Slightly different footage of Senna's crash...
Discussion
em177 said:
fatboy69 said:
As to the actual cause I doubt that it will ever proven what went wrong unless someone from Williams (or someone who is 'in the know') gives it up.
Can you imagine how many copies that book would sell!!angrymoby said:
em177 said:
fatboy69 said:
As to the actual cause I doubt that it will ever proven what went wrong unless someone from Williams (or someone who is 'in the know') gives it up.
Can you imagine how many copies that book would sell!!
Not looked at this topic for several weeks, and the original video I linked to has been deleted.
But here is another one, highlighting the yellow button on the steering wheel.
It is in slow motion.
Can the people who claim Senna lost control due to an error on his part suggest why/what is going on with the steering at the point the car begins to spear off the track, and also why does he appear to look down into the footwell? My observation I made originally was the steering wheel appears to come towards Senna, and then moves his head forward and down to the left as if he is looking into the footwell.
Drivers don't normally do that.
Slow motion footage here...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-J22HNdcb0
But here is another one, highlighting the yellow button on the steering wheel.
It is in slow motion.
Can the people who claim Senna lost control due to an error on his part suggest why/what is going on with the steering at the point the car begins to spear off the track, and also why does he appear to look down into the footwell? My observation I made originally was the steering wheel appears to come towards Senna, and then moves his head forward and down to the left as if he is looking into the footwell.
Drivers don't normally do that.
Slow motion footage here...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-J22HNdcb0
Is his head moving forward not due to slamming on the brakes?
Every time I watch the footage my perspective changes over and over again, I can't decide to be truthful.
I keep leaning more towards the car getting unsettled on the new tarmac strips and skidding on a bump meaning he lost control.
But then you watch it again and the steering wheel doesn't look right.
Every time I watch the footage my perspective changes over and over again, I can't decide to be truthful.
I keep leaning more towards the car getting unsettled on the new tarmac strips and skidding on a bump meaning he lost control.
But then you watch it again and the steering wheel doesn't look right.
coppice said:
He's dead, has been for 23 years and whatever the causation migt have been (not that I think it's in doubt ) he ain't coming back . Maybe time to move on rather than watching the poor sod die - again and again ... and again ?
I think the cause of the accident is very much in doubt and that's why it keeps getting discussed! Sadly the answer will never be known for certain and that probably means the subject will continue to be debated from time to time...I would suggest it's only in doubt because it was Senna who died . Deaths of the famous provoke spurious theories and conspiracy theories - see also Princess Diana,JFK and General Patton . If he had been a nobody in an F3 test on a wet wednesday at Mallory no-one would be remotely interested .
He lost control. Senna was not an infallible deity. He was asking the car to do something it could not at a bumpy high speed corner with a low ride height. His fanatical belief in a higher power had blinded his judgement. He wanted a podium at the expense of nearly all else and compromise was not on the agenda. It cost him his life.
coppice said:
I would suggest it's only in doubt because it was Senna who died . Deaths of the famous provoke spurious theories and conspiracy theories - see also Princess Diana,JFK and General Patton . If he had been a nobody in an F3 test on a wet wednesday at Mallory no-one would be remotely interested .
Senna was the most high-profile driver in F1 when he died and, in the absence of any definitive explanation as to what caused his accident, it's no great surprise there's been a continued interest in what happened. I've never really bought-in to the idea of a conspiracy as such, I just think it's more a case of people genuinely not knowing for certain what happened and hence it comes down to a combination of opinions and probabilities. Therefore, I'm not sure why you're so unequivocal in saying there's "no doubt" about what happened; what do you think happened and why do you think there's no doubt about it?I was never a great fan of Senna when he was racing - too aggressive and prone to collisions for my liking - so I'm certainly not one of those who refuses to believe he ever did anything wrong or couldn't make a mistake. However, the evidence I've seen suggests there was some sort of failure of the steering column and I'm not convinced the car simply got away from him on a relatively straightforward corner like Tamburello; it might have done but I think there's evidence to suggest otherwise.
An F3 test on a wet Wednesday at Mallory wouldn't be broadcast live to tens of millions of people and chances are the car wouldn't be fitted with an on-board camera providing footage of at least some of the incident; therefore, the two events are very different and yes, of course the interest in the hypothetical Mallory fatality would be less!
tobinen said:
He lost control. Senna was not an infallible deity. He was asking the car to do something it could not at a bumpy high speed corner with a low ride height. His fanatical belief in a higher power had blinded his judgement. He wanted a podium at the expense of nearly all else and compromise was not on the agenda. It cost him his life.
That's your opinion - and in fairness it's one shared by others - and you may be right. However, there's evidence to suggest at least a partial failure of the steering column prior to the accident and, while that's not proven either, it's certainly a possible explanation for Senna losing control of the car IMO. He died because his car crashed - not entirely unknown in the sport. If Barrichello had had Senna's crash at Imola and vice versa , then regardless of being televised it would have been near forgotten by now.For many watching , it was also the first time they had seen a top driver killed; sadly it wasn't uncommon in an earlier time which is why I possibly haven't spent too much time thinking about the precise causation of deaths like Clark's , Rindt's , Revson's or Siffert's - too long a list, sadly .
bristolracer said:
Why are people watching videos of his crash?
Are you some kind of snuff movie freaks?
Humans are inquisitive beings and death is possibly the most impossible thing to understand in our life.Are you some kind of snuff movie freaks?
It's the most simple thing, one minute you're here and one minute you're gone but alas, we have morbid curiosity and it's also the most complicated to rationalise because we have to KNOW why something happened, we have to pin it on something, anything.
When you find yourself watching the crash over and over again, you're analysing every little bit of it in the thought that you'll pick up something new that'll give you the satisfaction of knowing. The fact that the death of a person is present doesn't factor into it at all.
Of course, if we could take a step back from our curiosities then nobody would question anything and we'd all just be robots, but we're emotional and we like to consume ourselves in things that are interesting because we get a good feeling when we prove something right.
Edited by F1GTRUeno on Tuesday 7th February 19:34
Edited by F1GTRUeno on Tuesday 7th February 20:14
bristolracer said:
Why are people watching videos of his crash?
Are you some kind of snuff movie freaks?
I've not watched it again, but I do remember it from when it happened, I've read lots about it and I doubt very much it was driver error, drivers do not crash at Tamburello unless something goes wrong/fails on the car.Are you some kind of snuff movie freaks?
rallycross said:
I've not watched it again, but I do remember it from when it happened, I've read lots about it and I doubt very much it was driver error, drivers do not crash at Tamburello unless something goes wrong/fails on the car.
I think pretty much everyone agrees there was something wrong with the car, but not everyone agrees that the steering column broke before the crash.coppice said:
He died because his car crashed - not entirely unknown in the sport. If Barrichello had had Senna's crash at Imola and vice versa , then regardless of being televised it would have been near forgotten by now.For many watching , it was also the first time they had seen a top driver killed; sadly it wasn't uncommon in an earlier time which is why I possibly haven't spent too much time thinking about the precise causation of deaths like Clark's , Rindt's , Revson's or Siffert's - too long a list, sadly .
Sorry, when you said the cause wasn't in doubt I thought you meant the cause of the crash as opposed to the crash causing his death - the latter has never been in dispute but actually it's just a statement of the obvious isn't it?!I do take your point about historically the deaths of racing drivers being a regular event and for many years it was just accepted as being a hazard of the sport; indeed, when people like Jackie Stewart tried to improve safety they were actually ridiculed by some as being too soft, not man enough, etc. However, in the vast majority of cases the cause of those tragic deaths was known; even if it was a car problem where the precise nature of the failure wasn't known for certain it was at least acknowledged that it was a mechanical or tyre related problem rather than driver error. However, in Senna's case not only was his accident witnessed by millions on TV - not usual going back to the 1960's and 1970's - it happened at a place where an F1 driver was very unlikely to make a mistake. Therefore, put those things together and it's not surprising there's more interest around his death than others that happened before him; that doesn't mean Senna's death was more significant in the history of the sport - Jim Clark was surely a far better driver - but in Clark's case we didn't see him lose control for no reason on a relatively easy corner only to be told he'd made a mistake. We also had no evidence which ran contrary to the official explanation of driver error whereas with Senna we have (not that I'm suggesting Clark's death was driver error, it's always been accepted it wasn't).
As I've said before, I don't particularly carry a torch for Senna but I understand completely why many find the explanation of driver error for his accident difficult to accept...
Edited by JNW1 on Wednesday 8th February 07:38
Hello everyone,
Very interesting topic here. I have been investigating this accident for some time now so cant resist to bring my views of the accident.
First, as has already been said here couple of times, I would advice everyone to read Martin Zustaks book Tamburello. It really has all the facts that are available to us. It also has good theories on what could have happened. After reading the book about two years ago I wanted to contribute to this somehow.
Since then I have been investigating the famous steering column based on the knowledge which is available and digging out some new information.
Of course there is no rock solid proof to the steering column breaking theory, but I think I have been able to shed some new light on the matter.
So here is a link to my analysis of the FW16 steering column.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wr2vq835gfrlhe1/analysis...
It is still a work in progress. I am planning to do revision B when I have time to investigate certain things more closely.
The main result of this analysis is to support the view that a steering wheel cannot flex more than couple of millimeters. Flexing of more than 5 mm would cause very high stresses on the column. It also shows the poor design of the insert piece, although that was already quite well known. The stress concentration is shown right where the column was found to be broken.
Now, if we accept that the steering wheel was moving as stated in Martins book, over 25 mm, the only conclusion is that the column had to be partly or completely broken. It can be seen already at lap 6 at piratella when the steering wheel first time moves abnormally. A flexing of more than 10 mm is observerd.
When looking at the onboard video at piratella it can be observed that the steering wheel "drops" right when the car hits a bump and bottoms.
My view is that this bottoming causes a vertical force which bends the steering wheel. It seems that the wheel bends more than 10 mm and stays bent for some time (before Senna brakes). This tells in my opinion that the column is broken and the bending is plastic, not elastic (as in normal cases). I would say that the column at this point (lap 6, Piratella) was very badly severed, but still just enough rigid to be able to steer the car. It should be noted here that the bending forces due to G forces on the column are much greater than the twisting torsional forces which come mainly from the driver inputs. When Senna arrived at the Tamburello the bumps and bottoming there gave the final blow to the steering column and it broke.
However, there is one more piece of the puzzle. The steering telemetry. More preciesly the steering strain telemetry. This measures the torsional stress on the column to give input to the power steering to give correct assistance. In telemetry it is stated as steering strain, but I am inclined to believe its actually steering stress with units in MPa. This would yield somewhat realistic steering moments when calculated from steering column geometry.
Anyhow, the "problem" is that there exists stresses on the column even after the Sennas loss of control. If the column was snapped, and the column in the footwell was able to rotate freely, there should be no stresses in the column. This has been stated as an evidence that the column could not have been broken (for example the NatGeo document).
However, it is not conclusive evidence, as speculated my Martin in the book Tamburello. There are couple of scenarios where there could still exist some residual stresses in the column, even if it was broken. One possibility is that the steering wheel had not completely teared off, and when Senna braked hard (2 - 4G) the force due to deceleration pushed the severed columns against each other generating friction. This could yield enough torsional resistance to generate stresses on the column which show up in the telemetry.
edit: link
Very interesting topic here. I have been investigating this accident for some time now so cant resist to bring my views of the accident.
First, as has already been said here couple of times, I would advice everyone to read Martin Zustaks book Tamburello. It really has all the facts that are available to us. It also has good theories on what could have happened. After reading the book about two years ago I wanted to contribute to this somehow.
Since then I have been investigating the famous steering column based on the knowledge which is available and digging out some new information.
Of course there is no rock solid proof to the steering column breaking theory, but I think I have been able to shed some new light on the matter.
So here is a link to my analysis of the FW16 steering column.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wr2vq835gfrlhe1/analysis...
It is still a work in progress. I am planning to do revision B when I have time to investigate certain things more closely.
The main result of this analysis is to support the view that a steering wheel cannot flex more than couple of millimeters. Flexing of more than 5 mm would cause very high stresses on the column. It also shows the poor design of the insert piece, although that was already quite well known. The stress concentration is shown right where the column was found to be broken.
Now, if we accept that the steering wheel was moving as stated in Martins book, over 25 mm, the only conclusion is that the column had to be partly or completely broken. It can be seen already at lap 6 at piratella when the steering wheel first time moves abnormally. A flexing of more than 10 mm is observerd.
When looking at the onboard video at piratella it can be observed that the steering wheel "drops" right when the car hits a bump and bottoms.
My view is that this bottoming causes a vertical force which bends the steering wheel. It seems that the wheel bends more than 10 mm and stays bent for some time (before Senna brakes). This tells in my opinion that the column is broken and the bending is plastic, not elastic (as in normal cases). I would say that the column at this point (lap 6, Piratella) was very badly severed, but still just enough rigid to be able to steer the car. It should be noted here that the bending forces due to G forces on the column are much greater than the twisting torsional forces which come mainly from the driver inputs. When Senna arrived at the Tamburello the bumps and bottoming there gave the final blow to the steering column and it broke.
However, there is one more piece of the puzzle. The steering telemetry. More preciesly the steering strain telemetry. This measures the torsional stress on the column to give input to the power steering to give correct assistance. In telemetry it is stated as steering strain, but I am inclined to believe its actually steering stress with units in MPa. This would yield somewhat realistic steering moments when calculated from steering column geometry.
Anyhow, the "problem" is that there exists stresses on the column even after the Sennas loss of control. If the column was snapped, and the column in the footwell was able to rotate freely, there should be no stresses in the column. This has been stated as an evidence that the column could not have been broken (for example the NatGeo document).
However, it is not conclusive evidence, as speculated my Martin in the book Tamburello. There are couple of scenarios where there could still exist some residual stresses in the column, even if it was broken. One possibility is that the steering wheel had not completely teared off, and when Senna braked hard (2 - 4G) the force due to deceleration pushed the severed columns against each other generating friction. This could yield enough torsional resistance to generate stresses on the column which show up in the telemetry.
edit: link
Edited by -Ilu- on Friday 17th November 21:00
-Ilu- said:
Lots of interesting stuff
Hi there. Interesting. You've clearly gone to a lot of trouble.Reading through your paper, I have to ask a few questions:
(1) Is it reasonable to consider the boundary condition at the foot of the column fixed? I'd have to assume that there was some sort of joint there - perhaps a UJ perhaps? In that case, depending upon how the rack and/or joint are mounted, you'd get a rather different boundary condition, allowing some vertical deflection of the column and, therefore a different stress result further up.
(2) What was the fit condition between the inner and outer parts in the bush area? I'm surprised it wasn't an interference fit of some sort - there's no tolerancing on the drawing, so I can't tell. Do you have any information about that? It would seem that that would have made a difference.
(3) I'm a bit confused by your modelling / meshing of the steering wheel. Clearly the moment is going to be critical in establishing the correct stresses, but the models shown in Figures 5,7 show an elongated cylinder quite unlike the real thing. This appears to signficiantly lengthen the moment arm. I realise that modelling is time-consuming, and solid meshes are computationally expensive, but this is 2017 (lol) - I'm old enough to remember doing a lot of meshing by hand (as in text editor to create the deck for the solver), and then laboriously moving things around with Patran. Have you evaluated the sensitivity of your solution to a variation of only a few % in the exact positioning of those masses?
I think your approach is terrific - well done for all this effort so far; I wish I (any more) had access to modellers / meshers / solvers to do this stuff (out of that loop these days). But I think that what you've shown is so clearly very sensitive to precision that, to draw any serious conclusions, you're going to have to go back and make the model rather more precise.
Do keep it up!
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