How to Select a Lightweight Material for a Tricycle Chassis?

[Hamzah Khan]

I am working on a project for which we have to design a Light weight tricycle. I want to know the procedure for selecting a light weight material for the chassis, which has good stiffness, economically available and good weld ability. We also have no constraints on the cross section of the pipes used. It can be circular, square or triangular shaped. Pls help me in the material selection and the cross section of the pipes.

 

[Waqas989]

I am working on a project for which we have to design a Light weight tricycle. I want to know the procedure for selecting a light weight material for the chassis, which has good stiffness, economically available and good weld ability. We also have no constraints on the cross section of the pipes used. It can be circular, square or triangular shaped. Pls help me in the material selection and the cross section of the pipes.

To begin with you can consider Steel, Aluminium, Titanium. Obviously titanium is way to expensive but you can choose between different alloys of aluminium and steel depending on your requirements and cost of these materials. Usually steel would be cheaper but heavier. However, it really depends on what you really need (for example what kind of loads you want your chassis to support).