OUNCES OF PREVENTION

[Music] [Music] as racing speeds have steadily increased the severity of crashes has gone up sharply indeed automotive engineers recognize that collision courses roll up as the square of velocity this means that a 50% increase in speed produces impact forces two and a half times as great but is tragedy an inevitable byproduct of racing the United States Auto Club didn't think so when it asked Firestone to help develop a crash resistant fuel system to prevent the dreaded aftermath of the racing crash as a company intimately associated with automobile racing for more than half a century and a leader in the production of aircraft fuel cells inflatable life rafts landing field membranes and Fabri dams Firestone was well equipped for the task moreover it seemed likely that advances in the design of automotive fuel systems would provide technological fallout that would find application in military and commercial aviation Firestone accepted the challenge [Applause] [Applause] the development of safer fuel systems for racing cars began with a study of the causes of explosion in a crash environment [Music] it was found that the conditions which must prevail before an explosion and sustained fire can occur are an explosive fuel air mixture free access of the explosion flame to the fuel and instantaneous availability of large quantities of fuel to feed the fire these were the conditions that must be controlled if disastrous fires were to be prevented to prevent an explosive fuel air mixture from occurring in the crash environment the first obvious requisite is that the fuel must be kept inside the tank conventional metal tanks rupture catastrophic upon impact splashing fuel over the immediate area fire stones experience in the aircraft industry had already proved the value of flexible tank liners standard equipment for all aircraft fuel tanks today rubberized fabric fuel cells have actually survived major military air crashes without rupturing or even leaking fuel adaptation of this principle for automotive applications was a logical first step but since flexible blighters necessitated the removal of conventional baffles a slosh control system was required to avoid car handling problems due to fuel surge the problem was studied both in the laboratory and on actual race cars at the Phoenix International Raceway the zinc herschel slick track burner was fitted with a transparent plastic tank a motion picture camera was mounted on the racers so that fuel action could be recorded under actual racing conditions Jimmy McIlroy drove the car at speeds up to 140 miles per hour [Music] the resulting pictures dramatically point up the problems of fuel search with practically instantaneous shifting of weight sudden movement of the cars center of gravity and even starvation of the engine one of the several fuel baffling systems studied in this series of experiments was the use of hollow plastic balls [Music] these plastic balls prove to have little effectiveness in controlling fuel search if an efficient baffling system could be devised that would also provide flame mitigation in the event of a crash this would be ideal but it must not interfere with normal fuel supply to the engine what was needed was a grid of fine porous flame barriers that would act something like the safety screen on a Bunsen burner or in a miner's lamp something that would stop flames slow down fuel loss and be chemically unaffected by fuel take a very little volume itself and have minimum weight the answer to all these specifications was found in a new product developed by the Scott Paper Company and thus began a partnership between Firestone and Scott that ultimately resulted in a solution to the problem posed by the racing fraternity made of reticulated polyurethane safe foam proved to have all of the properties sought by Firestone project engineers safe foam is an open-cell sponge matrix that is 97% boy it weighs from 12 to 28 ounces per cubic foot literally lighter than feathers its flexibility makes it compatible with coated fabric fuel cells as well as metal tanks safe foam is produced by metering precise proportions of polyol resin and poly isocyanate under rigorously controlled temperature conditions together with measured amounts of catalysts stabilizers and other chemical additives which are poured into a continuously formed conveyorized mold whose speed is regulated to yield a predetermined cell and bund configuration safe foams liquid raw materials expand rapidly as reactive gases are formed the resulting foam begins to congeal into the finished matrix in a matter of seconds the chemical reaction is exothermic that is sufficient heat is generated in the process to achieve self curing of the expanded bond physical and chemical properties are rigorously controlled to assure uniform density purity and cleanliness of the finished product routinely run our tests of tensile strength tear strength elongation stiffness compression set and pore size special tests evaluate hydrolytic and heat aging properties as well as extractables thus assuring freedom from contamination impurities or foreign particles of any kind safe foam is inert to the action of gasoline or aviation fuels and conversely these fuels are unaffected by contact with safe own fuel tested on an engine dynamometer after being in contact with say foam for seven days shows no detectable horsepower loss in a laboratory slosh tube safe foams surge control effect is readily apparent in contrast to an unbalanced back at the Phoenix International Raceway a plastic tank containing safe foam is mounted on the zinc herschel slick racer and the camera is readied again [Music] on the track at high speeds safe home completely controls fuel surge obviating any handling problems due to shifting of the weight of the fuel on the pendulum impact test all of the metal tanks painted yellow containing safe foam filled fuel cells survived without losing fuel while a severe puncture test destroys an ordinary fuel cell a cell filled with safe foam comes through undamaged demonstrating the crash and puncture resistance of this construction but most important of all safe foam provides the safety screen baffling that prevents explosion in this laboratory apparatus gasoline and air are combined in an explosive mixture when hot wire filaments are ignited explosions can be produced in both ends of this demonstration tube but the explosion flame cannot pass through the safe foam barriers to ignite the fuel air mixture in the center though we can demonstrate by lighting up the center glow plug that the mixture in the middle really was explosive at Fort Stockton Texas on Firestone's 8 mile test track the cleanliness and stability of safe foam have been exhaustively proved from one test car to another to keep them in service fuel tanks filled with safe foam have been in continuous operation for more than 100,000 miles each with no evidence of foam deterioration after 10,000 gallons of gasoline had passed through the material these tests are backed up by over three years of field experience with safe foam and racing car fuel tanks without a single case of any reported difficulty safe foam is rapidly earning a position of wide acceptance in the aircraft industry particularly in military applications where crashes can be even more violent than in racing as these Federal Aviation agency ultra slow motion films demonstrate in this series of tests aircraft wing tanks containing 120 gallons of jet fuel were impacted against a steel plate at 82 miles per hour in the vicinity of small open flames photographing the action that 500 pictures per second the camera slows the action so that one second becomes half a minute on the screen to study the plane mitigating properties of safe foam under controlled conditions an unprotected plastic envelope containing 1 gallon of jet fuel was first propelled through a heavy steel mesh at 65 miles per hour above open flames note the amount of flame produced after 20 seconds of film has elapsed in comparison with this similar projectile encased in protective safe foam containing the same amount of fuel again the camera has slowed down the explosion each of these reactions actually took place in less than a second this study was made at the national aviation facilities experimental center at Atlantic City because of its lightness and flexibility safe foam is easily packed into a fuel cell and requires no special tools for installation it is so light that a 22 gallon tank requires less than eighty five ounces reducing the tank volume by only two courts since safe foam is 97% buoyed by 1965 all championship type cars for races under USAC sponsorship were required to have bladder type fuel cells at the 1966 500 these safety cells are credited with being a strong contributor to the almost unbelievable outcome of one of the most spectacular pilots ever to occur at Indianapolis when not a single driver was injured and fire was prevented for its contribution to racing safety Firestone received the Statesmen Insurance award in 1965 and a year later was given the United States Auto Club award by Continental casualty company in December 1966 the National Association for stock car racing honored Firestone with its Award of Excellence NASCAR now requires that all cars of the grand national class be equipped with fuel cells containing safe bone fuel cell sizes for sports cars have also been developed their use has been credited with averting serious injury in a number of races the light blue car in this scene is equipped with fuel cells containing safe ball catch fire during this mishap even though this happened moments later [Music] the dark blue car had no fuel system protection with fuel cells equipped with safe foam tragedy is not the inevitable byproduct of racing none of these crashes resulted in fires [Music] and all of the drivers walked away houses of prevention disaster can be averted [Music] [Applause] [Music]