What's the better lower stress bar?

[dan@angband.org (Runs With Scissors)]

On Sat, May 25, 2002 at 09:47:19PM -0400, Scott F. Williams wrote:
> 'twas writting:
> > >The factory bar and the TT bar are better than the
> > >NoSpeed . . .
> 
> Mr. M?ze asked:
> > OK. Why exactly?
> 
> The Neuspeed bar strengthens the chassis in one plane. The factory/TT bars
> are triangulated and resist twist in two planes. Surely one of the
> mechanical engineer types can explain that more eloquently. Regardless, what
> makes me think that you're baiting us with this basic question, Shawn? :^)

I'm going to disagree here, becasue the factory/TT bar is NOT
triangulated.  Uninformed people may like calling it triangulated, but
that doesn't make it so. The 4-pt Eurosport bar is triangulated.  What we
are dealing with here are different kinds of truss designs.  Truss
elements primarily exist to bear load in the axial direction, i.e. no
bending moment.   The TT bar, while it attaches at 4 points, still has
only a single element which spans the control arms.  Any twisting loads
will have to be borne by that single center section. Guess what? Thin wall
tubing does not have much strength in bending.  The Eurosport support,
OTOH, it a fully triangulated truss.  Each front control arm has 2
separate truss elements connecting to it, and those elements only bear
axial stress.

Dan

-- 
we were always taught to simplify
our fractions in school, but this is ART