Need ideas for a school project...

[Civicman86]

So I'm taking a modleing and stress analysis class at school. We have to model a current item and redesign it to make it stronger and also try to keep it as light if not lighter than before. Once we model this part we get to fabricated the part using this prototyping machine that turns this powder into a hard plastic type material with a laser. Its pretty cool ****.

Anyways I need a part that would be good to model. I'd like to do something car related but all ideas are welcome.

I'd really like to have a part that really could be redesigned and maybe I could even produce the part.

[Setec Astronomy]

Any existing part will likely have been "optimized" already so I'm not sure how you're going to improve upon that, or am I misunderstanding you? You're supposed to take an existing real-world part, digitize or model it, stress analyze it, then improve it?

[2002 Z06]

my head hurts....lol....I need a better break down like Setec said

[Civicman86]

Basically you take a part and make it stronger. It does not necessarily mean that the part in the world now is not good. For example you can say stock rods from any car work very well until someone like me wants 3x the horsepower. So rods are machined to be stronger and lighter. Now anyone can do the rod thing so I'm looking for something else that might be more fun.

Some other examples are:

Shift forks re-design on my civic (they break alot with high horsepower)
Lower Control Arm design, strengthen and lighten


Here is a link to one someone else did a few semesters ago...

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Some of those aren't making things "better" but I would like to learn something from this. Maybe make a part that someone might want to use. That and I want something cool to prototype.

[MotorCity]

get a shock or strut rod and see what kind of damping force loads it can/will see before the rod bends and snaps... go from there???

I may be able to get you one if needed