending on the load case safety factors can be as low as 1.1x the working load.

Before the components are made there will be quality checks on the materials before anything has been machined or laminated. After machining every single component in a batch will be dimensionally inspected and non-destructive tested by either crack checking, real time x-raying etc and again the material spec will be tested. With laminated composite components these will be ultra-sonically, x-rayed, etc.

Once the first of component has passed inspection it will be proof tested to a load that includes the safety factor. During this test a stiffness tolerance band will be created for each component for a set working load.

After this the component will be fatigue tested to simulate track miles. Taking the example of the front suspension assy a mult-axis corner test rig will simulate 1000's of miles of different loads which would include braking, cornering, bump etc in a very short time span.

Before the ban on in season testing all new component would have to complete a set amount of miles before it could be signed off for race use. Now with the ban on testing the reqirements for in house rig testing would be used as proof the component is fit for race.

When a component is used on the track each individual one will have it's own unique serial number which will allow a record of the miles it has done to be recorded. These components will have a limited total racing life and a service life. During each service it will be tested on the rig to check it's stiffness is still with in the tolerance set during the proof test. They will also be dimensionally inspected again and non-destructive tested to check for any signs of damage.

Hope this clears up your misconception

Great information! You are wise and articulate.

I was just so flummoxed to see a failure of the type that Buemi encountered, that I went off half cocked (as usual!) and I want to offer my sincere thanks for shining some light on the process.

I still like F1, but it has times when it just isn't as fun as it used to be.

[aap1966]

It took 30 min to put on a new front end........
.....and an hour to hose out the cockpit.

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by nostatic

You can see him take his hands off at the end. They are taught/told to take their hands off, but instinct is to try and save it. You don't exactly get to practice 2 wheels off the vehicle, so in most cases of some failure you still have some degree of control (or hope you do) and will try to save right up until impact.

Saves you from breaking your thumbs or worse...

[HardDrive]

Originally Posted by Heel n Toe

Is it just me, or does this remind anyone else of something happening to Wile E. Coyote?

If he's driving a Toyota, yes.

[Eric Coffey]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

How would you like to be a lucky fan who caught one of those free wheel souvenirs when it was going 150 mph?

Yeah, both wheels left the circuit. One completely jumped the catch-fence, and the other flew through a gap in the fence, taking out a camera and narrowly missing the operator.

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by Eric Coffey

Yeah, both wheels left the circuit. One completely jumped the catch-fence, and the other flew through a gap in the fence, taking out a camera and narrowly missing the operator.

Remember the drag races at Firebird a couple of weeks ago?

One woman sitting at a table far behind the fence got a free wheel when a car crashed. Unfortunately it killed her in the process...

[tchanson]

An update from the consistently excellent Scarbf1's Blog:





China – Toro Rosso upright failure


As you can see, the upright failed towards the top mounting (top right in this picture) where the top wishbone and steering arm connect.





In Free practice Friday, Toro Rosso suffered a massive front suspension failure. The team have put this down to the failure of the upright. An upright is the component that links the suspension wishbones to the axle and the wheel. It appears the upright was new and from a batch not previously used. Its not clear if the upright was a new specification or a newly manufactured batch of the existing spec.

Due the multitude of functions the upright has to accommodate, it is subject to enormous stress. This is particularly found under braking as the upright has both the load from downforce, braking and suspension movement. An upright is joined to the suspension at three places; the upper wishbone mounts via a spherical bearing\camber plate bolted to the top of the upright, the steering arm via a spherical joint\clevice bolted to the uprights front edge and the lower wishbone normally attached with a spherical joint bolted directly to the bottom of the upright. Then the brake caliper bolts to the upright in two places, lastly the axle (hub) rotates in two large diameter bearings through the middle of the upright.

A typical old format upright in cast titanium, featuring a vaned bearing holder:



Uprights were commonly made from titanium or MMC up until this year, when the rules were changed to demand aluminium. The BBC TV sports broadcast wrongly suggested they were made from carbon fibre, No Carbon upright has raced in F1. The metal upright is cast\machined, rather than the previous practice of welding various parts together, this is due to the different layout of the modern F1 upright, which no longer places the hub in relatively small bearings inside a vaned mounting to pass cooling air to the brakes. Instead the bearings are larger and the upright wrapped more tightly around the hub, the cooling air now passing around the upright via the carbon fibre brake duct. Only BAR\Honda had a different solution, which routed the cooling air inside an oversized hub to the brake disc. This set up compromised the packaging for the Brawn BGP001, leading to its relatively low nose. For 2010 Mercedes (nee Brawn) have more conventional uprights.

A BAR Honda Upright (exploded), with the large diameter hollow hub visible that feeds cooling air to the brake:



In Toro Rossos case the point at which the upright failed is yet to be confirmed, if it will be made public at all. Most likely the point at which suspension loads pass into the upright will be the area of highest stress and likely to cause the type of catastrophic failure we saw in Shanghai. Thus the failure could equally be attributed the wishbone ends or the camber plate, rather than the aluminium upright itself.









Tim