Publication:

Analysis of efforts on a tubular chassis

The objective of this project is to design a tubular chassis of a speed car, based on a earlier design of this type of car. When it is designed, the aim is to design it with a finite element program, in this case, is going to be used the software Abaqus, for after establish a method of calculation in a manner in which can be measured all the parameters, like deformations and stresses, suffered by the chassis submited to the efforts supported by the chassis in different situations, these are, the maximun acceleration, maximun decceleration, maximun cornering situation and crash situation. At the same time, the aim of the project, is to get a chassis as light, strong and economical as possible, taking in account that the time avaiable for the design of it, is limited. To perform this project, is essential to know the criteria used by tubular chassis designers in different competitions, like Formula Student, and also, the requirements demanded by the Royal Spanish Automobile Federation for compete in the Spanish mountain championship. At the time of design the chassis, it is necesary to make firstly a rough design of the chassis, keeping in mind the methods of manufacture of a tubular structure to provide the worker of a easiest work as possible, when its construction, using also less tubes as possible to get the lightest chassis, and therefore, the cheapest one. Nowadays, in the world of automobile competition, the teams spend big amounts of money to get the lightest and more strength car, not taking in account the money, but in this project, the solution would be get the lightest, most strength and cheapest chassis as possible, in a combination of all of them.