Tubing Material Selection

Owned by Ethan Guan
Sept 05, 2024
1 min read

The goal of this page is to determine the material of the tubing used in MS16.

Considerations:

  • Strength

    • yield strength, ultimate tensile strength

    • Chassis must be able to withstand impacts listed in ASC regs

  • Weight, Strength to weight ratio

    • Lighter chassis means less power consumption

  • Stiffness

    • Affects torsional rigidity - Higher torsional rigidity means less rolling resistance

  • Cost

    • It has to fit into our budget

  • Manufacturability

    • Feasibility of welding / assembly, leans into cost

    • Also our ability to modify the chassis after it’s assembled

  • Availability

    • More common materials are cheaper and have shorter lead times

  • Required treatment

    • ie surface treatment, pre-treatement for welds

 

4130 Steel Alloy (Chromoly) AISI 4130 Steel, normalized at 870°C (1600°F), air cooled, 13 mm (0.5 in.) round (matweb.com)

  • Strength - 460 MPa yield strength, 731 MPa UTS

  • Specific Strength ~93Nm/kg

  • Modulus of Elasticity - 205GPa

  • cost for square foot of 0.04 sheet: 10.7$

  • Good weldibility, fairly readily available

  • Needs surface treatement to prevent corrosion