Since my last update I worked a little bit on the footbox
and was thinking about the strength enforcement of the chassis. I used a self-adjusting cross-line laser at the end of the car
to get a horizontal line. I measured the distance of both main tubes every 10 cm to this laser line.
It shows that even in the unloaded form the main tubes have the form of a banana
The bend is nearly 9 mm at the widest distance.
Then, I install the engine and transmission and measured the bend compared to the unloaded version
Maximal 1 mm was added to the bend. To simulate passengers I add additional 205 kg in that area
Maximal 2 mm was added campared to the unloaded version.
The next measure shows the difference between this full-loaded and the previous half-loaded version
As expected 1 mm maximal deflection.
I made this static stress test over two weeks. The next pictures shows the difference in the full-loaded version between the first and the last day of measurement
Also, as expected the frame bends a little bit more over the time. One important question is whether the frame flips back to it's original bend after un-loading. The next picture shows the difference between the original bend at the beginning and at the end of measurement.
We can see the curves are nearly identical. The effect that the frame is more straight at the end is due to some reading errors during measuring.
So, what I can learn from this? I think the frame is relatively strong for this kind of static stress. To enforce it by inserting some kind of metal web the main tubes must first be straightened. Is this possible? Will be the effect that the doors will not close anymore as Luke mentioned above?
Any comments are very welcome.