Quote:
Originally Posted by The HACK
In relation to the fact that it takes 32,000Nm of force to deflect the chassis 1 degrees, how does that 0.026mm of deflection compare in the overall picture?
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The 0.026mm strut bar deflection is just an indication of the difference in the movement of the top of the strut towers relative to each other when experiencing a maximum suspension load, it doesn't give an indication of the overall increase in chassis rigidity. A complete stress model of the structure would be required to give any accurate indication of the overall rigidity change.
If the whole structure was as stiff in all directions as the strut bar (which we are only looking at for axial stiffness, as it is quite weak in other directions), then we would have an equivalent stiffness of 340,000Nm. The problem is that the strut bar is just transferring load from one strut tower to the other, so has a much more limited effect on overall stiffness - this is analogous to joining two mounds of jello with a popsicle stick, the jello doesn't become appreciably stiffer overall.