CAR BODY FRAMES using WOOD

mohanrajs26

Can we built the small passenger car body using ANY WOOD which is STRONGER and CHEAPER?
If so, name the wood.

berkeman

Tell us your thoughts first. What is the context? Are you looking to do a design project?

Mech_Engineer

There are no woods that come close to the strength/weight ratios of current materials in cars such as aluminum, stainless steel, or even plain carbon steel.

brewnog

Morgan have been doing a good job making sports cars using ash frames for one hundred years. They're still good by today's standards.

Mech_Engineer

Let's be honest- the Morgan cars are bought for their styling, not because of their competitive performance or impressive Ash frame technology...

brewnog

Nonsense, I've been successfully campaigning one this season and don't even like the look of the thing! Although if by "competitive" you mean "with other marques" then you may have a point. Still, faster round a track than lots of stuff made solely from 'modern' materials!

G037H3

Seriously though, wooden cars can still be made to go 200+ mph

Danger

With you on that, pal. It's sort of along the same line as major-league baseball players using ash or maple bats as opposed to metal. I don't know whether or not there is a specific cut-off point from a material aspect, but a wooden bat just puts so much "feel" into the hit that it is bound to go farther/faster if only because of the son's emerging sense of confidence.

edit: Upon re-reading this, I noticed that I did not express myself properly. There are a lot of youngsters on-board, who are entitled to a "clueless" childhood. "Son's" was not meant to be a diminutive address.

odmart01

realize that these cars won't absorb as much energy from collisions like a metal does. malleability of metals are critical for this. second imagine being struck by lightning. specific metal is used to seperate charges

Danger

I respectfully disagree with that. Although I have always been a "Detroit Iron" driver, and have no use whatsoever for "rice rockets", polymers are a lot easier to tailor to specific purposes such as crush absorption.

odmart01

Please specify on the Effectiveness of Polymers.

Borek

Lightning struck is so rare it can be safely ignored as a problem.

odmart01

If it was you in the car you wouldn't be saying that now would you.

brewnog

Metal-bodied cars work quite well as a Faraday cage. Next...

Borek

How many cases of cars struck by lightning have you witnessed? Heard of? Do you have a reliable statistic showing it is frequent enough to make metal cars safer in the storm?

I suppose when you sit is a vehicle that is hit by meteorite M1A1 Abrams is safer than my Opel Astra, but I am not going to buy a tank because of that. Not many meteorites striking cars in my area.

brewnog

Whoah, it was odmart that brought that cobblers up!

Mech_Engineer

The OP's original question was if a "car's body frame" could be made out of a wood which is stronger and cheaper. In my opinion, the answer is still "no."