Truss design question

I tried to post this over in the fab section however I was denied permission to post over there. Anyway onto the question. I am looking at designing a simple truss for my axle, something that will be very cheap to fab and not need to worry about any welding to the cast parts. Basically i want to make my own, and for that to be feasible it needs to be cheaper than the treks one. With that I came up with the following design as the best of three that I created.


I now have some questions in regard to overall strength vs cost. if you look at the two drawings at the bottom this is where my question lies. What is the strength trade off if I were to have just a single gusset vs a dual gusset? obviously it would be cheaper to use a single with a bit thicker steel. Anyway i am new to fab work and just looking for imput/critiques

Thanks in advance for any input!

But can you build it cheaper then this,

http://www.ironrockoffroad.com/Merc...en=PROD&Store_Code=IROR&Product_Code=IR-XD44T

2 4 foot peices of dom? absolutely.

id rather have the dom, as would most people.

god damn that laser cutout logo is ugly

What rear end are you trussing?

Using two pieces of flat stock on either side of the tube is much stronger for fore and aft stresses, because it would be boxed to give strength in all planes. For up and down stresses it wouldn't matter as much, both would be strong, the single sided would act as a shear plane in the up and down direction, plus the triangulation of the tube. With the single sided, neither the tube nor the plate would provide much strength fore and aft, but it would still be stronger than no truss at all.

So, it depends on what you're after. For overall strength, using two pieces would be stronger.

I like this one

It seems to me that if you don't weld it to the cast, then the side pieces are not giving much additional strength over what the tube provides, as it relates to the ends of the axle moving in relation to the center section. The only benefit I can see would be that the overhead tube providing the strength would then cover a shorter span. I like your overhead tube design for simplicity but I would either weld it to the cast with the side piece(s) or skip the side pieces altogether.

That's a pic of how JumpThis did his truss in his current cage build thread in advfab section.

^ damn that axle is impressive. What exactly did that beast start out as?

It looks like a Currie RockJock 60 with a custom non-removeable cover.

Ian Christiansen said:

It looks like a Currie RockJock 60 with a custom non-removeable cover.

Click to expand...

I would have guessed its a Tera 60.

There are some very nice trusses in this thread:
http://pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=832590&highlight=panty

Ian Christiansen said:

It looks like a Currie RockJock 60 with a custom non-removeable cover.

Click to expand...

by the looks of all those bolts, it is removable, maybe not the easiest, but removable all the same.

Thanks for all the help everyone. My rear axle is getting re-geared at the moment thanks to FrankZ. I decided to hold off on the truss for a little bit, time constraints with school and all, plus since its my only vehicle I know I'm not going to be getting into anything too crazy for the time being.

However I do think I am going to go with the double guesset design I drew up, talked to a couple of my mech engineer friends and got way too much info on why the double would be stonger.

Starboard M said:

There are some very nice trusses in this thread:
http://pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=832590&highlight=panty

Click to expand...

ahh, the ultimate truss thread. i look at this thread to get myself going whenever i wanna work on mine, soo much badassness in there.



to add to whats already been said, if youre gunna go thru the effort of making a truss, tie it into the center section.



heres my 60:

The wider you can make the truss ... the less prone the housing will be to warpage. Basically, you want to have the welds (where truss & tube meet) as close to the centerline of the tube as possible.



Doing so will help control cooling "warpage" if you decide to weld the centersection as well.



Joe

Just for the sake of discussion, many axles will live just fine without trussing, or just light trussing. I see lot's of overdone trusses on axles and rigs that probably don't even need them, so all it does is add weight. Nothing wrong with having very strong components, but a monster truss on an already stout axle could be nothing more than useless unsprung weight.

As an example, my rock buggy has been through 3 KOH races, two competing and one doing a ton of pre-running. It has Tera CRD60's front and rear with 3/8" tubes and no trussing whatsover, front or rear. They have been seriously pounded on with no ill effects. Sure, I think about trussing them, and maybe I should to avoid future problems, but it sure hasn't needed them yet. Just a comment to keep things reasonable, since we're always fighting unsprung weight when we go to big axles and tires.

BTW, the axle in that pic of the very cool truss is a RockJock 60 in the rear of the GenRight KOH buggy. The cover and the middle of the truss are removable. Unlike the CRD60 center section, the RockJocks need trussing for hard use.