Formula 1 safety buckle modelling in FEM

The thesis which has been developed in Sabelt spa, has the purpose to analyse a Formula 1 safety harness, focusing on the buckle. Mainly, the harness is composed by many elements and the most interesting from an engineering point of view is the buckle. This object is used in each car, but his shape depends on the purpose. Sabelt spa provides a wide range of harnesses, from racing environment, as Formula 1, rally or endurance, to commercial vehicles. However, the structure of the harness depends on the usage because the homologation required is different. For example, following the normative imposed by the Federation International de l’Automobile (FIA), a Formula 1 harness must be used with 6, 7, 8 or 9 attachment points and the straps involved are six: two passing on the shoulders, two crossing the pelvic zone, two scraping on the crotches. On the other hand, for a car used on the road, according to the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), the harness can be provided also with 4 attachment points and the straps could be just four, two shoulders and two pelvises. Anyway, the aim of the project focuses on the buckle of a Formula 1 harness and Sabelt spa uses two kinds it. Therefore, it has been useful analyse one model, the most performance one, under many points of view, starting from the design to his structural analysis. This model has been studied in Solidworks which is an industrial software that represents efficaciously the CAD and FEM environment both. Moreover, another industrial software as Matlab played a minor role in this thesis, performing in the graphic representations.