The stainless steel body of Tesla's Cybertruck is reportedly leading to issues with gaps in between the panels
businessinsider.com
The stainless steel body of Tesla's Cybertruck is reportedly leading to issues with gaps in between the panels::The Cybertruck's steel is made in "coils that resemble giant rolls of toilet paper," WSJ reported.
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Watch what happens when people eventually discover what completely flat panels of sheet metal do in heavy wind.
There is literally a reason why no other auto manufacturer uses flat body panels on cars.
Just so I know, what does happen?
they get real flappy
And LOUD.
I assume the flat panels have an aerodynamic effect like the underbody of race cars. They ultimately create forces sucking the surface into a direction. And since on the sides it will be never stable it will flap around all the time. You can see that the most with the vertical fin stabilizer of Formula 1 cars. https://old.reddit.com/r/F1Technical/comments/nd2ayw/alpine_flexible_rearwing/
Here is a lot of wobbling and while the vertical changes are intended, the horizontal ones surely aren't and they tried to make it as stiff as possible. Certainly nothing a production car would achieve.
Correct me if I am wrong, as I didn't study this particular area.
Metal does not like to compress at all. But when you make it really thin it will be floppy like a spring you might find in a pen or wind up toy. However you can make it stiff again by making it curved so the sheet has structure/mass going on all directions. Infact believe it or not cars during the 1960/70s had quite a bit of curves dispute being a brick. And that's because they didn't want the panels to dent easily. So when a car has flat faces like the Cyber truck. Those panels don't even have subtle curves to give them structure and they are soo suspectable to dents that a simple brease does the job of denting them.