[Kartbuilding] Requesting assistance from you

[Stephen Burke]

Hi,

The main reason for choosing tubes to make the chassis (instead of using 
solid metal bars) is mainly because of the "weight issue". The key to a 
racing kart is to keep the weight at a minimum. With tubing - a good deal 
of strength is inherint (especially in round tubing) at a fraction of the 
weight compared to solid steel/metal bars. Round tubing is chosen (over 
square etc) is because it can be bent to shape easily.

I cannot give exact figures on the load bearing abilities of tubes. If you 
are still at the design stage, I suggest you get a 3D Solid Modelling 
package such as SolidWorks where you can input the specific materials, and 
using Cosmos Express (comes with SolidWorks) the loading of the chassis 
can be determined. For real conditions however, you would have to analyse 
the chassis WITH the engine AND driver!! - and this makes analysing loads 
very difficult.
As for the center of gravity - if you are very worried about this - I 
would suggest putting the engine behind the Drivers Seat, keeping 
everything in a straight line, and balanced on both sides.

Best of Luck,
-steve

On Wed, 7 Feb 2007, Raghu kv wrote:

> Hello sir,
>           My name is Raghu. I am a student of engineering in Bangalore
> INDIA.
> Me and few of my friends have plans to build an off road kart. We are still
> in the desigining part. Usually all the go karts are built from hollow
> tubes. Can you please tell me the reason for selecting the tubes for it. Is
> it only asthetics or are tubes  the perfect one for construction? Can you
> please tell me about the load bearing abilities of tubes. And can you please
> give me some hints for desiging for good balancing and the center of
> gravity....Thank you.
>