Stress Testing

[deRusett]

So me and my Buddy are building a bush buggy, I know there exsists softwares out there that allow you to stress test a framework to find the breaking points,

but I don't know of its name, nor if there are any free versions that would run under Linux which is what the Garage Laptop is running. a Windows Program would be fine as well.


Any ideas about such a software, or even good sites that deal with the Physics of Frames, or Mechanics and Materials, I think that was the name of the course I took in Second year Uni which delt with Stress and Strain,

 

[Malpine Walis]

I don't know if this will help but a friend of mine who is a mechanical engineer (he led the team that invented the floppy drive way back when BTW) told me to use something called "finite element" software for some of my odd questions. There is free stuff out there but I never figured out how to use it.

 

[linksep]

In High-school when we made super mileage cars (circa 1997) we tested frame designs by hot gluing strips of balsa wood from the hobby shop into 1:10 scale models and then stress testing them. The chassis design we came up with was either 11 or 12 lbs (no running gear) and didnt flex at all when I jumped on it (although it was so small I couldn't get in it either; we designed it around a 5'10" 170lb driver and I am 6'0" 250lbs).

Strongest shape is a triangle. Make your chassis all triangulated and test designs of balsa, that is the low-tech easy way. Also do an image search on google to see chassis designs and take ideas from there

 

[GM1010]

We used Nastran in one of my classes at school. It it supposed to be widely used in the field but it is EXTREMELY (imo) non-user friendly. You kindof have to know what you're doing. You can get a free demo of it, but I doubt any software out there for this type of thing is going to be easy to pick up quickly.

 

[deRusett]

I've had extencive Auto CAD, and Master CAM experience so I am not worried about ease of use, I am sure I can figure it out,

I will look into the softwares mentioned