hey all, im a new one to this site! im a student of product design engineering at the university of glasgow in scotland and im currently trying to write a report for one of my subjects, design. we have to discuss in detail about the reliability testing, etc of a motor powered vehicle, but im finding it impossible to find out anything about factors of safety or any information about reliability testing whatsoever. i came across your site and was wondering if anyone could point me in the direction of this kind of information? reeeeally hope to hear from you soon folks and thanks for your time!! KF

I have heard that automotive suspension engineers will follow the 3-2-1 one rule for initial design. This means they will design their parts for 3g bump, 2g lateral, and 1g longitudinal. However, this is only initial design. I am sure their final FOS will be based off of a lot of fatigue testing (computational and physical).

Try searching sae.org for their technical papers. There may be good papers on this subject.

-Mark
Cal Poly Pomona