Tyrone,
I was pretty sure I understood what you were getting at. My comments was aimed more at someone that maybe didn't and would take it as gospel for all situations.
You're right about the impact energy absorbing crush cells or zones built in to the chassis. It's the ability to mitigate the impact energy through design by manipulating shear forces that tensile forces don't as easily offer that make it all possible. From the best I understand, manipulating tensile forces isn't necessarily a non-starter. It can sometimes be accomplished through manipulating movement and time instead of incremental crush but with a size and weight trade off so circumstances will dictate use.
I mostly worked with suspensions and the relationship between the CoM and CoW for traction and control. What little I know about composites is all second hand information. At first it was all about weight. Ounce for ounce or gram for gram, composites are stronger than most metals. There are people that will argue this over what are called exotic metals but they don't really matter because except for very rare circumstances they are outlawed in most racing. Some racing allows them in the open classes but that's mostly because things like jet engines are full of exotic metals.
EDIT: I meant to put this in, CoW is CoG. Because handling characteristics are determined by weight transfer through sprung and un-sprung weight in the suspension and chassis using the word "weight" was more universal in my work and understood wherever you're at. When you enter your career in composites and design you will run in to a lot universal and regional vocabularies that you'll be required to learn. A good example is with the definition of torque. In North America and Great Brittan\Western Europe to the physicist torque is a rotating force in one form or another. To the engineer and mathematician that's a "moment," and torque is defined by as the amount of change between moments. When you start dealing with vibration and harmonics with composites this will make a big difference if your work is for someone in India for example. There, they like and use the physicist's definition. Don't get your name attached to someone's "Hubble Telescope." 95 out of 100 people you will work are deathly afraid of mistakes and will take advantage of any opportunity to scapegoat anyone to avoid owning a mistake. If you use an absolute make darn sure it's an absolute and you can back it up. Just some friendly advice.
Things have changed a lot since composites were first used and there are so many types of materials in use now along with the different processes in use for fabricating with composites I imagine you're in for a fun ride becoming educated about them. An autoclave isn't even necessary with some of the materials now. I can only imagine it's to the point where an engineer has be highly specialized to fully understand the needed equations, factors and charts of plug in numbers to competently design with composites today. There was a time when some referred to those that matched tires and suspension setup to conditions as wizards. It felt good but I think we've taken a backseat to you composite guys for the moniker.
The falling out of the sky. Probably shouldn't have said that and there's not much I can share. In 1981 I was TAD to the UN from NATO as an observer in the Middle East. You'll have to use your imagination about what happened and why, which will probably be a better story anyway, but I was in a helicopter that crashed. Kind of "in it" anyway. I was at the door and somewhere around what I imagined to be between 60 and 40 feet I jumped out. I saw the slope of a hill I could make to get me away from the crash and I went for it. I was later told it was estimated I was closer to 100 feet than 60 to get where I did. I still don't think I was that high. What I do know is I had over 400 jumps, mostly recreational, and I still don't know where I got the balls to do it. I've known a lot of people that wouldn't think twice but that's not me. The next thing I remember was waking up 3 days later in Germany where I spent the next 5 months. That's the story I can tell.
Let me say this though, I have no desire to offend anyone but saying "thank you for your service," has become a verbal flippant reaction that most of us prefer not to hear it. From those that actually think and feel it, it's known without being said and you're welcome.
