why ive gone insane (and still going)

[ferretca18]

final year at uni, my final year project is designing a tubular steel rear subframe for the s13. started this year with no previous solidworks experience so had to learn as i went. thought id show you guys the fruits of my labour. Currently going insane trying to run FEA (just for you mammoth) but its being a ball ache and crashing or not liking the mesh i put over it (cant be arsed to explain)

anyway heres a few pretty pics of it:)
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c45/ferretca18/subframepics.jpg

[Ratty (steve)]

That looks pretty dam fine! Not really messed with any solid modeling stuff but i can imagine what has gone into it, have tried some simple wire modeling in the past. keep meaning to go back to college to learn but its being arsed...

[Scougar]

Looks pretty impressive so far :) When will you start making a prototype :) (and will it fit an S12 hehe).

Matthew

[30PSI]

Looks good but what will the advantage of it be?

It won't fit an S12 without being modified.

[Channie]

Lookin good dude... hurry and get it all done and written uop so we can go play!!

[Scougar]

Chan... think we'll have to build a car frame to turn his car on it's side safely for this....

Matthew

[ferretca18]

the design specs were for it to be lighter and up to 30% stiffer than the origional. BUT the biggest problem i came into whilst trying to test the stiffness was the was it works, the 4 main mounts are bolted to the car so are taken as fixed, the diff then connects the two horizontal members so these are also fixed. To test the real world stiffness a rig needs to be made so that all the components can be loaded at once in the same plane that they would be in a real suspension design situation (in other words, its a whole other project on top of this one) the hardest thing so far has been measuring the subframe accurately. i tried 3 different methods and in the end used a surveying laser to get reference points of the mount holes. Ideally i would have used a laser scanner or CMM but didnt think of that till too late in the project:(
But it does look pretty:)
AND hows this, the standard s13 subframe weighs 21.3Kg whereas mine weighs 11.84Kg:thumbs:

[Scougar]

Would removing weight from the very bottom of the car cause a problem with extra roll? (Because the affect of the weight on top of the subframe is now greater because it weighs more 'proportionally'. i.e. are you shifted the centre of gravity higher up the car?)

Matthew

[Clouder_sx]

Also, although i know weight doesnt equal strength these days, but is it still not a good idea to make these kind of things as 'bulky' as possible as they get such a battering? Or am i wrong :D

Either way it looks very pretty :nod:

[ferretca18]

yea, thats a big bit of writeup for my report, i cant directly copmpare the torsional strength of the model to that of the standard item, but i have run cosmos analysis on it (its a mickey mouse programme but it gives you an idea) and it doesnt fail under high corner loads. As for weight, its designed to be used on a track only car which is considdered to have been lowered significantly thus lowering the centre of gravity anyway. and its only a 10kg weight difference which isnt that much of a drop considering:) i'd like to know more about this sort of thing but there is olnly so much time available. also the fact that i have just finished all my practical modelling work and havent started the write up (it has to be in on Wednesday) lol id best get started then:rolleyes:

[Scougar]

also the fact that i have just finished all my practical modelling work and havent started the write up (it has to be in on Wednesday) lol id best get started then:rolleyes:

:eek: Good luck Alan :) I did my uni dissertation in 3 weeks :) (That's ALL the work).

Matthew

[ferretca18]

booyah! just over 6000 words. and a shit load of stuff (80 pages worth of fea printouts) for the appendix:) hope it gets a decent mark, been close to crying today as computers hate me, somthing saved where it shouldnt have and ended up screwing up my model:(

[Channie]

Well done bud! Dinks soon i thinks!!!!

[ferretca18]

wtf are you still doing up channie? im printing my dissi out, then going to uni to get it bound, then i have to be up at 8! hmmmm i dont think im sleeping tonight! so, its 150 pages long lol, thats including all the appendicies (lots of fea runs in there and engineering drawings:))

[Channie]

was pimping my myspace again!!!
Felt like it needed a change!

You guys are all such light weights!!! You are always in bed early and think 8am is early?!?!?!

[Garysx]

was pimping my myspace again!!!
Felt like it needed a change!

You guys are all such light weights!!! You are always in bed early and think 8am is early?!?!?!

Yeah but aleast we look alive and not like someone from dawn of the dead:)

[suprmek1]

awsome work i was looking into making a tubular subframe seams like you beat me to it good luck with it

[Fake Ben Taylor]

so have you actually made one of these???? very intersted in real world testing of it :nod:

[ferretca18]

nope, didnt make it in the end. it was a plan to at the start but that was before i started the project (measuring the standard on was a project in itself) the model also failed under high loads (4.5g) but only my a tiny ammount. the design deeded further bracing on the rear toe control arm mounts and the fron traction control arm mounts. (easy enough to fix) But in the end i tried rectifying it but it ****ed with my model, so i couldnt :( (basically its been saved as an assembly in solidworks and wont let me modify the origional parts as they are on the uni pc's)

had my viva the other day, that went ok, no real problems:thumbs: find out in june how i did:)

[Fake Ben Taylor]

nope, didnt make it in the end. it was a plan to at the start but that was before i started the project (measuring the standard on was a project in itself) the model also failed under high loads (4.5g) but only my a tiny ammount. the design deeded further bracing on the rear toe control arm mounts and the fron traction control arm mounts. (easy enough to fix) But in the end i tried rectifying it but it ****ed with my model, so i couldnt :( (basically its been saved as an assembly in solidworks and wont let me modify the origional parts as they are on the uni pc's)

had my viva the other day, that went ok, no real problems:thumbs: find out in june how i did:)

do you still have the file with all the dimensions etc?

and fancy sharing said file? can pm if you like :) im quite interested in exploring how much i could get one made up for;)

[ferretca18]

yea i dont see why not mate, ill have a dig around for it, its saved as a solidworks file so youll need that or a compatable programme to get it to run:thumbs:

may take me a while to find it as i may have to get it from uni:)

[Fake Ben Taylor]

no probs mate - just dont forget about me ;)

[m.d.]

i wonder if a subframe would fit on the CMM i have at work, its quite a large one so i would have thought so,

i remember you telling me about this project when i chatted to you at the rolling road day a few months back,

i see solid works files like this all the time, have to normally convert them to edgecam files then manually make them into individual parts for coding to our CNCs,

takes a while but it makes life a lot easier just being able to copy a solid than having to try to make something from a drawing, basically from scratch,

that model looks good tho mate, mass production of this would be expensive but not that bad, especially for a propper welding company, i mean, once you have a jig made up using the standard subframe as a guide you would be able to get them to knock up a fair few in a batch and put all the costs in the sale price for that total batch, prob make your money back and more in the forst 25 frames.

[ferretca18]

yea i stated all about that in my dissertation. an uprates s14 subby from japan will set you back aroun, get ready..... 4k! :eek: the model you can see here wiehs about 11kg where the standard is 21kg. (was a bit of talk about pissing with the weight distribution and CofG but i never managed to run any tests:()

[suprmek1]

Bumpy. Finally been starting to put together the plans for a tubular subframe and remembered this thread. As I now have the equipment to make them fancy sending me the info you have and then If they go into production once tested to be safe. You can have on of course. What material did you model it on and did you do any rollcenter correction into it

[ferretca18]

Hey guys, sorry to bump an old thread,

totally forgot about getting my model for you guys. Totally slipped my mind. I dont have solidworks anymore but i may still have the work saved somewhere. If i can find it ill get it ready for you guys, Ill pm you to let you know if i can find it.

Cheers,
Allan

[Adam0bmx0]

Al, ive got solidworks on my pc at home if you need to load it up, check stuff over/print it out.

Adam