Quote:
Originally Posted by stephen low
My only concern with all this is how you know there is enough strength in the bits and pieces and you wont see a wheel pass you by some where. How do you factor in for safety performance Mike?
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That's pretty difficult to do without some computer modeling software or testing a bunch of the parts to destruction. My theory is to base the design on an existing piece from a production car and then beef it up from there. In this case I've looked at both Jaguar and Holden hubs. Both are made from steel but are designed for a 1600KG+ car that gets used and abused for hundreds of thousands of KMs. My design whilst made from aluminium (a weaker material for the equivalent dimensions) is built with thicker sections in critical areas where strength counts.
For example the face of the hub is 20mm thick where most steel hubs aren't much more than half that. The body of the hub between the inner race and the flange is about 10mm larger in diameter than a regular hub and the material section through there is thicker too. This is a critical spot for the strength of the hub as most of the load is transmitted from the flange to the inner bearing race. The placement of the flange face is also set closer to the inner race by about 10mm over the Jag hub which strengthens it further. The further from the inner race the load is the more leverage it has.
I'm confident I won't have any problems with the hub breaking.
Cheers