Plastic Fantastic, the enigmatic composite chassis...or how to build a car like a boat or plane

nimblemotorsports said:

In reply to Gingerbeardman :Curves generally provide a stronger structure than flat panels,which is why that Tesla truck is so poorly designed....   I plan to make a 1/3 scale of my 64ft boat..if I can ever get back to boats.

I've wanted to see the backside of those panels. Wouldn't be surprised if they've got some sort of a reinforcing grid adhered to them, because a flat sheet of metal in space isn't good for much strengthwise besides in tension or puncture resistance. 

chaparral said:

FSAE teams are allowed to build either a welded steel tube frame or a composite sandwich-panel structure. By the time adequate energy absorption and intrusion protection are provided, the composite tubs end up at the same weight as the tube frames. End-to-end they are stiffer in torsion and bending, but local stiffness at suspension mounting points is not improved.

 

You could certainly build a car as a composite "safety cell" around the driver and steel tube subframes at the front and rear ends to handle all of the point loads from the suspension and powertrain. You'll want to use Zoltek unidirectional fabric to build the laminates and aluminum honeycomb and pine for most of the cores, with magnesium or aluminum inserts for bolts.

The FSAE stuff is interesting, but I don't know how applicable what they're doing is to the home-gamer. Almost all of the composite tubs are being facilitated by outside vendors, suppliers and equipment. Not saying all, I know that Virginia (Tech? U?) has gone back and forth over the years between steel and composite chassis.

That's most likely the direction I'm headed for my design. I don't know that I'll use that particular brand of fabric (availability vs. hype), and honeycomb is notoriously difficult to bond well without massive pooling in the cells at home, not going with wood core of any kind, most likely Airex or Corecell with Ultem inserts (I have plenty of this material from a former life).

In reply to Gingerbeardman :

I feel like this thread from a while ago may be relevant to your interests.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

In reply to Gingerbeardman :

I feel like this thread from a while ago may be relevant to your interests.

THANK YOU!

Any chance you know the fella with the Consulier GTP and the guy with the Murtaya? I'm not able to get the search function on this site to work correctly for me.

What happened Plastic Fantastic thread?