Tslynk67
Well-Known Member
This weekend I visited a PhD friend of mine who has been working in the glue industry for many years. I wanted to know his thoughts on the torsion box. This torsion box is composed of metal (casings) of cells and plates, and the car will be subjected to a wide range of temperatures (from Death Valley to Alaskan winter), and Subjected to vibration and shocks. (ADDED: and hold up for many years). He didn’t see a problem with it. He said that polyurethane would be used (epoxy is too rigid), which does have to be shielded from light (easy, given its location) and water (think of rain or people fording a stream). Entirely doable, in his opinion.
As an aside he told me that the problem is similar to gluing wind shields in a car, where the coefficients of expansion are also very different. In fact, modern cars derive part of their rigidity from the windshields glued to the metal frame as well. For a wind shield, the glue is protected from light and water by EPDM rubber.
I rated this "Informative", but missed the "WTF?" option...