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Problem Specification

One of the important measure in race car design is torsional stiffness. To obtain that specification, a twist test must be performed on the Chassis. Here is a simplified version of race car chassis with a composite monocoque and two front suspension links. To simulate a twist test, the back of the monocoque will be fixed while coupling will be applied tot he end of the two front suspension. the .igs file for the geometry can be downloaded here: monocoque.IGS. 

The analytical calculation of the problem are explained in the following pdf document: PDF.  These passages are taken from the isotropic analysis section of "Design, Analysis and Testing of a Formula SAE Carbon Fiber Monocoque Chassis" by Jingsi Wu, Owusu A. Agyeman Badu, and Yongcheng Tai.  

Geometry Specification

One of the beauty of composite material is to customize the ply lay-ups to achieve optimum proeperties according to the needs. It is often the case where different ply lay-ups are used at different monocoque regions for their sepecific needs. This excise have 4 different regions as shown in diagram below:

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Detail of composite layup will be explain during the exercise.

Calculate the Torsional Stiffness

Ansys gives tangential displacement values for torsional displacement, and here are the equations to calculate the torsional stiffness

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