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What ever happened to this concept?
IT looks like a good way of punishing going off track and slowing the cars at the same time. It's cheap, it's temporary and allows decent visibility for spectators and cameras alike.
Did people get stuck in the fences when they needed assistance?
The images are taken from here: https://youtu.be/-X_coFPZbR4?t=928
Either those posts are weak, and don't do anything much to stop a car (other than generate debris), or they are strong and are capable of crushing a driver's head when they hit it.
The posts are weak and give way easily, J.Stewart says that in the video, but soon you start dragging along so much fence and have to break so many posts that it should slow you down quite a lot. At least that's how I imagine it (the car in the picture clearly had stopped mostly by itself and just barely reached the fences).
I've never seen them in action, and obviously they didn't stick, so there must have been a problem with them. I was hoping some of the older members would have first or second hand experience of them at work.
I'd still put the modern barriers where they are now, before you hit concrete, of course. But this would as a plus break something in any car venturing 2-3 meters off the track, or directly trap the car. Race over but you walk out of it (cautiously).
There are some videos on youtube showing drivers trying to untangle themselves prior to getting out of the car so egress seemed to be a problem. I think it would have only been a matter of time before the wires decapitated a driver too.
Hmmm, could you put those big foam barriers right up to the end of the track? I would have thought you could make the "run off" areas smaller, it would punish people for going off track, downside could be replacing the barriers in the event of somebody hitting them I guess..
Hi, Moose, good morning again (at least in Cali). Sunday morning, let's write something. Thanks for the thread opportunity,as it is about highways and not about boring things like cars...
Actually, those barriers do not work by relying on the post strength, but on the tensile stress the mesh can resist. Of course, the mesh is not flammable, dans 79 (nice to meet you, mate).
And, no, we do not use them to stop the vehicle and entangle the driver like some kind of giant spiderweb, so you cannot be trapped in them, at least not in versions properly designed these days, friend Tim Wright, although you have a point about decapitation.
Highway engineers have to call Spiderman for that kind of stop, dear dans79
However, as usual, we engineers rely on experimentation, as I will explain later (or much later, depending on how you view how long are my posts), so you will, if you wish, observe how they behave. Actual danger of this barriers is more a very rude lateral hit, if you ask me.
For frontal crashes in small vehicles they are particularly good, as they redirect the car, instead of simply crushing, as all the other types of barrier do, so they provide less g's in deceleration compared with other types of barriers.
You have to imagine the speed at which you hit them (and they're not sticky, anyway). You can see a video down in this post, if you're interested to get the feeling of them.
As mr. luke kind of points out (hi, luke!) if you want to punish drivers (and who doesn't these days?) you can use friction stripes: less violent and safer.
If punishment is what you want you can use strips made of high tech sandpaper: they can damage your tyres (blue ones) or blow them (red ones). These are at Paul Ricard, patented by no one less than the owner of the track, our beloved Mr. Ecclestone
These days everybody and his dog has understood you have to offer the car an area to brake, so spectators are miles away from the track, sigh.
Anyway, you always want large run off areas, with or without barriers, specially when you take the curve at 300 kph with a moron by your side (hey, it could be me the one you try to overtake).
Resuming, nowadays these barriers use no meshes: they're made of steel cables, at least the recent descendants of the ones pictured, which are like the Jurassic ancestors of the ones in use today.
So, that's what happened, guys: they evolved into warm-blooded barriers.
Versions using cables are fairly common in the US since the 90's. The ones in the pictures posted by hollus are fairly primitive, back from the 80's and 70's.
I worked on them back in the 90's at Langley at the famous Turner-Fairbank highway research center.
The facilities were huge and we carried full scale tests... we crashed, proudly, over 60 cars in a year, using a very high tower, with a falling weight that impulsed the vehicles
The place was really cool, if I'm allowed to say so without sounding like a pr1ck: from my boss's office I had a nice view of CIA secretive building famously located there (you know, every spy novel talks about Langley sooner or later).
Turner-Fairbanks: barrier facilities to the left of the picture, besides the image. CIA building at the top.
Hence my name: Pa-bond, Ciro Pa-bond.
That's why the guys at Langley call me Ciro-Ciro-Seven.
Anyway, these barriers come in two flavors, low tension and high tension ones.
You can read NHCRP report 350 in case you are interested, for its classification (page 19, is quite dense but I will never forget it, it took one full summer to complete).
Low tension, as the name implies, have wires that are strung with enough force to just keep the posts standing up.
They do not rely, at all, on the posts to resist impacts.
Actually, the posts are articulated at the base and designed in such a way that they cannot break, although they can be torn off from the bases.
Low tension barrier showing the anchor at one extreme. They have springs that tension the cable, buried into the soil, to the right of this image
Those low tension barriers move a lot when impacted, up to 4 meters.
Yeah, I know it seems violent, but W-beam barriers are worse, if you ask me. I know, believe me. Besides the beams can be inserted into the vehicle and this means you
There is also high tension barriers, developed in the 2000's by several commercial firms, most of them patented.
The difference is that they deflect much less, have no springs and, overall, they can take hits at frontal angles from much heavier vehicles.
The low tension versions tested in the 90's could handle a pickup crashing perpendicularly, these high tension ones can take a small truck.
There are no versions for frontal collisions of trailers, at least not that I know. You wouldn't believe the energy that one of this things carries within
To take a truck you need an enormous barrier, made of concrete. Like the New Jersey barriers you see everywhere but huge.
Barrier smörgåsbord: notice in this video the size of the thing you need to deflect a trailer, even if the angle is really small, around the 2:25 mark
Now, if they are so good, why are not they used in circuits?
Well, it all comes to Europe being different from the States: circuits are used by anything, from F1 cars (once in a blue moon) to small cars and motorcycles, as Tim Wright points out.
So, British bike riders said (I imagine) no way I'm gonna be bloody decapitated by these things, thank you very much, mate, indeed, God save the Queen, let's have some tea.
Americans being as they are (Freedom! We're #1! Oil! Bald Eagles!) and by then, in the 2000's, selling the contraptions in hordes, decided they had to prove how wrong the Brits were.
After all they are in that business since 1776 if I'm not mistaken, so they do it by researching, that is (I imagine), by throwing uncountable Hell Angels bikers into the barriers.
If they are so good, then why are not used everywhere?
Well, for one, there is the fact that they're new and you know how people behaves about change.
In second place, once you hit them, they're useless. The posts break their attachments, the wires ususally exceed their elastic range and you have to repair the whole thing before a second car can crash safely (as Bianchi proved, crashing again in the same place where a crash happened is particularly horrific).
So, in Europe (that is, in Formula One) those barriers and their descendants are forbidden: they have chosen for you to be impaled by W-beam barriers instead of beheading.
The question, in the end, is: what's better, decapitation or impalement, Tim?
Perhaps you'd prefer barriers made of zombies (warning: shocking images in this video, nothing very gross, but nonetheless)
Ciro Pabón wrote:
Actually, those barriers do not work by relying on the post strength, but on the tensile stress the mesh can resist. Of course, the mesh is not flammable, dans 79 (nice to meet you, mate).
I was not referring to the mesh being flammable, i was referring to the car being on fire, and the mesh making it very difficult, for the driver to get out of the car quickly.
Well, yes, you have a point there. However, you can see in the videos I posted that the mesh or wire is not like plastic mesh that breaks and entangle you.
If it broke it would be dangerous as you point out.
It's steel, it's resistance has been designed"the car cannot break it and, thus, cannot be entangled in the wires, mesh or elastic barrier, if properly built.
As mr. luke motto states: nothing is impossible.
Well, if the motto is true, there is one thing impossible: to find something impossible (because nothing is impossible).
Indeed, ciro is talking about an entirely different concept (high tension barriers). These are (contrary to his explanation) common on motorways across the UK, and great at redirecting a car away from something you don't want it to hit (e.g. the oncoming lane of a motorway). They're less good at actually slowing a vehicle down though (which is what you want in F1).
The barriers shown above are an entirely different thing, which rely simply on enough of them catching the car, and each taking a little energy. As you demonstrate, they absolutely can cause a problem for getting out of the car.
Ciro Pabón wrote:Hi, Moose, good morning again (at least in Cali). Sunday morning, let's write something. Thanks for the thread opportunity,as it is about highways and not about boring things like cars...
Actually, those barriers do not work by relying on the post strength, but on the tensile stress the mesh can resist. Of course, the mesh is not flammable, dans 79 (nice to meet you, mate).
...stuff...
Perhaps you'd prefer barriers made of zombies (warning: shocking images in this video, nothing very gross, but nonetheless)
Drive safely, buddies.
Just thanks Ciro, I always look forward to reading your posts.
For me there should be something physical to punish drivers who go out of track, and deccelerates the cars in case of an accident, like steep kerbs on chicanes, gravel traps, grass, or even those colored strips from Paul Ricard. I was just playing F1 2015 on Mexico, and Bernie has requested so many run-off areas that if you wanted you could lap the circuit in no more than 6 turns, it's ridiculously easy to cut, and in my opinion drive through or time penalties are not fair, since they're bound to human judgement and errors.
They should make something that improves safety, but punishes you for running off track, so the drivers must weigh the benefits and risks of pushing hard into the corners. Then we'll clearly see the difference between men and boys.
Ciro Pabón wrote:If punishment is what you want you can use strips made of high tech sandpaper: they can damage your tyres (blue ones) or blow them (red ones). These are at Paul Ricard, patented by no one less than the owner of the track, our beloved Mr. Ecclestone
There seems to be a common myth about these stripes damaging the tyres if you run over them but I've never seen any credible source confirming it.
If you run over them with locked tyres I can believe it but if you just run wide and cross them they don't seem to do anything from what I have seen from the GT3 races there.
It also gets wrapped around tires and half-shafts.
