Safety harness for Formula 1

In my thesis work, made in collaboration with Sparco, will be explained the development of a safety harness for Formula 1, starting from the first prototype to the final product that will be used by two formula 1 teams: Alfa Romeo Racing and Mclaren. To develop a Formula 1 safety harness two targets must be achieved, one related to the homologation standard defined by FIA 8853-16 and one related to the Formula 1 market, indeed, to be competitive in this field the weight of the safety harness must be lower than 500 grams. In order to accomplish these two requirements, light and tough materials have to be used as aluminum and titanium, moreover, a deep research is needed for the webbing material in order to find a very light material but strong enough to absorb the high amount of energy developed during a crash. During the development of the components constituting a safety belt, a lot of static test have been made in order to find the best trade-off between strength and lightness. Moreover, static test are very important to understand which is the interaction between strap, that is made in textile material, and the adjusting device that is made in metallic material. Furthermore, a small focus on the industrialization of the product will be made, in fact, the idea is to transmit as much knowledge as possible, gained during formula 1 experience, to the mass production safety harnesses. After six months of the development both targets have been achieved, as a matter of fact, all homologation test have been overcome and the homologation weight is 460 grams, but obviously, new developments are needed to reduce further the weight of the harness in order to produce the lightest formula 1 safety harness.