frame flex with anti sway bar
Does an rear anti sway bar add to or reduce __ frame --- flex ???
Forum Discussion
Aluminum will flex more than steel (3x more) unless the design is changed.
Unibodies flex oh yes they do. But usually quite a bit less than separate frame and body.
Some of the engineering behind this is that torsional rigidity is proportional to the area enclosed by the structural member (among many other things). The "C" section of a channel frame does not enclose much area and isn't very rigid torsionally. Box the "C" into a "D" and it encloses a large increase in area and becomes much more rigid. Take the whole body and turn it into the frame and you have enclosed many, many times the area.
It is the engineer's job to ensure that the flex resulting from normally encountered conditions does no harm. So unibodies are made stiff enough that the torsional flex is not enough to pop the windows out for example (though under stress you can often hear them creak). And in a C frame pickup, make sure that the other components are not damaged by the greater flex you will see. There is nothing wrong with any of these construction methods, they simply result in different characteristics, both desirable and undesirable.
Unibodies flex oh yes they do. But usually quite a bit less than separate frame and body.
Some of the engineering behind this is that torsional rigidity is proportional to the area enclosed by the structural member (among many other things). The "C" section of a channel frame does not enclose much area and isn't very rigid torsionally. Box the "C" into a "D" and it encloses a large increase in area and becomes much more rigid. Take the whole body and turn it into the frame and you have enclosed many, many times the area.
It is the engineer's job to ensure that the flex resulting from normally encountered conditions does no harm. So unibodies are made stiff enough that the torsional flex is not enough to pop the windows out for example (though under stress you can often hear them creak). And in a C frame pickup, make sure that the other components are not damaged by the greater flex you will see. There is nothing wrong with any of these construction methods, they simply result in different characteristics, both desirable and undesirable.
