Bodywork strength

[kingtut]

Hey all,

I'm looking at mounting a wind generator to the side of my (when I buy it in the future) Cali. Basically I'm thinking I can rig up scaffolding poles, resting on the ground, with a couple of anchor points mounted on the vehicle. The generator/poles wouldn't be permanent, but the mounting would be.

My thinking is I could silka a 50x1cm long strip of metal to the bodywork just above the window on the non-sliding-door side, and another down near knee height - the actual poles etc would be attached to these via ball lock pins, so the permanently mounted additions will only stick out around an inch and so won't be a hazard when driving. There will of course be dampening rubber mounts etc.

The silkaflex is strong enough to hold everything to the bodywork - it has a tensile strength of around 1.8N/mm2, so would have around 9kN of strength. What I'm worried about is whether the force of the wind on the wind generator, mounted some 2.5m above the vehicle, would pull the bodywork off the vehicle itself.

Anybody have any thoughts? I can always go free-standing with guy ropes, but that'll be slower to set up.

Ian

 

[kingtut]

Alternately, how strong is the awning rail on the non-door side? If I used a load of (for example) Fiamma Locking Bullets (or similar) and anchored to them, how strong is the rail? From my calculations I need around 500N (i.e. equiv to 50kg of mass under gravity) but am working off 2kN as a minimum safe target.

Ian