33 fans injured at Daytona

[Alljackedup408]

I just wonder who thought it made sense to put a gate in the middle of a turn where the forces would tend to thrown any debris right at the fence? Admittedly, I'm not a huge NASCAR guy, so maybe there's some reason it has to be right there, but it sure seem like sticking it on a straightaway where the forces would be perpendicular would make more sense.

Freak accident. Ive been through that gate dozens of time and let me tell you it has huge cables and multiple locks. It gives fans access to the infield for prerace shows. It must have hit it at just the right angle.

Shit happens when cars are going 200mph.... no one should sue. Nascar will take care of the injured as they always do.

Alljackedup Samsung

I'm with you on the lawsuit part, and the freak accidents part, I just don't consider it a freak accident when the failure point was where they cut a hole in the fence. Clearly, the cables and locks weren't as effective as the solid fence.

Yeah I hear the logic!!! Now.... I was looking at pics... Look at this one, I think the fence fail before the gate. Look at the cables moved and bowing and the pole already bent here!!! Gates still Head of this.

I wonder!!!?

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[daddy]

I don't see anything in that pic that shows the fence failing. It's giving, but that's it's number one defense - absorbing the force. When the impact moves on to the fence/gate transition, that is when the breach first occurs, from what I have seen.

 

[Alljackedup408]

Eh... idk. I just know that gate is stronger than the fence... had to of failed before hitting the gate!!!! lol.

 

[daddy]

Eh... idk. I just know that gate is stronger than the fence... had to of failed before hitting the gate!!!! lol.

Okay.

Nothing I see proves that at all. How do you know the gate is stronger? The transition between the fence and the gate seems to be where the breach happened.

 

[mfennema]

Eh... idk. I just know that gate is stronger than the fence... had to of failed before hitting the gate!!!! lol.

Okay.

Nothing I see proves that at all. How do you know the gate is stronger? The transition between the fence and the gate seems to be where the breach happened.

Agree completely with T on this one as an engineer. The gate might be stronger than the fence (which I doubt to actually be the case) but the weakest part of the assembly is where the two things come together. Any joint is always the weakest point.

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[mr_bots]

That's not true. Joints and connections are usually the strongest based on the failure mode of most connections (brittle) vs the member itself (ductile). When you impact something and overstress it you want it to bend and absorb energy instead of the joint snap and everything go flying. However, what I can see from the pictures it looks like there were connection failures and the whole thing looks like a tall chain link fence with some cable across it.

This leads me to the conclusion that this was most likely done by a mechanical engineer.

I'd love to sit in on the failure analysis of it.

 

[daddy]

That's not true. Joints and connections are usually the strongest based on the failure mode of most connections (brittle) vs the member itself (ductile). When you impact something and overstress it you want it to bend and absorb energy instead of the joint snap and everything go flying. However, what I can see from the pictures it looks like there were connection failures and the whole thing looks like a tall chain link fence with some cable across it.

This leads me to the conclusion that this was most likely done by a mechanical engineer.

I'd love to sit in on the failure analysis of it.

Do what?

You lost me with your claim that connections are stronger based on the fact they are more brittle than the more ductile members. Especially when you go on to say that the more ductile, the better.

 

[mr_bots]

Its preferred to fail the ductile member before the brittle connections because the failure is less catastrophic so you design the brittle to be stronger than the ductile.

 

[daddy]

Its preferred to fail the ductile member before the brittle connections because the failure is less catastrophic so you design the brittle to be stronger than the ductile.

That might be the plan to mitigate failure at the joint, but that does nothing to deny the fact that transitions and joints are a very frequent point of failure. The entire reason for over-engineering them, as you described, is precisely because of the propensity for those failures to occur there.

 

[daddy]

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