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anyone made fiberglass springs?
v8kid - 1/1/14 at 10:29 AM

I seem to remember some commercial light van manufacturer making fiberglass is similar semi eliptic springs.
Any experience of this out there?
The application I have in mind is for a lightweight motorized buggy with a traverse semi eliptic spring at the front and quarter eliptic springs at the rear moulded into the main chassis rails.

Cheers!

ste - 1/1/14 at 11:08 AM

Some detailed info here

http://www.birl.ethz.ch/research/publications/publication/projreport/AnastasiadesGRP2011.pdf

HowardB - 1/1/14 at 11:08 AM

that sounds very much like the A frame chassis on an austin 7. There was a lot of work done on grp springs, don't recall it ever going commercial. There is an issue with interlaminar shear strength for large deflections. However If the buggy is very lightly loaded then something should be possible, depends on how much travel you require.

A quick search shows work being done on the subject as recently as 2002.

For something truly light weight perhaps laminated wood might be an option,.. ?

hth

HNY

HowardB - 1/1/14 at 11:35 AM

quote:
Originally posted by ste
Some detailed info here

http://www.birl.ethz.ch/research/publications/publication/projreport/AnastasiadesGRP2011.pdf


That is very interesting, very much in line with the development work on sulcated springs done sometime in 70's / 80's

gdische - 1/1/14 at 12:06 PM

Corvettes have had transverse fibreglass springs for some time. When I worked at GM in the 1980s I was involved in designing composite elliptical springs for vans.

Google will find quite a lot of information about fibreglass elliptical springs.

Geoff

Volvorsport - 1/1/14 at 12:15 PM

Volvo v90 IRS.....they have a composite transverse rear spring on the mk2 models. Was quite common in truck industry untill airbags came along

scott h - 1/1/14 at 12:21 PM

Something rings a bell that Sherpa vans had fiberglass rear springs, don't quote me though!

CNHSS1 - 1/1/14 at 12:32 PM

quote:
Originally posted by scott h
Something rings a bell that Sherpa vans had fiberglass rear springs, don't quote me though!


blimey! a bit of a Sherpa that didn't rust, well I never!

we ran some from new 'back in the day', had bodywork rust in under 4 months!!

v8kid - 1/1/14 at 03:56 PM

quote:
Originally posted by ste
Some detailed info here

http://www.birl.ethz.ch/research/publications/publication/projreport/AnastasiadesGRP2011.pdf


Excellent link I had not found before thanks

v8kid - 1/1/14 at 04:18 PM

quote:
Originally posted by HowardB
that sounds very much like the A frame chassis on an austin 7. There was a lot of work done on grp springs, don't recall it ever going commercial. There is an issue with interlaminar shear strength for large deflections. However If the buggy is very lightly loaded then something should be possible, depends on how much travel you require.

A quick search shows work being done on the subject as recently as 2002.

For something truly light weight perhaps laminated wood might be an option,.. ?

hth

HNY


Ta for info - was the problems with interlaminar shear connected with polyester resins? If so epoxy resin should cure that. I'm not looking for ultimate low weight so all the fibres don't have to be unidirectional so the only problem would be in the y direction ie going from compressive to tensile strength and since that should always be compressive separation hopefully would not be a problem.
Have I caught the gist of what you were saying?
Cheers!

v8kid - 1/1/14 at 11:11 PM

Ah worked it out now!