If you’re going racing, you need a roll cage. But there often isn’t an off-the-rack option that meets the requirements of the series you plan to race in—one that provides adequate protection and actually fits in your car. Get the design wrong, and you’ll waste a lot of time and material. Now there’s a free online tool to help ensure that doesn’t happen. Frog Racing, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit that promotes motorsports, has a number of helpful guides and tools for aspiring racers. One of them is its roll cage assessment tool, which can build a virtual roll cage based on parameters you specify like the tubing, welds, and layout, and then compare it against different sanctioning bodies’ rulebooks to find out if it’s legal as well as assign a safety score. The tool is pre-loaded with sample cages, including real-world examples, commercially available kits, and generic examples like a half cage, NHRA-compliant drag racing cage, and an FIA Article 253 Appendix J cage (the tool’s safety score is also based on Article 253). There’s even a “worst cage” that shows you everything not to do. You can also start from scratch and design a cage with the tool, or import a file with an existing design. The tool includes a questionnaire that starts with basics like a car’s year, make, and model, and whether it’s left- or righthand drive, and continues with other pertinent information like the type of tubing and welds being used, location of bars and gussets, and any dimensional constraints of a car’s cockpit. You can also upload photos and have the tool convert them into a 3D model of the cage. Once all the parameters are set, you can select the rulebook you’re working with and the tool will point out anything that needs to be changed. The safety score section goes into greater detail about why things don’t work, pointing out things like unsafe bar placement that can put too much load on the bars rather than transferring it through the structure as a whole. Unless you’re very familiar with roll cage construction, stuff like this can be hard to visualize. Finished designs can be exported as PDFs, and the tool works on iOS and Android mobile browsers. Spend enough time with this in-depth yet accessible tool, and you’ll learn everything you need to know about designing roll cages.
Liked by Amélie Roy, Amelia Fortin
Liked by Amélie Roy, Amelia Fortin
Liked by Amélie Roy, Amelia Fortin