+ Reply to Thread
Page 2 of 3 FirstFirst 1 2 3 LastLast
Results 11 to 20 of 21

Thread: Fire incident at the FSAE Brazil 2016 Endurance event.

  1. #11
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    Modena, Italy
    Posts
    363
    Why? If the car is on fire you just step out of it. Like this guy did.

  2. #12
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
    Location
    North Carolina
    Posts
    114
    Just like how we don't need an impact attenuator or seatbelts because if you're heading towards something you're going to hit you just steer out of its way...Oh wait, accidents don't work like that. Yeah no kidding this guy escaped injury, but what is the excuse going to be when something does happen man? What's going to happen when a student comes out of a car looking like Niki Lauda? Or a worker gets burns because a fire went on for too long and a fuel tank ruptures? Seriously this is the same debate that every serious safety item gets and then eventually we all look back on it and go "what the hell were we thinking".
    Trent Strunk
    University of Kansas
    Jayhawk Motorsports
    2010-2014

    Now in NASCAR land. Boogity.
    Opinions Are My Own

  3. #13
    I have seen incidents like the one above during the competitions I attended in 2013 and 2014. Both fire incidents were by a team with different cars, different designs, different failures, but that really isn't the point. At both of these competitions, normally held as the better organized competitions in the Formula series, the drivers managed to drive the cars for 10 to 15 seconds before they were waved to a halt by track workers. At both of these events, the workers all had fire extinguishers, so when the car did finally stop the driver and car were both doused immediately. However, the time it took to warn the driver about the inferno going on behind him / her was far too long in my opinion.

    While I also agree that an on-board fire extinguisher would help to mitigate some of the risk of injury from fire, I actually think a more urgent point is identifying a method to give the driver's better communication about their vehicle's current situation. Here are some things I have learned watching events and during the practice with our own cars.

    Every flagging station needs at least two individuals stationed. The first individual's primary objective is to look for safety hazards on the cars passing by their station. The second individual's primary objective is to scan all of the other flagging stations for any current warnings on track. It is common to give an individual both tasks and observe them only really performing one. Its nothing against any particular individual, it just takes training and practice to remember to perform both actions. Since most people at flagging stations are volunteers, it can generally be assumed that they don't have practice and are only recently trained for what to observe during an Formula event.

    Every flagging station needs a defined set region on the track where they are responsible for looking for hazards. I have often seen situations where an flagger eyes a single car far longer than was necessary, causing them to not begin inspecting the next car on track until it has already passed their station's ability to send a communication. This means that a driver, if they had a safety issue, would need to then drive on to the next flagging station before they are able to get whatever communication is meant to be delivered to them. Depending on the track layout, this can easily reach into the 10 seconds + range.

    Flaggers need to properly use and understand the types of communications they are sending to the drivers on track. I have often seen at competitions either improper use of or undiscussed communications from flaggers at flagging stations. For example, a waving red flag means stop your car and get out immediately. It can only be assumed the car is on fire. If it is used to slow down a car or simply catch a driver's attention, a normal human driving that car might think twice the next time they see a waving red flag (or an individual with waving their hands up in the air). That is both dangerous and an unfortunate truth. Flagger training needs to be in-depth and followed by a proficiency test. We have a 10 minute lecture plus individual proficiency tests we like to do before every test day. A simple explanation of what each flag means and how to send various communications with each, followed by a flagger's repetition of the use of each flag, followed by a demonstration test where certain conditions are called out and the flagger needs to communicate each situation. Drivers also need to undergo this same training and pass the same tests. Overall our system takes about 15 minutes and can educate and validate 30 people or more (typical upper limit of the numbers who attend a test day).

    Many teams have radios or telemetry devices on board their cars which can provide two-way communication. A number of these devices might not be effective over the entire distance of the track if constrained to one distant corner of the track. Providing the teams on track with a centralized location where they can set up their communication hub for the time they are on track may allow for a faster and more direct communication to their driver. Be it radio or a simple light on the dashboard, I think it should be as easy as possible to be able to tell your driver to stop and get out ASAP.

    I understand that implementing some of the suggestions above may take more time, money, personnel, etc than competitions already have. That is largely the reason why I didn't want to mention the team or the specific competitions. I think the suggestions can be applied to most organizations.

    I am glad to see the driver in the above video walked away uninjured. The results could have been much worse.
    Last edited by Swiftus; 12-06-2016 at 04:53 PM.
    Jay Swift
    Combustion Powertrain
    Global Formula Racing 2013-2014

  4. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Tim.Wright View Post
    Why? If the car is on fire you just step out of it. Like this guy did.
    Yes, if it's an oil or insulation-and-paint fire like this one.

    A gasoline fire has a much more rapid release of thermal energy than an oil fire. Gasoline has a much higher vapor pressure and much lower energy input needed to boil it than oil. Once gasified it mixes with air very well.

    Try this simple experiment. Put on eye and ear protection (an SA helmet may not be a bad idea). Place your hibachi somewhere that won't burn readily. Start your sound meter. Light a fire in your hibachi. Tie a cup of motor oil to a long pole and dump it on the fire. Record the sound reading, as well as any observations about the nature of the fire. Determine whether your safety equipment is adequate for a much bigger "boom". Repeat the fire trial with a cup of 93 octane gasoline. Post photographs of the of the hibachi on Facebook.

    My nightmare scenario is a tank rupture on the 2nd lap of the endurance in a heavy four-cylinder car with two gallons of fuel aboard and lots of header surface area for a fire grate and igniter. Watch the first lap of the 1964 Indianapolis 500 for a demonstration of what forty gallons of gasoline (no, the Halibrand Shrike did not carry seven hundred pounds of fuel) will do if given a chance to leave the tank and ignite.

    Trent, you and I need to talk on the phone about FSAE fire safety when it's convenient. You can find my number on my Facebook page.
    Charles Kaneb
    Magna International
    FSAE Lincoln Design Judge - Frame/Body/Link judging area. Not a professional vehicle dynamicist.

  5. #15
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    PERTH, Western Australia
    Posts
    208
    Drivers wear triple layer suits and fire retardant balaclavas, adding (and becoming reliant on) another system to put the fire out isn't warranted IMO. Marshalls have extinguishers and belt cutters, If a fuel tank ruptures the sudden release of energy will be given away to the atmosphere and burnt quickly, the suit will do its job here. If the suit becomes soaked in fuel, then it will burn (like a candle wick), but that is why we have the firewall rules...
    Oil/slow burns are the more dangerous fire because the heat is localised, but again, firewall rules keep all the bad stuff away from soaking the suit.

    Now if the bodywork/carbon catches fire, you are screwed, no on-board system can deal with this unless you have a magical nozzle mounted on the top of the roll hoop.

    The fire in the indy crash you mentioned looked more like plastic burning than fuel... Where would you aim the suppression system to stop that? and would a suppression system really be able to stop the combustion (explosion) of fuel on headers?
    ex-UWA Motorsport

    General team member 2013-15, Vehicle Dynamics Team Lead 2012
    Project Manager 2011, Powertrain minion 2009/10

  6. #16
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
    Location
    Stuttgart
    Posts
    494
    Having some experience with fire supression systems in professional motorsport, I can only second that the implementation in a Formula SAE car is not that easy and does not give that much additional safety as you might think while being quite costly.

    As others pointed out the rules for firewall, driver equipment and driver egress should give the driver always enough time to get out of the car without being seriously harmed. Additionally there are track workers with fire extinguishers all around the track (or better to say should be) quite near to the track. So their reaction time should also be very short.

    There are good reasons why in a lot of racing series such systems are mandatory. But the nature of FSAE is very different in quite a lot of ways compared to other motor racing.
    Rennteam Uni Stuttgart
    2008: Seat and Bodywork
    2009: Team captain

    GreenTeam Uni Stuttgart
    2010: Seat and Bodywork / Lamination whore

    Formula Student Austria
    2012: Operative Team

  7. #17
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    Brighton, MI
    Posts
    686

    Smokin O.P.s

    That car was in trouble long before it flamed out. It should have been black flagged just because of the environmental pollution it was spewing. Maybe somebody official should have inspected fuel and oil line connections before the car was allowed on the track.

    BTW: my golf cart makes more speed than that stove.

  8. #18

    This thread is lit

    People see fire and say, "we need more protection from fire!"

    Although, a car functioning that long while on fire should be stopped way sooner, that's aside my point.
    My point is that for the amount of times that I've watched drivers drive around for 10-60 seconds without realizing they are, indeed, on fire -- I am impressed at the effectiveness of the current fire suits and fire walls.
    Kettering University Vehicle Dynamics
    Formula SAE 2010 - 2015
    Clean Snowmobile Powertrain 2012 - 2015

    Boogityland 2015 - Present

  9. #19
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    PERTH, Western Australia
    Posts
    208
    Where is the bulk of that heat going whilst they are still driving around?
    The suits were designed for the purpose of protecting people from fire. I wouldn't expect less from them really. Triple layer plus nomex unders...
    ex-UWA Motorsport

    General team member 2013-15, Vehicle Dynamics Team Lead 2012
    Project Manager 2011, Powertrain minion 2009/10

  10. #20
    Is a wireless kill-switch not on the cards?

    People talk about wireless telemetry, team radios, etc. Why not just have a marshal radio to a control box who simply cut power to car number XX? Tell all drivers if you car power cuts out, then you hit the brakes and leap out of the car immediately.

    One would of course wire a bright LED on the dash directly to the kill-switch, so the driver knows if he's just lost power for a mechanical reason, or if his kill switch has been triggered.

    You don't rely on it, but it's an added degree of safety, we've all seen drivers that are great at ignoring flags (especially blue ones).
    Dunk
    --------------------------------------------------------
    Brunel Racing
    2010-11 - Drivetrain Development Engineer
    2011-12 - Consultant and Long Distance Dogsbody
    2012-13 - Chassis, Bodywork & Aerodynamics manager

    2014-present - Engineer at Jaguar Land Rover

+ Reply to Thread
Page 2 of 3 FirstFirst 1 2 3 LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts