Doug...
Well, its "water under the bridge" now......the idea of paving the
sandtraps, I mean.
However, I agree with your assessment of the armco and the posts. The
purpose of the posts should be nothing further than holding the armco beams
in place - until there's a crash into it. Then, the posts need to shear
off, and release the armco beam to become a giant *** band, and not cause
the armco beam to deflect horizontally (so cars can't get launched over the
top of it, or easily submarine it). You are right, Park's car still had too
much forward velocity when the posts stopped shearing. Thus, the armco
became the effect of a concrete barrier (as it pocketed Park's car) - and
Park's car was then launched into the air!
Armco was probably not "high-tech" tested and designed when it was first
invented. So, along the way, somebody probably said, "Hey, lets make the
posts stronger so the barrier will be stronger!" And so, many armco
barriers now have posts that are too strong/stiff - don't shear off the way
they should.
The problem with this system as I see it (though I believe this is the best
barrier to use for protecting the interior perimeter of tracks) is that how
far can the barrier/beam deflect inward - in a high speed crash? You would
need to calculate that and make sure no parked cars, fans, workers, etc. -
could be inside that "deflection zone" during a race. That deflection zone
could be a substantial number of feet! Could all race tracks accommodate
it? Maybe not. Remember, not only must the interior barrier (and to a
large extent, the exterior wall/barrier too) provide a safe stopping of the
race car crash, it must prevent intrusion of the race car into the fans,
workers, parked vehicles, etc.! Its a complicated issue.
TP
> It's not like John Fitch has been hiding out! After his race driving
years
> for Mercedes/Cunningham/etc in the 1950's he has had quite a career. His
> interest in safety goes back to that horrible crash at LeMans (car in the
> crowd) which involved his co-driver. He's the inventor of the staged
> yellow plastic crash "barrels" that work so well -- because there was some
> serious engineering that went into their design and testing.
> Another thread is discussing the Park/Little E accident at Pocono and
> someone suggested using guardrail posts that shear off. This is the
design
> of the posts under the "box-beam" highway barrier (invented in the
> 1960's)--a beam of known stiffness and unlikely to kink, mounted on very
> small posts.
> In the Pocono crash I'm guessing that after the two cars slowed down a
> certain amount, then one (or more) of those heavy posts DIDN'T give-way.
> At that point the Armco "pocketed" and the sudden deceleration may have
> been the start of Park's flip. If that barrier had been stiff enough to
> not "pocket", and been supported on small posts it might have kept on
> deflecting and kept Park's car on the ground??
> As I watched the replay, I was fairly amazed that the Cup cars didn't jump
> over the Armco, given the way the posts and Armco were being pushed over
at
> an angle. In test crashes that I've seen, the little posts under the box
> beam type of barrier just break off and the stiffness of the whole long
> beam keeps it from falling (tilting) over and turning into a launching
> ramp...
> There are specialists who study these things, I'm just speculating...
> Have you ever tried to do a proper literature search? Not on the public
> www but in a _real_ research library!
> > Dang it, Doug. Wished I'd known about Fitch 2 years ago.....I could
have
> > used that stuff to stop the Sears people from laughing at me......about
> > paving the sand traps. They don't laugh now....but they sure got
bellies
> > full of it two years ago (at my expense)! ....lol...
> > TP
> > > Just fyi, I've heard John Fitch preach, "pave the gravel traps", for
> > > several years now, although his first public press releases are from 2
> > > years ago. Here is a recent press release that might be of interest:
> > > <http://www.racesimcentral.net/;
> > > There is a lot of interesting safety related material on John's site:
> > > <http://www.racesimcentral.net/;
> > > -- Doug Milliken
> > > www.millikenresearch.com
> > > > Two years ago, when we were helping Sears Point engineering redesign
a
> > new
> > > > configuration of "The Chute"....using our simulators and mock races
via
> > > > online to establish "racing data" for various configs of "The
> > > > Chute".......we also addressed the issue of what type of run offs
the
> > track
> > > > could alternately install......instead of gravel traps. The current
> > > > configuration of "The Chute" was one of the three design choices
that we
> > > > presented to the Winston Cup drivers at the Sears race that year.
We
> > > <snipped......lots of dots!>
