I was watching a show "how it's made" and they were making carbon fiber bikes. But what if we used a carbon fiber tube set-up for cars rather then a full tub? One characteristic i can think of that would benefit is even lighter weight however production and other capabilities might off set the benefits. Anyone have any ideas?
Every joint is a weak point in the load bearing structure. I doubt that you can make anything from carbon tubes as functional as an F1 tub. They are marvels of 3D composite design involving honeycomb, different fibre fabric and resin. The load carrying capability is computed in dependance of the fiber direction. There are few engineering tasks as advanced as designing an F1 tub. Since John Barnard invented the process is has only been refined but the basic process design has never been bested. I would doubt that it is possible unless completely new materials are invented. To come anywhere close to the performance you probably have to machine the bloody thing out of a huge titanium block and even then you would not have the energy absorbtion that is inherent in the present design.
Formula One's fundamental ethos is about success coming to those with the most ingenious engineering and best ..............................organization, not to those with the biggest budget. (Dave Richards)
maybe into the future we can find a way to split carbon nano tubes into mini sheets, then combine them to form the fiber used in carbon fiber. the strength of diamond.
then there is the interesting idea that carbon nano tubes experience no frictional drag when fluid passes over them. so coating surfaces in unravelled carbon nano tubes would eliminate frictional drag totally, super interesting stuff, totally theoretical of course, but very interesting.
Carbon fibre (and any other kind of composite by the way) reacts to stress in a very diffrent way compared to metals. A tube construdcion may be a excellent choice for metal, but composites, having so diffrent properties probably would be inferior to the metal construction if it was built the same way.
Compare aluminium vs. steel motorcycle frames too, steel frames are mostly made out of tubes, where aluminium has a box type construction to use the aluminiums properties better. And remember, steel and aluminium has ALOT more in common than steel and carbon fibre composites!
The monocoque of an F1 car has the dual role of being the primary load bearing structure of the car, and the passenger safety cell. Any passenger safety cell must be able to prevent penetration of foreign objects during crash situations (e.g. broken suspension arms). A monocoque made from laminated carbon, kevlar and honeycomb does this very well. So if you build a tube framed chassis, you still need an outer skin that is capable of sustaining fragment impact (at fairly high velocities) -hence extra weight and a self-defeating concept.
I am not totally against space frames (I used to build and race MiniBajas, which are all space frame designs) and some super cars such as the Lambo Mucierlago and Pagani use space frames for some of their suspension sub-frames. But these all have a much bigger passenger space, so can tolerate much more intrusion into the passenger space than a F1 car.
