Off-road chassis design?

"BaconSandwich is tasty." (baconsandwich) 02/19/2018 at 22:36 • Filed to: None

0

5

I’m interested in learning more about chassis design, especially for something intended to go off road. When a team puts together an entry for a race like the King of the Hammers ( !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ), how much of the chassis design comes from experience or intuition, and how much comes through CAD, and finite element analysis?

After watching guys like Project Binky, there’s obviously a lot to be learned through experience. In their dealings, it seemed like they really didn’t use any computer modelling tools, and things have worked out okay. But it seems like a person really needs to have a good grasp of both how to design and simulate in CAD, and know how things behave in the real world. How does one learn that balance? And how does one start learning about things like tubular chassis design without actually building a full sized prototype and then abusing it until it breaks? It seems challenging (at least to me) to start learning more about this kind of stuff without getting an engineering degree or running a Baja team.

bob and john > BaconSandwich is tasty. 02/19/2018 at 22:58

1

It depends on what the application and build is like.

King of hammers, a lot of it is designed from the ground up. Specifically for that event.

Binky is more: we have this chassos and we want to send way more power through it. We need to strength the exsisting chassis before hand.

And we dont know if binky IS strong enough yet. Still hasnt run... 

slipperysallylikespenguins > BaconSandwich is tasty. 02/19/2018 at 22:58

0

There are a handful of books that cover everything from motorcycle, hotrods, to full race cars available. Pretty cheap used. I’d do an Amazon search, because I’ve had very similar thoughts before.

Dusty Ventures > BaconSandwich is tasty. 02/19/2018 at 23:36

3

Most of the top tier desert vehicles are designed in CAD, specifically in Solid Edge

BaconSandwich is tasty. > slipperysallylikespenguins 02/20/2018 at 08:31

0

I’ll have to do that. The one I do have is “Build a Sports Car on a Budget”. It covers more of the “how” and less of the “why”. Still a fun read though.

BaconSandwich is tasty. > Dusty Ventures 02/20/2018 at 08:32

0

Given some of the big players and budgets, this wouldn’t surprise me.