Printable Version | Subscribe | Add to Favourites
New Topic New Poll New Reply
Author: Subject: anyone made fiberglass springs?
v8kid

posted on 1/1/14 at 10:29 AM Reply With Quote
anyone made fiberglass springs?

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!





You'd be surprised how quickly the sales people at B&Q try and assist you after ignoring you for the past 15 minutes when you try and start a chainsaw

View User's Profile E-Mail User Visit User's Homepage View All Posts By User U2U Member
ste

posted on 1/1/14 at 11:08 AM Reply With Quote
Some detailed info here

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

View User's Profile View All Posts By User U2U Member
HowardB

posted on 1/1/14 at 11:08 AM Reply With Quote
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





Howard

Fisher Fury was 2000 Zetec - now a 1600 (it Lives again and goes zoom)

View User's Profile View All Posts By User U2U Member
HowardB

posted on 1/1/14 at 11:35 AM Reply With Quote
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





Howard

Fisher Fury was 2000 Zetec - now a 1600 (it Lives again and goes zoom)

View User's Profile View All Posts By User U2U Member
gdische

posted on 1/1/14 at 12:06 PM Reply With Quote
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

View User's Profile View All Posts By User U2U Member
Volvorsport

posted on 1/1/14 at 12:15 PM Reply With Quote
Volvo v90 IRS.....they have a composite transverse rear spring on the mk2 models. Was quite common in truck industry untill airbags came along





www.dbsmotorsport.co.uk
getting dirty under a bus

View User's Profile Visit User's Homepage View All Posts By User U2U Member
scott h

posted on 1/1/14 at 12:21 PM Reply With Quote
Something rings a bell that Sherpa vans had fiberglass rear springs, don't quote me though!
View User's Profile View All Posts By User U2U Member
CNHSS1

posted on 1/1/14 at 12:32 PM Reply With Quote
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!!





"Racing is life, everything else, before or after, is just waiting"---Steve McQueen

View User's Profile View All Posts By User U2U Member
v8kid

posted on 1/1/14 at 03:56 PM Reply With Quote
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





You'd be surprised how quickly the sales people at B&Q try and assist you after ignoring you for the past 15 minutes when you try and start a chainsaw

View User's Profile E-Mail User Visit User's Homepage View All Posts By User U2U Member
v8kid

posted on 1/1/14 at 04:18 PM Reply With Quote
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!





You'd be surprised how quickly the sales people at B&Q try and assist you after ignoring you for the past 15 minutes when you try and start a chainsaw

View User's Profile E-Mail User Visit User's Homepage View All Posts By User U2U Member
v8kid

posted on 1/1/14 at 11:11 PM Reply With Quote
Ah worked it out now!





You'd be surprised how quickly the sales people at B&Q try and assist you after ignoring you for the past 15 minutes when you try and start a chainsaw

View User's Profile E-Mail User Visit User's Homepage View All Posts By User U2U Member

New Topic New Poll New Reply


go to top






Website design and SEO by Studio Montage

All content © 2001-16 LocostBuilders. Reproduction prohibited
Opinions expressed in public posts are those of the author and do not necessarily represent
the views of other users or any member of the LocostBuilders team.
Running XMB 1.8 Partagium [© 2002 XMB Group] on Apache under CentOS Linux
Founded, built and operated by ChrisW.