| In all fairness, coupe frames are probably already so stiff, that they'll never flex enough to break the foam loose. But that doesn't mean the foam is supporting the frame rails. But, given the fact my convertible routinely can display a half inch or MORE of upper windsheild cowl flex, just driving 20 mph down my street, THAT could definately tax the bond between the foam and steel and probably result in a loose plug-o-foam in my frame rails. but just how "do" you test the stiffness of your frame? my dad used to work for HP developing some firmware for a "Fourier Analyzer" as he called it, which had a ton of sensors you'd attach to a car frame, in this case, the boss's weekend racer Porsche convertible. They could start sampling, tap the frame with a mallet in any given spot and record the results. then the software would display a wireframe on the screen and you could exxagerate the flexing that was occuring--and play it in a loop and see a readout of the values, and figure out where nodes were, where it needed more work, and they actually DID make the chassis much stiffer using a roll-bar they designed based upon before and after tests with this setup. They even tweaked the rollbar a few times to improve the design as they went. Now, I'd like to see that kind of scrutiny done by a company like ITW Foamseal before they claim their foam is good for automtoive structural applications. _MWS
Crash Test Dummy(tm)
"taking it on the chin so you don't have to..." |
