Torsional Rigidity Test

Good Torsional Rigidity = Good handling performance of a car.

It is basically defined how much force is required to twist the car by 1 degree, see picture below.

ANSYS Setup:

1. Fix the back end of the car
2. Apply an upwards force of 10000N on a front corner of the car
3. Apply a downwards force of the same magnitude on the other front corner of the car
4. Look at Total Deformation, and see how much the front corners have moved
5. To see if the car has been twisted 1 degree, do the trigonometry, see picture below
   1. 
   2. **Correction on photo** directional deformation should say total deformation instead
   3. To see how much directional deformation of a corner twists the car by 1 degree, use SOHCAHTOA and calculate:   total deformation = tan (1) x half the car width
6. Adjust the 10000N you applied on the corners of the car until you get the desired total deformation that twists the car by 1 degree

Read this article:

https://peer.asee.org/development-of-a-test-stand-for-determining-the-torsional-rigidity-of-a-formula-sae-space-frame.pdf