×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Suggestions for a book for off road buggy chassis design

Suggestions for a book for off road buggy chassis design

Suggestions for a book for off road buggy chassis design

(OP)
Hi we are looking at entering off road racing and would like to build a small lightweight 2 seater buggy. < 1330cc / 750cc turbo.

Does anyone have a good recommendation for a book on chassis/suspension design.

Thanks
Dave
 

RE: Suggestions for a book for off road buggy chassis design

(OP)
Thanks Greg

I ordered Engineer to win, I guess that's the one you meant and have signed up for FSAE - there is some reading to be done there, should keep me off the streets for a while.

Dave

RE: Suggestions for a book for off road buggy chassis design

Off road is quite different to normal race car as handling bumps is much more important than handling curves, so books specific to off road may be required. I don't have anything better than an old very basic level book called how to build off road and dune buggies I think?

Off road suspension very much involves maximising travel and dampers.

Regards
Pat
See FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on use of eng-tips by professional engineers &
http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm
for site rules
 

RE: Suggestions for a book for off road buggy chassis design

Ron Fournier has some interesting opinions.  I believe in an old copy of that book he stated 4130 can not be brazed or bronze welded without severe weakening or brittleness. I think his explnation was based on Something about the bronze penetrating 4130's "grain."  Overheating any steel part allows bronze to diffuse intergranularly with disastrous results.  

http://reynoldstechnology.biz/assets/pdf/rtl_2010_moto_tech.pdf
There was a time when Reynolds 531 ( broadly similar properties to 4130) was joined routinely by bronze welding, but was tricky to TIG weld  

RE: Suggestions for a book for off road buggy chassis design

I have an older 1982 printing, 5th edition of the Fournier book..

His concern stated in this edition was the indiscrimate use of 4130 as he said "Unfortunately, chromemoly steel has become trick" in vogue or fashionable, apparently having observed people using it as he said "a little bit of knowledge is dangerous".

His concerns were multiple, particularly in roll cage construction, wanting a metal that will bend, rather than break.. with breaks being far more hazardous to the occupant. His comment "Under crash impact, a chrome moly steel part is much more likely to break rather than bend, as would a mild steel part".

I know in the off road, 4x4 market there have been some aftermarket chromemoly suspension parts fracturing due to improper or no stress relieving after welding.
 

RE: Suggestions for a book for off road buggy chassis design

Wouldn't good quality mild steel tubing be plenty good enough?  - and a lot cheaper

RE: Suggestions for a book for off road buggy chassis design

1 - Buckling when axial load is exceeded - same
2 - permanent bending due to brief torsional or bending overload - 4130 wins ( 10% bigger diameter of lesser material buys LOTS more strength and stiffness, if that's what I want)
3 - fatigue failure due to repetitive loading - 4130 wins the brochure race, but tiny geometry details inadvertently done poorly will absolutely murder either material
4 - potential for local brittleness from too rapid cooling after welding, especially TIG or MIG - 41XX loses - potentially made FAR worse by the geometry similar to item 3

RE: Suggestions for a book for off road buggy chassis design

Offset that against robustness and post yield behaviour.

I'd favour cromo for the suspension arms, and build them big, and then something a bit better than the nastiest mild steel for the frame. This has been discussed several times, use the search engine.
 

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies  http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

RE: Suggestions for a book for off road buggy chassis design

Very often, stiffness of a suspension member is an important attribute as well as strength. Therefore a larger section of lower strength steel may perform better, be cheaper, easier to fabricate and more tolerant to damage and fatigue.

There's more to it than working out forces and cross-sectional area to determine stress and therefore material strength.

It's called design.

RE: Suggestions for a book for off road buggy chassis design

The problem with off road chassis is that any increase in weight to increase the strength of one part increases the load on other parts which then have to be reinforced to increase their strength which then adds weight and so on and so on.

Maximising strength where cracks or bending start while reducing weight where they don't is the key. Intelligent design and use of the correct material for each part is important.

Regular inspection and maintenance is also important, and reducing weight at the expense of durability is acceptable on non critical, non safety and easily replaced parts as by doing that we reduce the load on important suspension parts.

Regards
Pat
See FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on use of eng-tips by professional engineers &
http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm
for site rules
 

RE: Suggestions for a book for off road buggy chassis design

Answering your question regarding books..  There are none directly related to off-road chassis building. Being personally in the off-road design industry I've dealt with many builders and all have their own opinions on suspension design, chassis wise most are similar in basic construction. majority using 4130 tube or DOM mild steel. 99% of all suspension pieces are 4130-N, with less than half of them actually stress relieving & normalizing after fabrication.  

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources