Precision tube

Heard back from Corus, who have provided names of a couple of possible suppliers, (given that I wont be needing 20 tonnes of the stuff).

So we have:
Barrett Precision Tubes

Hub le Bas
edit: Have BS EN 10305 ERW in 6.1m lengths, prices range from £1.70/m to £3.15/m so a very rough guess would be £150-£200 for the chassis steel. Will need some extra for making up a jig to build it on, but these are good prices.

Both UK based, and from the stock lists of le Bas have 40x40x2 RHS in S355 grade, so emails sent to both to see what else they have and current prices.

Polybush properties

In order to accurately model the vibration response I need to have the material properties of all the components in the system. The most obvious is the steel framework of the vehicle, which is straight forward. Then we have the other suspension components; Springs, Dampers and Bushes.

Springs are reasonably easy to obtain data for, and the length and rate are usually available off the shelf in reasonable incraments.

Dampers and Bushes are trickier, Having spoken to polybush they have furnished me with some data for their 75 Shore-A hardness range of polyurethane.

Polybush 75 Shore-A

The data for 65 and 85 Shore-A versions is also available, will work with this first and see if I need a harder compound.

Steel sections and Grades

Well after a fairly unsuccessful search for some high yield (355+MPa) steel box section, I will probably resort to Corus Celsius 355 SHS and CHS. The 2006 guide has sections with 1.5mm thickness which would be good to use, It turns out that the 1.5 thick sections are an international size, I have been advised to contact Corus in the Netherlands for further info.

Corus blue book
Corus Design of SHS welded Joints
Corus SHS welding guide

I have also located a good source of stress / strain data for various steel, which is useful for enabling non-linear analysis to be carried out on the structure, i.e. crash simulation.

SINTAP report UC/07

Below is the true stress strain curve for S355J2 material as used for Corus Celcius 355 prosducts

True stress strain curve for S355J2 steel

This should allow details analysis to be carried out, (I use Patran/Nastran at work so have can use this for linear, non-linear and other analysis), hopefully there will be some interesting stuff to work out.

Edit.
There are some more possibilities for sections in the Corus 'Precision tube' range, these are products designed for the automotive industrys which cover a wide range of sections and wall thicknesses. And more importantly come in a range of grades covered in under EN 10025, so S355 J2 should be an option.

Source of construction and use regs

After much trouble trying to find the regulations for construction and use (attempting to get a copy of sweet and Maxwells 'encyclopaedia of road traffic law' I eventually found Hughes guides which for £11 will send you a CD with all of the road traffic law including the construction and use regulations, with updates for a year. Apparently these are used by the police as reference guides.

In addition the build will need to be assessed to the new IVA requirements, these can be located on the VOSA web site.

It begins

This will be an extended post to chart the progress to date.

Donor vehicle was a 1990 XJ6 3.2l straight six with 5 speed manual GETRAG gearbox, purchased from ebay for a grand total for £600.

A somewhat delboy styled vehicle, not for long...

Nice straight six, need to see the condition of the bore.

Once secured from its original home in Poole the mechanical components were quickly extracted and the now empty shell taken away by the local scrapyards hiab.

In the garage, bonnet off

A good bit of stripping

The engine and gearbox comes out with mills to spare

The empty body loaded and off to the scrapyard

Chunky gearbox and engine

Front suspension assembly

Rear Suspension assembly

Pile of possibly useful electric and vacuum parts

Front suspension

Hefty diff and rear wishbones

Engine stripped of its ancilaries

Front and rear assembly stripped all usable parts laid out.