Final Year Project-Rollcage Design

[Andrew McCormack]

Hello forum,

I'm in my final year of mechanical engineering and for final year a project is required. After reading up a bit on it I have decided to base my project on rollcages.

As i wouldnt have too many contacts in the rallying world I would find this forum a huge resource.

The main areas I will be looking at are:

1.Current rollcage design,joints etc. Impacts and shear tests on current joint designs

2.Different materials that could be used

3.Welding method

4.Bolt-in V.s Weld-in cages.

5. Improvements in side impact protection

The main thing im lacking at the moment is incidents at a clubman level where cages have failed(pictures,reports etc.) Any help on this would be very greatly appreciated for me as it would give me a basis to start off with.

Any advise or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Kind Regards,

Andrew

[GORDON STREETER]

Hi Andrew welcome to the forum.
I have seen a few roll cages that have failed over the years in different types of racing , I haven't any photos but most that failed were "home built" and "snotted" together !
When I was doing the BTCC support races in the 90s there was a one make series for the "Renault Spider" that Jason Plato was in IIRC, someone turned one over in 1996 at Mallory park and the cage failed and the whole lot was revamped.

[Lancsbreaker]

Been in a few cars rolled into a ball in my rallying days, and don't recollect any cage failures - but we generally used Aley or Safety Devices cages, which were good quality....