Heavy Crash during testing

[TMichaels]

Hi Folks,
on sunday we were doing setup tests for FS UK. One of our drivers lost control over the LR08. The car rotated 90? clockwise and hit a concrete manhole cover hidden in high grass. The manhole cover was about 15cm above ground level. The left side impact structure of the car hit the manhole cover with a speed of about 60 km/h (the telemetry survived). The car rotated clockwise around its vertical axis and counterclockwise around its longitudinal axis. It was catapulted about 1.2m high in the air and landed after a complete rotation around its vertical axis and an angle of ca. 45? in its longitudinal axis while beeing in the air. 4 team members with fire extuingishers were at the crash site only seconds after the accident.
Due to our extremely stiff frame, several paddings in the cockpit, HANS, fully dressed driver (fire resistant overall, shoes, baclava, gloves and helmet with HANS), well mounted seat panels and the very tight 6-point seat belt the driver survived the crash with a lot of heavy bruises, but nothing more (checked from head to toe in a hospital after the accident). No fuel or oil was spilled as all tanks and lines(metal braided) lay inside the main structure structure. The liquid seen on the pictures is cooling water.

Right now the car is completely disassembled and all critical frame tubes will be changed. We also have to change all four wheel assemblies (bend/broken),the rims(dented), the radiator plus fans (broken) and parts of the drivetrain(bend). The bodywork is beeing repaired(broken). The steering wheel, the seat belts, the seat panels and the HANS will be changed for safety reasons although not showing any damage.

We hope to have the car back together by saturday to do a shakedown before leaving for Silverstone on monday.

Keep your fingers crossed for us to have a complete car at Silverstone.

http://www.lionsracing.de/images/stories/bildergalerie/originals/saison_2008_lr08_unfall_002_2_20080701_1425399876. jpg
http://www.lionsracing.de/images/stories/bildergalerie/originals/saison_2008_lr08_unfall_001_1_20080701_1142741863. jpg
http://www.lionsracing.de/images/stories/bildergalerie/originals/saison_2008_lr08_unfall_004_4_20080701_1879056891. jpg
http://www.lionsracing.de/images/stories/bildergalerie/originals/saison_2008_lr08_unfall_006_6_20080701_2052957270. jpg
http://www.lionsracing.de/images/stories/bildergalerie/originals/saison_2008_lr08_unfall_007_7_20080701_1359253613. jpg
http://www.lionsracing.de/images/stories/bildergalerie/originals/saison_2008_lr08_unfall_003_3_20080701_1462985836. jpg
http://www.lionsracing.de/images/stories/bildergalerie/originals/saison_2008_lr08_unfall_005_5_20080701_2078817862. jpg


Regards,

Tobi

[TMichaels]

Hi Folks,
on sunday we were doing setup tests for FS UK. One of our drivers lost control over the LR08. The car rotated 90? clockwise and hit a concrete manhole cover hidden in high grass. The manhole cover was about 15cm above ground level. The left side impact structure of the car hit the manhole cover with a speed of about 60 km/h (the telemetry survived). The car rotated clockwise around its vertical axis and counterclockwise around its longitudinal axis. It was catapulted about 1.2m high in the air and landed after a complete rotation around its vertical axis and an angle of ca. 45? in its longitudinal axis while beeing in the air. 4 team members with fire extuingishers were at the crash site only seconds after the accident.
Due to our extremely stiff frame, several paddings in the cockpit, HANS, fully dressed driver (fire resistant overall, shoes, baclava, gloves and helmet with HANS), well mounted seat panels and the very tight 6-point seat belt the driver survived the crash with a lot of heavy bruises, but nothing more (checked from head to toe in a hospital after the accident). No fuel or oil was spilled as all tanks and lines(metal braided) lay inside the main structure structure. The liquid seen on the pictures is cooling water.

Right now the car is completely disassembled and all critical frame tubes will be changed. We also have to change all four wheel assemblies (bend/broken),the rims(dented), the radiator plus fans (broken) and parts of the drivetrain(bend). The bodywork is beeing repaired(broken). The steering wheel, the seat belts, the seat panels and the HANS will be changed for safety reasons although not showing any damage.

We hope to have the car back together by saturday to do a shakedown before leaving for Silverstone on monday.

Keep your fingers crossed for us to have a complete car at Silverstone.

http://www.lionsracing.de/images/stories/bildergalerie/originals/saison_2008_lr08_unfall_002_2_20080701_1425399876. jpg
http://www.lionsracing.de/images/stories/bildergalerie/originals/saison_2008_lr08_unfall_001_1_20080701_1142741863. jpg
http://www.lionsracing.de/images/stories/bildergalerie/originals/saison_2008_lr08_unfall_004_4_20080701_1879056891. jpg
http://www.lionsracing.de/images/stories/bildergalerie/originals/saison_2008_lr08_unfall_006_6_20080701_2052957270. jpg
http://www.lionsracing.de/images/stories/bildergalerie/originals/saison_2008_lr08_unfall_007_7_20080701_1359253613. jpg
http://www.lionsracing.de/images/stories/bildergalerie/originals/saison_2008_lr08_unfall_003_3_20080701_1462985836. jpg
http://www.lionsracing.de/images/stories/bildergalerie/originals/saison_2008_lr08_unfall_005_5_20080701_2078817862. jpg


Regards,

Tobi

[Chris Lane]

Wow.

Glad to hear the driver was ok.

Pity about the car, sounds like you guys are right on top of getting it fixed.

Best of luck!

[MrSwa]

Glad to hear none of you guys where hurt.

Sucks about your car.

I wish you all the best in getting it completed.

[BamaJeff]

Wow! Glad noone was hurt. We at Alabama know first hand how devastating something like this can be. It looks like you guys can salvage the car (with some long nights ahead of you) and still make it to competition with a solid car.

Good luck!

[exFSAE]

Wow that's nuts. This is why there are safety specs.. good work having a well-built car.

Best of luck getting it back together.

[A Richards]

Looks like your driver forgot that you weren't testing for Mini Baja. That would make me cry, best of luck rebuilding.

[mok]

That looks bad, but better you've hit the manhole last weekend than during the upcoming weekend... ;-)

All the Stuttgart team's fingers are crossed for you guys - we are sure you make it and we're looking forward to racing with you at Silverstone!

[screwdriver]

I wish your whole team, especially your driver good luck with the recovery. I sincerely hope to see you in Hockenheim.

I've also got do salute you for you your guts to post all that here. It serves as a timely reminder to prepare for the event that something goes wrong and to look for any dangers present. Thanks a lot.

[TMichaels]

Thanks guys for your sympathy. The team reacts to this accident with a kind of defiance and works hard.

Status:
Critical frame tubes were cut out and exchanged by new ones, which were spot-welded. We will visit a sponsor tomorrow in the early morning who will penetrate (is LEO.org fooling me?) the tubes. After that the frame will be investigated with an eddy-current test. The new A-Arms were welded today and will be milled at the nodes on thursday. A mould for the new air duct was built and plates were spot-welded to the frame for the replacement radiator. Some parts of the bodywork were sanded and glued/reinforced. It looks like some milled parts in the drivetrain could be a problem as we do not have any spares. We will see...

Regards,

Tobi

[HenkWapstra]

On behalf of the Delft team, all the best with the repair! We will bring our workshop to Silverstone so if you need anything there just pass by.

Regards,

Henk Wapstra
DUT Racing Team
www.dutracing.nl (http://www.dutracing.nl)

[Nitesh]

Extremely sorry to hear about your crash guys... Good that you are coming through and really hope that you can make it... Good luck for the car and especially for the milled parts.

Regards

[HenningO]

Very sad to see that happen to such a beautiful car. Best of luck getting in done for Silverstone.

I know you guys have (used to have) a pretty tricked out DAQ. Where you able to record any accelerations during the impact or did the accelerometers max out?

[TMichaels]

Thanks again fot the sympathy. Also thanks for all the mails we received from teams offering their help and offering spare parts.

@HenningO: I'm sorry, but we decided not to publish telemetry data of the crash.

Status: The frame is done and painted. All welding seams were checked and found to be ok. All damaged plates have also been cut out and new ones were welded to the frame. The new radiator was mounted to the frame. The new A-Arms have left the shop for powder-coating and will be back on friday. The milled drivetrain parts I talked about will also arrive on friday. The holes and cracks in the bodywork were fixed and it is now beeing filled, sanded and painted.

The days at the shop are long, but it looks possible...

Regards,

Tobi

[adrial]

Goodluck with the repair!

I just noticed the venturi broke off the intake, leaving you with no throttling ... did the engine rev to redline after the accident or stall because the mixture was too far off? It's just a question I've wondered about for a while.

[C.Zinke]

Hi Adrial,

we found that the driver stalled the engine with the brakes before the impact happend. So we had some luck regarding this failure.

[TMichaels]

Hi Adrial,
even if the driver would not have stalled the engine prior to the impact the engine should not rev up without the restrictor.

The throttle position sensor says: Throttle closed->Idle Control keeps the revs low. If the Idle Control is not able to handle it, the engine revs a bit up, runs out of fuel e.g. leans out and would stall. A good reason to not use lambda control although there are enough other good reasons to not use lambda control in FSAE cars.

Regards,

Tobi

[Robert_USM]

Condolences from all of us at the University of Strathclyde.

We know how you feel. Although we didnt publicise it at the time here are a couple of pics of our car at this time last year.Most of the chassis had to be remade from the main hoop forwards.

http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa210/rneilsone/DSCN1076.jpg

http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa210/rneilsone/DSCN1078.jpg

[C.Zinke]

I hate destroyed FSAE cars.... This really looks bad!

We justed finished our car yestereday and tested it until the sunset. While preparing one of the last test we noticed some blue smoke coming out of the exhaust. After looking in all 4 cylinders we saw that cylinder 4 is damaged. We still do not really know how this happed. We now change the engine. I do FSAE for 4 years now but this is really unbelievable....!

Here is a short clip from yesterday: http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=LJyrEJzhOBw

[SBehn]

I have to add some small information to the video Christopher (C.Zinke) posted. We tested some specific track layout there, that was no just-for-fun agressive driving. Of course we did security tests before, like brake test and carefull driving. You should just remember that watching this video. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Greets,
Steffen

[JR @ CFS]

Kind of makes a point about building for the intent of the competition i.e. a weekend autocross racer who will most likely at some point in the life of the vehicle, crash it. I'd much rather have a tubular steel chassis to fix than a CF tub. Chalmers knows all to well about this as CFS05 was crashed heavily the day before it was due to be shipped across the atlantic to FSAE West! Just glad that everyone was ok and the car recoverable (with some hard graft of course). See you at comp.

[Brett Neale]

Good to see you're back on track, that video is great! An accident like this shows just how safe these cars are if they're built/designed properly. And I'm impressed with the short time it took to get the car out testing again.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Robert_USM:
http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa210/rneilsone/DSCN1078.jpg </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's as good a reason as any to justify anti-intrusion bars on A-arms!

[mok]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by SBehn:
I have to add some small information to the video Christopher (C.Zinke) posted. We tested some specific track layout there, that was no just-for-fun agressive driving. Of course we did security tests before, like brake test and carefull driving. You should just remember that watching this video. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Greets,
Steffen </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Oh, I somehow remember that combination of slalom / hairpin... ;-) Good preparation guys!

[Dennis Seichter]

I just heard that the new TU Fast (Technical University of Munich) car crashed during testing and won't make it to Silverstone - that's a shame, the car looked fantastic at the Bosch preevent!

Let's hope that this streak of bad luck for the german teams doesn't continue any longer..

[SBehn]

Yeah, I also heard that and I have the same information that they are not able to compete in silverstone. Thats real bad and big apologies to the munichs. A lot of bad luck around here in germany... http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_frown.gif

Hope to see some of them in Silverstone nonetheless.