An engineering team here is considering building a suspension system for a solar powered car using mountain bike forks. Any recomendations on what might be good choices to support approx. 180 lbs per shock? Would only need to handle potholes in a road surface, but would be at max. speed of 70mph and using high pressure tires. Good adjustablity, damping, etc would be improtant, low weight also desirable.
-DM
180lbs per shock is a lot of weight. The average rider weighs about 180lbs, but that is distributed over two wheels. You should be able to find something that works, but you probably should consider only the most heavy duty shocks, such as those designed for downhill and so- called freeride use.
An engineering team here is considering building a suspension system for a solar powered car using mountain bike forks. Any recomendations on what might be good choices to support approx. 180 lbs per shock? Would only need to handle potholes in a road surface, but would be at max. speed of 70mph and using high pressure tires. Good adjustablity, damping, etc would be improtant, low weight also desirable.
-DM
180lbs per shock is a lot of weight. The average rider weighs about 180lbs, but that is distributed over two wheels. You should be able to find something that works, but you probably should consider only the most heavy duty shocks, such as those designed for downhill and so- called freeride use.
I recall the yearly solar powered car race ending up here several years ago. I spoke to some of the people on the teams and found that those using spoked wheels had a lot of trouble with the wheels collapsing (and the wheels were quite small, probably 20 inches or less). Therefore, I suspect you will have failures in such a system.
I recall the yearly solar powered car race ending up here several years ago. I spoke to some of the people on the teams and found that those using spoked wheels had a lot of trouble with the wheels collapsing (and the wheels were quite small, probably 20 inches or less). Therefore, I suspect you will have failures in such a system.
I wonder if the wheels collapsed while cornering. 3 or 4 wheel vehicles weighing a few hundred pounds could put significant lateral loads on their wheels, unlike a 2 wheel vehicle. I've seen video of these sun racers cornering at some pretty healthy speeds.
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TBGibb said:
I recall the yearly solar powered car race ending up here several years ago. I spoke to some of the people on the teams and found that those using spoked wheels had a lot of trouble with the wheels collapsing (and the wheels were quite small, probably 20 inches or less). Therefore, I suspect you will have failures in such a system.
I wonder if the wheels collapsed while cornering. 3 or 4 wheel vehicles weighing a few hundred pounds could put significant lateral loads on their wheels, unlike a 2 wheel vehicle. I've seen video of these sun racers cornering at some pretty healthy speeds.
Matt O.
Good point and that could be an issue with bike forks as well as wheels.
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Quoted message said:
TBGibb said:
I recall the yearly solar powered car race ending up here several years ago. I spoke to some of the people on the teams and found that those using spoked wheels had a lot of trouble with the wheels collapsing (and the wheels were quite small, probably 20 inches or less). Therefore, I suspect you will have failures in such a system.
I wonder if the wheels collapsed while cornering. 3 or 4 wheel vehicles weighing a few hundred pounds could put significant lateral loads on their wheels, unlike a 2 wheel vehicle. I've seen video of these sun racers cornering at some pretty healthy speeds.
Matt O.
Greenspeed tandem trikes (http://greenspeed.com.au/tandem.htm) usually carry multi-hundred-pound loads- and they can corner briskly without collapsing wheels.
(The staff photographer for the Solar Challenge 2001 owns a Greenspeed tandem. Here's his site: http://tricolour.net/ )
Back to the OP's question. Are you sure you want to use conventional forks to support a vehicle that doesn't lean? It seems to me that that's asking for trouble- your structure will need to support the top of the fork and the fork will need to be pretty rigid to avoid flexing in corners. Both factors add weight.
I recall the yearly solar powered car race ending up here several years ago. I spoke to some of the people on the teams and found that those using spoked wheels had a lot of trouble with the wheels collapsing (and the wheels were quite small, probably 20 inches or less). Therefore, I suspect you will have failures in such a system.
I wonder if the wheels collapsed while cornering. 3 or 4 wheel vehicles weighing a few hundred pounds could put significant lateral loads on their wheels, unlike a 2 wheel vehicle. I've seen video of these sun racers cornering at some pretty healthy speeds.
That is certainly possible. They do travel at a good rate of speed, when I saw them they were keeping up with the traffic. As I remember there was a heavy penalty for speeding, which they would be tempted to do to make up for loosing time to a breakdown. So they are certainly capable of enough speed to stress things like wheels in a corner.
