"Bill McKee" wrote in message
m...

"RAM³" wrote in message
. 10...
"Bill McKee" wrote in
m:

Why not aluminum? I have an aluminum boat trailer. Works very well.
3400# boat. The Covette has an aluminum frame as well as the Cadillac
bodied Vette. Look at a Corvette and see what they use. Airplanes
have aluminum frames. And as long as you design well, the flex should
not be a problem.


Boat trailers are rarely twisted the way that off-road vehicles routinely
are.

The same thing applies to Corvettes.

After all, when was the last time that you went rock-crawling with your
'Vette? Grin

How about mud-bogging or bouncing around on deeply-rutted roads?

Jeeps are expected to do all of these and more without any ill effects.
(Getting dirty/muddy is, for a Jeep, a good thing!)

Hell, I raced a vette, steel chassis, and it got to rock clrawing a couple
times. :) And boat trailers are regularly towed over uneven ground.

With three points taking out the loads -- hitch and suspension supports,
which generally are paired but close -- there is no significant torsional
load on a boat trailer. It's all simple bending. You can deal with that, but
if you towed your boat 100% of the time, I think you'd develop fatigue
problems in aluminum.

The aluminum Corvette chassis are semi-space-frame with some shear panels.
The subframes resolve their loads in three dimensions. There isn't much
flexing there.

The same applies to aircraft, which often are near-monocoque. If they flex,
you die.

--
Ed Huntress