1.750"x 095 wall DOM Chromalloy tubing. Prolly 160' to construct chassis. The high carbon stuff takes 4x the force to bend compared to same size mild steel welded seam tubing (which is all I ever used in saturday night stock cars). Bet he was glad he had a high strength seat properly attached to chassis?
One of my few non-aerospace contracts was working as a designer in Roswell, NM around 2000 on a bus frame. I took the gig because I was interested in the area and I wanted to do something different after working a secession of 80-100 hour weeks on cabling and fuel lines for the ISS at the Naval Research Lab. The client manager told me that the customer required that the frame of the bus had to be strong enough to retain its integrity after rolling out of control in the Mexican mountains. The customer was a Mexican urban mass transit entity. Very interesting work, in that high quality steel tubing had to be precisely welded by certified welders. The original concept was done by a team of Mexican designers using AutoCAD, which meant it was garbage, and so they brought me in on Unigraphics to do it right. I finished the frame 3D model and left for another contract, but about eight years later I worked with an engineer on another assignment who was involved with the testing of the prototype bus. The design, which had been updated by FEA testing, maintained integrity while full of test dummies in a roll over crash on a NM mountain test course. The shell of the bus was destroyed, but the main systems remained intact, and it was determined that all of the occupants save the driver would have survived unless the fuel tank ruptured and caught fire. They would have been injured, but survived.
The art of tubular race car chassis' design is a real art form. For one thing, they don't bend the tubular members if there needs to be a curve, they "radius" it. They try to avoid any bends at all, and like Greg said, it takes a special kind of cat to weld it properly. The frame has to survive, not the body panels. Helluva ride! My crash only flipped me twice - it was in a '57 Chebbie on the 1/4 mile and wasn't even my fault. Ah, youth...
A ride nobody wants to take.
ReplyDeleteCan you say SCRAP METAL?
ReplyDeleteAlmost looks like he lost traction and didn't back off the throttle. Or he had a component failure....
ReplyDeleteYeah, he walked away. In twenty years he will be feeling that.
ReplyDelete1.750"x 095 wall DOM Chromalloy tubing. Prolly 160' to construct chassis. The high carbon stuff takes 4x the force to bend compared to same size mild steel welded seam tubing (which is all I ever used in saturday night stock cars). Bet he was glad he had a high strength seat properly attached to chassis?
ReplyDeleteOne of my few non-aerospace contracts was working as a designer in Roswell, NM around 2000 on a bus frame. I took the gig because I was interested in the area and I wanted to do something different after working a secession of 80-100 hour weeks on cabling and fuel lines for the ISS at the Naval Research Lab.
ReplyDeleteThe client manager told me that the customer required that the frame of the bus had to be strong enough to retain its integrity after rolling out of control in the Mexican mountains. The customer was a Mexican urban mass transit entity. Very interesting work, in that high quality steel tubing had to be precisely welded by certified welders. The original concept was done by a team of Mexican designers using AutoCAD, which meant it was garbage, and so they brought me in on Unigraphics to do it right.
I finished the frame 3D model and left for another contract, but about eight years later I worked with an engineer on another assignment who was involved with the testing of the prototype bus. The design, which had been updated by FEA testing, maintained integrity while full of test dummies in a roll over crash on a NM mountain test course. The shell of the bus was destroyed, but the main systems remained intact, and it was determined that all of the occupants save the driver would have survived unless the fuel tank ruptured and caught fire. They would have been injured, but survived.
Can't help but notice that all those helpers waddling to his rescue are fat....
ReplyDeleteloved the golf cart guy just plugging along with the" I'll get there when I get there" attitude and he's the one with the fire extinguisher
ReplyDelete^This^....the golf cart driver. Not in any hurry. wtf?
DeleteNo shit.
ReplyDeleteI bet there were many along the chain link fence who left immediately for a shower and change of underwear.
I use to buy that type of tubing but it was used in the power generation industry.
Love the guy climbing over the guardrail & waddling towards it all…”Dammit, Jimbob, what the hell ya done this time?”
ReplyDeleteNever commit sideways!
ReplyDeleteOhio Guy
The art of tubular race car chassis' design is a real art form. For one thing, they don't bend the tubular members if there needs to be a curve, they "radius" it. They try to avoid any bends at all, and like Greg said, it takes a special kind of cat to weld it properly.
ReplyDeleteThe frame has to survive, not the body panels.
Helluva ride! My crash only flipped me twice - it was in a '57 Chebbie on the 1/4 mile and wasn't even my fault. Ah, youth...
Richard Hammond says, "Hold my beer."
ReplyDeleteGolf cart Guy should have been sent home and asked not to come back. Talk about worthless.
ReplyDelete