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Thursday, July 23, 2009

From Senna to Earnhardt: The Development of the HANS device

Originally Posted on Foxsports on April 25, 2006.

I am in the process of migrating many of my blogs to an archieve.  This is one I wrote three years ago about the HANS device.  I am still amazed that we had to lose two legendary drivers to implement a device that had been around for years before their accidents.

May 1st marks twelve years since Ayrton Senna was killed during the San Marino Grand Prix at Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola, Italy.   While leading the race, Senna slid off the track causing his right front tire to break off with its suspension.  The tire and suspension hit Senna in the head, causing  his death.  Senna's death followed by one day the death of another Formula One driver, Roland Ratzenberger, at the same track.

Senna was and is regarded as one of (if not the) best Formula One drivers ever.  Last weekend, another great driver, Michael Schumacher, captured his 66th pole - breaking a tie he held for most poles with Senna.  Ironically, the race last weekend was at Imola.

The race following Senna's death was marred by a serious accident involving another Formula One driver.  While this accident did not result in death, the press and public were disenchanted with the dangers of Formula One racing and began demanding new safety measures. In a twist of fate, Senna had been leading the charge for safety the morning of his death during an informal meeting with other drivers. 

February 18th marked five years since Dale Earnhardt was killed during the Daytona 500.  Earnhardt was and is regarded as one of (if not the) best stock car drivers ever.  Earnhardt was on the final lap of the race when he crashed, ultimately dying from the head injuries he sustained.  Earnhardt's death followed the deaths of Kenny Irwin, Adam Petty and Tony Roper.   

Following Earnhardt's death, the public and the drivers were unhappy with driver safety and demanded that something be done to prevent any further racing deaths.

Fast forwarding to today, most race sanctioning bodies mandate the use of a HANS device (Head And Neck Support) for drivers.  The device is to prevent the violent and often fatal head injuries sustained in high speed / high impact crashes.  The HANS device was brought to the forefront in most American's minds after the death of Earnhardt, however, the device was available well before that. 

And perhaps the tragedy is that the device was available to drivers before the death of Earnhardt and even before the death of Senna.

The HANS Device was developed by Dr. Robert Hubbard , a professor at Michigan State and his brother-in-law, Jim Downing, to prevent head injuries from racing accidents.  After testing, the device was marketed in 1991 - a decade before Earnhardt's fatal crash. 

In October of 1996, (after Senna's death), FIA, Mercedes-Benz, and McClaren contacted Hubbard and formed an agreement to adapt the device to Forumla One use. 

Why mandate HANS?  According to "Helping Hans" by Ross Stonefeld in Atlas F1:

Below are average strengths of the head and neck. The force withstood is dependent on location of impact, strike object size, and bone tissue density amongst other factors.

  • Frontal bone (forehead): 1,000 to 1,600lbs of force
  • Temporal-parietal (sides of head): 700 - 1900lbs of force.
  • Rear skull: 1,440
  • Facial: 280 - 520
  • Neck (under forward movement): 140

In a full human form crash test simulating a 40mph dead stop impact utilising the HANS device, neck loading was kept under 130lbs whilst the unrestrained head endured over 1,000lbs

"As soon as your head - which weighs, with the helmet, 13 or 14 pounds - has a sudden acceleration, it stretches your neck," (Jim) Downing explains. "If it stretches a little too far, you get a neck fracture or a skull fracture at the base of the skull where your head connects to your spine. With HANS on, the head sort of goes forward then back and looks OK. At the same speed with a fully belted dummy, the head smashes into the steering wheel and it's just appalling. The drivers say, 'Wow. That can't be.' In layman terms, keeping your head close to your body is what it's all about with HANS."

Racing will never be an entirely safe sport.  Hopefully the HANS device, or devices similar to it, can cut down on the number of deaths and the severity of the injuries sustained. 

We will never know if Senna or Earnhardt could have been saved by a HANS device.  But we all know drivers who's lives were saved by it - whether we know it or not.

 

Information gathered from Stonefeld, Wikipedia, Formula One, Jayski, and Wind Tunnel with Dave Despain.

4 comments:

HoosierRacer27 said...

Hi IG,
This is the first time I've read this blog and it comes on a day after an 18-hole round of golf and the now normal, for me, days of pain I experience every time I play because of a hard crash last year when I was not only not wearing a HANS device but no neck collar of any kind. I had no idea the device had been around so long. Today the cost is becoming so much more affordable. As someone once told me when I was buying an expensive helmet "sure we have cheaper helmets - if you have a $100 head we can fix you up with a $100 helmet" - needless to say I paid far more for my racing helmets but unfortunately was too sure of the "that injury will never happen to me" to go the additional step to protection I should have had. Thankfully many sanctioning bodies now require some type of head and neck restraint system. I'll live with pain and a loss of range of motion for the rest of my life because I cut corners on safety equipment. I believe every sanctioned racing event should require such a device. Great read IG and thanks for the research.

Annette said...

Hoosier - Sorry to hear about your pain. I hope you can find relief from it somewhere.

I'm not sure that they've gone far enough - did you see what happened to Massa in Formula One this weekend?

tezgm99 said...

the tragic part of that 1994 weekend is that many forget about Ratzenberger due to Senna....at least Roland got a mention in this one :)

also, I'm pretty sure Barrichello had a big crash that put him in hospital on that weekend too...Senna visited him I believe. As to Massa's incident...it was a freak thing that I'm sure the press will overreact to and demand changes, lol

Annette said...

Tez - I think Massa's recovery may help some of the speculation. However, how to do fix parts flying off? Even with the tires "tied" down, they fly off sometimes.