I have gotten interested in this topic of composite chassis. Does anyone know of a book or monographs on car chassis construction from reinforced composites? There must be some kind of tech literature on this but I haven't found much. Maybe I'm not looking in the right place.
The Mark 4 chassis were also oven-baked, which makes me wonder if the adnesives used were indeed epoxies. They don't require baking to cure, and are not particularly heat-stable. But they will bond to aluminum; some of the proprietary systems even have bonding promoters available specifically for aluminum bonding.
It would be possible to build an entire chassis riveted and bonded with polyurethane adnesives, from aluminum. Would it be possible to build an entire chassis from fiberglass, or Kevlar, or CF, using epoxy or vinylester resin? There would have to be metal at points where you encountered certain types of stress; heat, for one, and very high local loads which might crack or break FRP components.
Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't the early Chaparrals use FRP chassis? I don't know how they mounted the engine, drive train, and suspension pieces. The composite technology available now is better than what they had; but they were competitive and won races as well.
Well, I will look around some more and if anyone comes up with anything, could they post it?