September 22, 2010.

A few thing have happened since the last update, it’ll take me a couple of posts to catch up, so here’s tonights part…

If you are not seeing anything in the boxes below or you are being told there’s a missing plug-in go to here and install the Cortona 3D viewer.

This first one is the body shape I’ve come up with to date, I’ve been running this through a CFD program to see if its working and as per the stress analysis regular assumptions are often proved wrong in the process.

Obviously the model is simplified from the full mechanical model and it still takes several hours for a good PC to digest the problem. shown is a wing and splitter that would not be fitted for road use I expect.

Next is a review of the stress analysis model, I put this together to help me better visualize what was actually happening in the structure under load.
the colours green through to red shown the min to max force in a member for the structure under load and aren’t related to the max strength of the member.
The thinner cylinders are in compression the thicker ones are in compression.
The blue spheres are the displaced node locations.

Obviously I’ve magnified the displacement in the display to help visualize the effect more clearly.

The model is not 100% accurate to what I’ve built, particuarly in the rear section where the damper mounts are quite different and there’s a few other changes also.
In this state the structural analysis program tells me the structural rigidity is ~22.5knm per degree of twist, how much it is in reality is yet to be tested.

more to come in a day or so…