Lotus Off-Road Suspension Project
Front and rear suspension
Front suspension system
Front and rear suspension
Lotus Suspension - Manufacture
2016
As part of my Masters dissertation I wanted to get the parts manufactured to demonstrate their feasibility. With the manufacturing of the parts being critical to the systems performance. To help improve the ease of manufacture I elected to use off the shelf CDS (cold drawn steel) which was then processed on a 3-axis tube laser. This meant that the ends fitted together perfectly straight from the steel supplier. This also had other benefits such as removing the need for detailed drawings to be produced as the cutters could use an IGS file exported straight from the 3D model to create a normalised cutting path.
As already mentioned the tubes already had a level of self alignment. However to further improve this on the load bearing wishbones a folded sheet steel support plate, manufactured on a CNC press-brake, was used. This helped set the angle which the wishbone structure was set at. Other methods were used to improve the ease of manufacture such as the use of tabs and oval slots. This helped mistake proof the position of where the spring & damper mounted to the wishbone. A position which has a significant effect of the vehicle dynamics and handling. Further improvements could be made to tab and slot the wishbone tubes, making them fully self-jigging.