Maxximus G-Force. Пуля автомобильного мира
Рейтинг мощнейших машин современности обновляется с каждым годом, чему свидетельство — появление новых, ещё более «свирепых» монстров даже в условиях нынешнего мирового курса на популяризацию защиты экологии и снижения выбросов CO2 в атмосферу, который не так давно затронул даже болиды Формулы I. На сегодняшний день одним из самых мощных автомобилей мира является Maxximus G-Force, в 2009 году представленный на авто-шоу в Беверли-Хиллз и смело названный своими разработчиками самым быстрым автомобилем в мире среди легковых машин, допущенных к эксплуатации на дорогах общего пользования.
Итак, первый вопрос, насколько же Maxximus G-Force мощнее, чем, скажем, Bugatti Veyron Super Sport? Не много, ни мало, на 422 «лошадки», то есть на одну треть от имеющихся у Бугатти под капотом 1200 штук) Да, как это ни удивительно, Maxximus G-Force располагает «табуном» из 1622 «лошадей», что даже несколько пугает, заставляя задуматься о том, каким же должен быть механизм «обуздания» такого четырёхколёсного монстра…
Под капотом у 1622-сильного G-Force 7-литровый бензиновый двигатель Chevrolet V8 с двумя турбонагнетателями, позволяющий автомобилю разгоняться до «сотни» всего за 2,1 секунды — такая динамика делает его самым быстрым в мире по этому показателю.
Появление на свет такого неординарного авто стало возможным благодаря кооперации двух человек — Марлона Кирби и Дэвида Макмахана. Кирби — основатель компании Maxximus Technologies, Макмахан — инвестор, средствами которого самый стремительный автомобиль стал явью.
Если кто-то знаком с творениями Maxximus Technologies — он уже задался вопросом о сходстве между Maxximus G-Force и более ранней разработкой компании — Ultima GTR. Конечно же, с целью экономии средств, да и просто ради продолжения уже начатых концептуальных идей, Марлон Кирби не стал придумывать что-то новое — просто укрепил базу Ультимы, добавив жёсткости для противостояния ужасающим перегрузкам, являющимся необратимым следствием установки на автомобиль настолько мощного агрегата, и усовершенствовав подвеску всё по той же причине. Присовокупив к этому две «турбины» Turbonetics и трехскоростную трансмиссию, управляемую подрулевыми «лепестками», Кирби добился поставленной задачи — на свет появился Maxximus G-Force.
Изначально Maxximus G-Force позиционировался создателями как самый мощный автомобиль в мире, но ещё в том же 2009 году его потеснил с пьедестала 1832-сильный Keating TKR, созданный с целью поставить мировой рекорд скорости и в итоге поставивший его, хотя и не надолго — до пришествия уже упоминавшегося ранее Bugatti Veyron Super Sport, являющегося рекордсменом по сей день.
В полностью снаряжённом состоянии Maxximus G-Force весит 1224 килограмма. Двигатель установлен по центру, что даёт дополнительное преимущество, когда дело касается баланса, управляемости и настройки подвески. Максимальная скорость суперкара пока не тестировалась, но в рассчётах составляет 438 км/ч.
Ранг самого мощного авто на планете предполагал и соответствующую стоимость, которая в случае с G-Force составила $3 миллиона. Конечно же, если у Вас найдётся такая сумма на карманные расходы — Вы вряд ли будете обращать особое внимание на тот факт, что бензина машинка «кушает» немерено, хотя создателям следовало бы в первую очередь информировать покупателей о том, что полного бака при стремительной езде хватает всего на 9 минут…
Дэвид Макмахан ещё после презентации в Беверли-Хиллз говорил о том, что на машину поступило пару заказов от арабских шейхов, в будущем компаньоны планировали «осчастливить» своим детищем ещё как минимум пару десятков любителей быстрой езды с тугими кошельками, но пока им удалось продать лишь несколько экземпляров Maxximus G-Force, что, однако, уже позволяет назвать его серийным авто.
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Formula 1 and G-Forces: All the Fun Facts
Driving a Formula 1 car is a challenging task, both mentally and physically. Not only do drivers need to be capable of split-second reaction times to nail the perfect racing line and avoid accidents, but they also need to be capable of withstanding the intense g-forces generated by high-speed cornering.
F1 cars is getting more advanced over the years. They are becoming capable of much greater speeds, both on the straights and in the corners. As a result, modern-day F1 drivers have to deal with much higher g-forces than they did in decades past; during cornering, drivers regularly experience forces between 4 and 6 g.
In this article, we’ll be sharing with you all the fun facts about g-forces in F1 racing, including how F1 cars are capable of pulling so many gs and what happens to the drivers when they experience multiple gs.
What Is G-Force?
G-force is, simply put, gravity. G-force is measured in units referred to as gs (which are always written in lowercase and italicized to differentiate them from G, the gravitational constant, and g, the abbreviation for grams).
There are two types of g-forces that you can experience, although only one of these types really matters for F1 drivers. The first is vertical gs, which is the type of g-force that pulls down on you and keeps everything stuck to the earth.
At all times, you experience 1 g of vertical g-force, although actions like jumping actually increase the vertical gs you experience for a fraction of a second. However, this fraction is so short that your body doesn’t receive any damage, even though you can potentially experience as many as 100 gs from jumping from a height of 3 feet.
The other kind of gs, and the kind that matters the most to F1 drivers, is lateral gs. Lateral gs occur when you move forward, backward, or from side to side. As such, F1 drivers experience lateral gs almost constantly during a race, from accelerating, braking, and turning.
G-forces are interesting; on the one hand, it’s possible to survive and remain conscious after a brief moment of 100 gs or more, but on the other hand, if you try to withstand more than 4 gs or so for even a few seconds, you run a serious risk of blacking out.
In fact, trying to withstand more than 16 gs for more than a minute or so will pretty much guarantee that you’ll experience severe injuries or even death.
How Do G-Forces Affect the Human Body in F1?
Ok, so we know that g-forces are incredibly taxing on the human body, especially when they’re sustained for more than a few seconds. But what exactly is it about g-forces that have such a drastic effect on our bodies?
There are a few reasons why g-forces affect us so much, but the most prominent one is that g-forces disrupt our blood flow. Even in normal circumstances, blood pressure isn’t even throughout the human body; thanks to the pull of gravity, blood pressure is always slightly higher in your legs and slightly lower in your head.
Normally, your body is able to compensate for these small differences in blood pressure, but if you’re put into a high g-force situation, things tend to stop working as they should. Lateral g-forces can pull blood away from your head and into your extremities, resulting in impaired vision and eventual unconsciousness.
Impact Of G-Forces During F1 Crashes
The effects are even more extreme in the event of a crash when the body is subject to massive amounts of g-force thanks to the sudden deceleration. If you’re moving very fast and then you suddenly stop moving within a fraction of a second, it places an enormous amount of force on your various soft tissues.
Essentially, if you come to a sudden stop in a car crash, your internal organs get squished up against your insides. This can be particularly dangerous in the case of your brain, which can get rattled around inside your skull during a crash. Such accidents can easily cause brain damage.
This is one of the reasons why the F1 governing body has mandated the use of HANS devices since 2003. A HANS (head and neck support) device is basically a brace that sits on a driver’s shoulders and features a strap that keeps the driver’s helmet secured to the brace.
HANS devices work by preventing drivers’ heads and necks from moving farther than they would otherwise be able to. In a crash, this helps prevent whiplash, brain injuries, and basilar skull fractures.
Drivers also undergo intense physical training to help them better resist the effects of high lateral gs. Shoulder and neck strength is incredibly important in this regard; in fact, drivers will actually train with weighted helmets to mimic the effects of high gs and perform exercises specifically to increase strength in those areas.
How Do F1 Cars Corner So Hard?
Formula 1 cars are objectively pretty fast overall, but they’re actually fairly slow in a straight line when compared to other types of race cars. A dragster will absolutely decimate an F1 car in terms of straight-line acceleration and even a Le Mans prototype or a rally car would have no problems at all beating an F1 car in the quarter-mile.
The reason for this is that F1 cars are basically designed to prioritize cornering speed above all else. While other cars might be faster on the straights, literally nothing can beat an F1 car in the corners.
The ability of F1 cars to take corners at such high speeds is pretty much entirely due to their aerodynamics. Take a look at any F1 car from within the last decade, and you’ll see that they all have crazy front and rear wings with all sorts of elements intended to create downforce and direct airflow away from the wheels.
It’s the downforce generated by F1 cars that allows them to go around corners as fast as they do. In addition, F1 cars generate more downforce the faster they go, so by increasing their cornering speeds F1 cars actually handle better around corners.
Starting with the 2022 F1 season, ground effects will be incorporated into the new F1 car designs. Cars that use ground effects are designed so that there is an area of low air pressure directly under the car, which helps it stick to the road during low- and high-speed cornering.
With all the existing aerodynamic technology and the soon-to-be-introduced ground effects that F1 cars will use, it’s likely that drivers may have to contend with even greater g-forces in the future.
What is g-force and how is it related to harsh driving?
Learn what g-force is and how it is used to monitor risky driving behaviors.
A question we get asked frequently is: “How do g-force values relate to real world driving habits?”
In fleet management software like MyGeotab, harsh driving — when accelerating, cornering or braking, for example — is defined in terms of g-force.
G-force and acceleration
Before we get to the software, let’s talk about g-force. A g-force is a measure of acceleration. 1G is the acceleration we feel due to the force of gravity. It’s what keeps our feet firmly planted on the ground. Gravity is measured in metres per second squared, or m/s2. On Earth, the acceleration of gravity generally has a value of 9.806 m/s2 or 32.1740 f/s2. Since this is just a different scale for measuring acceleration, it not only applies to gravity, but can be used to quantify any acceleration.
How g-force relates to harsh driving
As mentioned, you can configure the Geotab telematics Device to produce immediate audible feedback in response to excessive driving behaviors such as harsh acceleration, harsh braking, and harsh cornering. You can access the settings from Vehicle Edit > Driver Feedback tab.
When setting up harsh driving rules in MyGeotab, adjusting the level of sensitivity will affect when feedback is given for a harsh driving event — either a beep or a spoken alert if you have GO TALK installed. A smaller number (e.g. -0.47 G) is more sensitive and means the rule is easier to break. A larger number (e.g. -0.61 G) is less sensitive, meaning that only the most aggressive driving events will break the rule, triggering driver feedback. Moving the slider to the right increases the sensitivity of monitoring.
Accelerometer Driver Feedback Settings set to Least sensitive (Passenger Car.)
Accelerometer Driver Feedback Settings set to Most sensitive (Heavy-Duty.)
It’s also important to mention that since this is an acceleration and not a force, the vehicle’s mass or size doesn’t matter at all. In the harsh driving rules, we specify the vehicle size (passenger car, truck/cube van, and heavy-duty truck) as a suggestion. A sports car can safely take a corner faster than a truck.
For a table of the average g-force exertions for various vehicle classes, see the Geotab Product Guide.
Recommendations for setting up driver feedback
We recommend starting in the middle of the specific vehicle class and adjusting from there based on your fleet objectives and the unique aspects of your fleet. For example, if you are seeing too many harsh driving events and you want to manage that, you might select a more sensitive setting. Similarly, to closely monitor an ambulance carrying an EMT and patients in the back, you would increase the sensitivity. On the other hand, for a box truck carrying paper towels, a lower sensitivity might be sufficient.
If we look at the three harsh driving rules, we can do some simple calculations to find out how fast a driver would need to take a corner or accelerate from a stop sign to break these rules.
Harsh acceleration and harsh braking
The harsh acceleration and harsh braking rules are really the same thing and measure how quickly you are speeding up or slowing down. The least sensitive setting in the default rule for acceleration is 0.43 Gs which is what a driver (or Geotab GO device) would experience if you accelerated from standstill to 60 km/h in 3.95 seconds. The braking rule is even more lenient and would require that you come to a complete stop from 60 km/h in 2.78 seconds, deccelerating at 0.61 Gs.
To get a better understanding of linear acceleration and g-forces, check out this handy Acceleration Calculator.
Harsh cornering
Harsh cornering is a little trickier to both calculate and grasp intuitively. Any time you change velocity you are undergoing an acceleration. When you are turning a corner, this acceleration is 90 degrees from the direction you are traveling, regardless of how tight a turn you are making. Think about spinning a weight on the end of a string. You are always pulling the weight towards your hand but it never gets any closer.
So how do we measure this? To determine the acceleration you experience in a corner, all we need is the radius of the corner and your speed. I measured the radius of a normal right turn at an intersection of two four-lane roads and found it to be about 17 metres. This means that if it went through this corner at 32 km/h you would break the most lenient harsh cornering rule which is set at 0.47 Gs.
If you want to play with the number yourself, you can find a centrifugal force calculator here for accelerations in a corner.
Note: You do not need to input an angular speed or mass to calculate g-force.
G-force and its role in harsh braking and acceleration
The legend has it that once upon a time one man was sitting under a tree minding his own business, when suddenly an apple fell on his head. Thanks to that apple, humanity learned about the existence of gravitational force or G-force. In short:
The gravitational force equivalent or G-force is a measurement of the type of force per unit mass, usually acceleration, that causes a perception of weight . A G-force of 1g is equal to the conventional value of gravitational acceleration on Earth which amounts to 9.8 m/s 2 (meter per second squared).
In other words, it is the force a person (driver, in our case) can experience when they’re accelerating or braking. This may feel like:
- being pushed back into their seat while accelerating
- being pulled forward while braking
The larger the mass of the object, the more G-force is involved in its acceleration and braking, which is especially noticeable when operating large commercial motor vehicles (CMVs).
Now, for the million dollar question:
Why should a fleet manager care about gravitational force?
While you certainly don’t need to know the definition by heart, you should understand the role of G-force in driving and monitoring your drivers’ aggressive habits while operating your company’s vehicles. Typically, this refers to actions taken by the driver that make the vehicle suddenly change its speed, including:
- harsh braking
- rapid acceleration
Harsh braking
Harsh or hard braking happens when your driver uses more force than required to halt the vehicle . Stopping the vehicle this way involves a significant amount of G-force and the driver will feel it pushing them into their seat. Sometimes this action may happen due to unforeseen circumstances, like when they’re trying to prevent a collision or get out of the way of a collision that has just happened. However, harsh braking most frequently happens when the driver isn’t paying attention to the traffic ahead of them and has to suddenly brake to avoid other traffic participants.
Such behavior is especially dangerous when massive cargo trucks are involved as this means the driver may be operating a vehicle weighing up to 40 metric tons or 80,000 pounds. Such a mammoth can’t be unexpectedly stopped without endangering the driver and everyone else around. In fact, it may take several seconds and a distance of a few hundred feet for it to stop (depending on the speed of the vehicle) and a lot can happen in that time and over such a distance.
Harsh braking by your driver may also cause them to be rear-ended by a driver behind them. You never know if whoever is behind you is keeping their distance, paying close attention to what you’re doing, has fast enough reflexes to avoid you, or good enough brakes and tires to suddenly stop.
In addition to being dangerous, just imagine how much damage happens to the poor vehicle’s tires (ever heard of the expression ‘burning rubber’?) and brakes (due to overheating) each time the driver aggressively hits the brake pedal. This will inevitably lead to more work for you, as you’ll need to schedule maintenance more often, allocate more resources from the fleet budget for replacement parts (and maintenance), and deal with vehicle downtime and missed deliveries whenever it has to be taken off the road for repairs.
Rapid acceleration
When the driver applies more pressure than necessary to the vehicle’s gas pedal to accelerate its speed, we’re talking about another aggressive driving habit – rapid or harsh acceleration . In those moments, they will feel a strong G-force pulling them toward the vehicle’s dashboard. Your driver may be doing this because they want to hurry through an intersection before the traffic light turns red or they’ve been waiting at a traffic light and hit the pedal so they could get a head start and continue driving as quickly as possible.
Being in a hurry is not an excuse for such behavior, especially considering the risks. Rapid acceleration is a huge safety risk as speeding through intersections can cause vehicle collisions – you never know whether another driver is attempting the same risky maneuver. As a result, your driver may get hurt, lose the cargo, or destroy the vehicle.
On top of that, accidents caused by your driver behaving this way may lead to liability lawsuits, traffic penalties, lowered CSA (Compliance, Safety, Accountability) score, and loss of reputation.
Harsh accelerating is also responsible for producing more greenhouse gasses and increasing your fleet’s maintenance costs due to vehicle wear and tear, as well as hiking its fuel costs because the vehicle’s throttle is open more than required, wasting fuel in the process.
All this means you’re in for a lot of headache, being the person in charge of your company’s fleet and drivers.
Cut costs and save lives by monitoring aggressive driving habits
To deal with aggressive driving, you’ll need to start monitoring your drivers’ behavior on the road so you could identify the patterns. Once you do, you’ll realize that this helps:
- eradicate causes of aggressive driving
- reduce collisions
- lower maintenance costs
- prevent fuel wasting
- improve your CSA score
- decrease your fleet’s environmental footprint
Eradicating causes of aggressive driving
Knowing when, how often, and which particular drivers commit these driving sins will help you address the core reasons as to why they occur . Are they stressed out or tired? Is something drawing their attention away from driving? Do they have problems meeting their deadlines? Are the routes they’re taking inefficient? Are they wasting time on unnecessary paperwork?
You can talk to them or have them fill a questionnaire. And who knows, maybe by trying to solve the problem of aggressive driving you also manage to deal with other issues that might be affecting your drivers’ performance and job satisfaction. Everyone wins!
Reducing collisions
Harsh braking could be a sign that your driver isn’t 100% focused on the traffic flow so they try to compensate with aggressive braking. Just like rapid acceleration when rushing through intersections, this increases the risk of collisions, so monitoring such behavior allows you to bring it to their attention (no pun intended).
As a result, you’ll be greatly reducing the risk of collisions due to driver inattentiveness, contributing to the general culture of safety and complementing your other methods of collision prevention.
Lowering maintenance costs
Maintaining your fleet’s vehicles in the best possible operating condition can be expensive in itself, let alone with the wear and tear to the components affected by harsh braking and rapid acceleration.
Monitoring and eliminating these harmful habits will leave a positive mark on your fleet’s budget, as well as your own free time now that you no longer need to schedule more maintenance than absolutely necessary.
Preventing fuel wasting
Understanding which of your drivers are responsible for rapid acceleration, harsh braking events and the resulting fuel wasting will allow you to have a serious talk with them and rectify the behavior. As a result, you will not only put a stop to fuel wasting , but also save yourself the trouble of having to justify the spiraling fuel costs to the company’s leadership.
Improving your CSA score
Every American fleet manager is familiar with the U.S. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). This body of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) implements a safety program for commercial motor carriers called Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA). Its aim is to enforce road safety through collecting data from roadside inspections, investigations and reports on accidents, and other sources of information.
The carriers whose drivers are found to be committing more traffic offenses and dangerous driving are given a poor CSA rating . This implies all sorts of negative consequences with it – loss of profits, court penalties, diminished reputation, you name it.
Decreasing your fleet’s environmental footprint
By monitoring and ending behaviors that result in the release of harmful gasses, you will reduce the carbon footprint of your fleet, doing your part in protecting our environment . After all, the modern age requires that we all contribute to this important endeavor in any way we can.
Using G-force to monitor driving events
There are ways in which fleet management platforms, relying on G-force measurements, can help you achieve all these positive results and much, much more. These include:
Recording harsh braking and acceleration
Fleet management platforms like Safe Drive Systems use G-force sensors to identify the above-mentioned aggressive driving patterns, allowing you to implement efficient methods to put a stop to them.
Our radar-based collision prevention system works by actively monitoring and recording the vehicle’s G-force in real-time, allowing you to create reports on all aggressive driving events for detailed analysis . These reports can be exported in PDF, HTML, CSV, XML, or Excel format.
Let’s say you want to create a report. Here’s how the process goes with Safe Drive Systems:
- You log into the fleet managementdashboard.
- Select Available Reports and choose Events.
- In the Event types dropdown menu, select events you want to receive your report on, such as Harsh Acceleration Sensor Triggered, Harsh Braking Sensor Triggered, and so on.
- Select date, either among predefined periods (4 weeks, 3 months, etc.) or set your own start and end date.
- Choose in which format you want the report to be exported.
- Select columns – Date \ Time, Lat, Long, Event Name, Engine Status, Address, and/or Speed.
- Select Generate to create the report immediately or Schedule to run the report on a daily, weekly, monthly, or one-time basis.
Accident reporting
No matter how hard you and your drivers try to avoid them, it is the sad truth that collisions might still happen. G-force is useful in not only detecting these unfortunate events, but also in determining why and how they took place , possibly exonerating your drivers (unless they were harsh braking or accelerating).
Safe Drive Systems’ platform offers detailed accident reports where you’ll find a large body of detailed information about:
- impact and damage (part of the vehicle that was hit and the gravitational force of the impact)
- speed and acceleration (shown on a graph)
- the driver (name, license type, 3-month safety score, and other accidents they were involved in)
- the vehicle (license plate number, vehicle type, manufacture, and model, how long it’s been in service, how many miles it has driven, as well as any pre- and post-diagnostic codes/lamp events)
- accident location (shown on a map via GPS vehicle tracking option)
- other relevant data like the event duration, severity, and vehicle status (parking/driving)
As you can see, measuring G-force is especially important when obtaining and presenting information in the accident report’s Impact & Damage section, as well as the Speed & Acceleration Graph.
The Impact & Damage section shows the precise amount of G at the moment of the accident event, as well as where precisely the vehicle was hit . This may tell you if your vehicle has hit another object or if your vehicle was hit by another, which might end up being an important piece of evidence in any court or insurance procedures.
The Speed & Acceleration Graph will give you a visual representation of the speed before and after the event . This will allow you to see if your driver had made any speed violations or harsh accelerations that may have caused the accident. If no improper driving is found, this information may well be one of the things that will exonerate your driver.
Measuring G-force helps determine collision severity, as well as its circumstances
May the G-force be with you
Thanks to the hardware installed inside the vehicles and connected with our software, Safe Drive Systems measures your vehicles’ G-force, showing you which ones are crossing the threshold with forceful braking and acceleration . In turn, this allows you to take measures to eliminate these behaviors.
These are just some of the things that our comprehensive fleet management platform can do for you. By combining multiple areas – AI cloud data, Electronic Logging Device (ELD), Telematics, real-time dash cam, and a radar-based collision prevention unit, it also allows you to:
- plan out the fastest routes
- automate vehicle inspections and maintenance
- monitor your fleet’s whereabouts through vehicle tracking
- observe fuel usage, engine hours, and vehicle mileage
- eliminate distracted driving
- comply with the regulations
- prevent collisions
If you’re ready to take advantage of the technological advancements in the world of fleet management and put a stop to poor driving habits in your fleet (and do so much more), then you’ve arrived at the right place. Simply schedule an appointment and one of our expert advisors will give you a recommendation for your fleet.