In our case we are going to talk about the 'motor sport war' and the crash tests of Formula 1 cars which are the mandatory step allowing the cars to participate in the world championship. Certainly, we are not going to emphasize the importance of having crash tests, but rather try to reveal some details from behind the scenes. The idea and the data for the article comes from our friends at F1Talks.pl - thanks for that - so let's roll.
In the latest issue of AUTO magazine there is an extensive material from FIA, which exercises the direct supervision of the entire crash-testing process, to reveal some facts and open some doors firmly closed so far.
One important thing that's often asked by fans: Can a team introduce new chassis in the middle of the season? The answer is plain Yes, as long as it's being re-tested and passes successfully.
When you change the rules in 2012, each of the cars must be pre-season tested in one of three locations approved by the FIA:
- Cranfield Impact Centre
- Transport Research Laboratory (both located in the UK)
- CSI lab in Milan.
“Any Formula One team can get their cars to pass the test without a problem, but obviously what they want to do is build the lightest most aerodynamic car they can. That requires specific shapes and specific packaging and very often that goes right up against the tolerances set by the tests.” says Formula One race director Charlie Whiting, who drafts the regulations the teams must adhere to. “The rear impact structure, which we also crash test, is a good example. Currently the teams want that to be swept upwards whereas, in terms of the tests, it would be far better for the structure to be straight.
“We had one team this year pursuing a particular solution for the rear of its car and they had, I think, in the region of 15 attempts at passing the rear impact structure test before they got it right. “However, they’re not catastrophic failures; we’re talking about tiny amounts by which they miss the standard. In the rear impact test, the maximum deceleration can’t exceed 20g for more than 15 milliseconds and what they find is that it is exceeding that standard by one millisecond. So that’s the sort of fine-tuning teams are involved in.”
Jo Bauer, the FIA’s technical delegate at races and, along with Forbes, an observer at crash tests, agrees saying that while failures are frequent, solutions are normally straightforward.
“This year we had a team that destroyed its survival cells during the side impact tests and one team where the seat bulkhead failed during a [frontal] impact test, which is rare,” he says. “However, the solution to that was simply to add another ply of carbon-fibre, 200g at most, and the test was then no problem for them to pass. The margins the teams work at are very small, so there are never any real fundamental failures and by and large it’s just small adjustments that are required".
“Currently we have eight static tests on the chassis and three push-off tests on the impact structure, front, side and rear,” he says. “We also have two front impact tests, one side and one rear, and a steering column impact test. There are also side penetration tests, so the teams supply a test panel and the chassis must be built with this construction.“The first team started in the middle of November and the last in the third week of January. It depends on what their development schedule has been like and how confident they are of passing the tests.”
Confidence sometimes isn’t enough, however, and though no team has yet been refused permission to race, testing is another matter. In 2012, the FIA introduced a new ruling stipulating that all teams must pass the full battery of tests before the start of pre-season testing. Marussia fell foul of the ruling when its MR01 failed its final test and was forced to sit out the first test of 2012. Whiting insists, though, that the requirement to homologate before testing was long overdue.
“It was common for cars to do thousands of kilometres of testing without any crash testing, which was madness,” he says. “Certainly it was unsustainable and we had to step in.”
Indeed, the tests are now so rigorous that Bauer admits that teams sometimes miss the pre-season deadline.
“It can take some time for teams to get it right,” he adds. “At the first of this year’s two pre-season tests in Barcelona we still had one team that hadn’t passed the full set of tests, so they were forced to run with a compromise solution. They just had to complete a rear impact test which they hadn’t passed, so in Barcelona they used their old rear impact structure.”
In order to translate all those words into numbers, here's a table describing all 18 mandatory tests that have been conducted with this year's cars before they appear on the track:
Name
|
Type
of test
|
Additional
Information
|
Striking
truck speeding test it against the wall to the speed of 15 m/s car attached
structure weighing 780 kg
|
The
car with an empty tank, the nose fixed
|
|
The
second front crash test
|
Striking
truck speeding him to the test speed of 15 m/s car attached structure
weighing 900 kg
|
Test
without a nose mounted
|
Impact
test trolley of mass 780 kg speeding to a speed of 10 m/s in the lateral
section of the car attached to the wall
|
||
Impact
test trolley of mass 780 kg rushing to the speed of 11 m/s in the rear
section of the car attached to the wall
|
||
Steering
column crash test
|
The
weight of the steering column struck 8 kg mass accelerated to 7 m/s
|
After
the test the steering wheel must be able to be easily detached
|
Compressive strength test zone over the head of the driver (rear roll
structure)
|
Constant
force (120kN), acting at right angles (x-60kN, 50kN y-, z-90kN) is applied to
the element mounted in a special frame FIA test
|
|
Test
compressive strength of the protection zone before the driver (front roll
structure)
|
Constant
force (75 kN thrust) acting from above is applied to the element mounted in a
special frame with FIA Test
|
|
The
first test crushing strength side zone
|
Constant
force (25 kN) is applied in the right place section side car
|
Size
100mm to 300mm pressure
|
A
second test crushing strength side zone
|
Constant
force (30 kN) is applied in the right place section side car
|
The
diameter of the pressure of 200mm
|
The
third test crushing strength side zone
|
Constant
force (30 kN) is applied in the right place section side car
|
The
diameter of the pressure of 200mm, a thrust member must be placed 350mm above
floor level.
|
Test
the floor under the fuel tank
|
Constant
force (12.5 kN) is applied on the middle of the floor under the fuel tank
|
200mm
diameter of the pressure surface, the force applied from the underside of the
floor at an angle of 90 degrees
|
Test
the floor under the driver's seat
|
Constant
force (15kN) is applied to the floor underneath the driver
|
The
diameter of the pressure of 200mm
|
Test
frame (input) Cockpit
|
Constant
force (15kN) is applied to the frame on both sides of the cockpit
|
Two
elements exerting a diameter of 50mm is positioned on the frame cockpit at 90
degrees relative to the axis of symmetry of the car
|
Test
of resistance to pushing the nose (push-off)
|
Constant
force (40kN) is applied to the side of the car's nose
|
Surface
pressure placed 100mm 300mm 550mm from the center of the front wheels, the
duration of 30 seconds
|
Penetration
test the protective side panels (located at the height of the driver)
|
Panel
size 500mm to 500mm is pressed by a rigid, truncated cone. Travelling speed
of 2 m/s
|
The
test ends when the deformation reaches the panel 150mm
|
Test
of resistance to pushing the rear section (push-off)
|
Constant
force (40kN) is applied to the side of the rear structure of the collision
|
Surface
pressure placed 100mm 300mm 400mm from the axis of the rear wheels, the
duration of 30 seconds
|
Horizontal
resistance test side crash zones (SIT's) to repel (push-off)
|
The
element is capable of withstanding 20kN
|
|
Vertical
resistance test side crash zones (SIT's) to repel (push-off)
|
The
element is capable of withstanding 10kN
|
