EL or EI in monocoque rules

[Wes Burk]

For anyone putting an SEF through for a Carbon Fiber Monocoque, we are starting design of a future car and are considering it. Looking at rule B3.27, "the El of the monocoque must be calculated as the EL of a flat panel," what is El or EL? It seems like it should be EI, modulus of elsaticity x moment of inertia, but they use the letter L? Feels like I'm either missing something obvious or they had a typo? Haven't seen anything about it on here or the FAQ's. I've asked an aerospace composites professor and he was stumped too so if someone could clarify what it is they are asking for that would be great. Thanks.

[Wes Burk]

For anyone putting an SEF through for a Carbon Fiber Monocoque, we are starting design of a future car and are considering it. Looking at rule B3.27, "the El of the monocoque must be calculated as the EL of a flat panel," what is El or EL? It seems like it should be EI, modulus of elsaticity x moment of inertia, but they use the letter L? Feels like I'm either missing something obvious or they had a typo? Haven't seen anything about it on here or the FAQ's. I've asked an aerospace composites professor and he was stumped too so if someone could clarify what it is they are asking for that would be great. Thanks.

[Adambomb]

At the risk of sounding obvious...

Have you emailed the official rules committee? They could not only give you an official answer, but if there were a typo they would be the ones who could correct it. Also, it might just become an FAQ, which could help future engineers with the same problem.

[D Collins Jr]

It's EI. If you write to the rules cmte, be prepared to wait about a month for a response.

Secondly, are you planning on running a monocoque this year? That (and the recent Salisbury post) seem pretty opposite of what I've come to expect from SUNY Buffalo FSAE...

[TorqueWrench]

Figure I will chime in on this. Our team is doing a rather broad initial design phase for our 2011 car right now. We are looking into a lot of options that we would never have considered before and evaluating the pros and cons. By broad, I mean everything a group of 15 people in a room could think of in 3 hours.

While I love our teams design philosophy in the past, the rules have been reworded. The intent of the competition is no longer to build a car for the weekend autocross racer, its to build a car that can win the FSAE competition. This has made us re-evaluate our team's position on a number of things. You can still expect a simple, stripped down car, but its going to have a bit more to it.

How much more will take these guys presenting numbers to the whole team next week and convincing the captains its a good idea.

[Wes Burk]

Yes we are considering all of our options, we still like simple solutions. I will send in a clarification, usually they have been good enough to get back to us in 2 weeks.

[TPeterson]

I have run into the same issue. I asked the rules committee and they informed me it is a font issue, and that they should all be EI.