I have been designing my next bike using Solidworks. I have done a few test designs on girder front ends. I tested 2 designs to see the strength comparison to the two.
I like this design the most each leg should weigh about 9.8lbs. The simulation is short but it shows a static load of 550 lbs pushed to the ultimate point. With a safety factor of 1.98 calculated this should withstand 1000lbs+.
This is a tried and true design that you see most often on a girder style front end. With the same load this safety factor was only 1.57, and will hold about 870lbs.
The Idea is to cut this out of 3/8 solid plate. Either using my CNC plasma, or just cut the shape out with the plasma, and then do the insides by hand....
I drew this up to simulate 1" DOM with .120 wall. Simple but it gave me a great idea of what the other design will hold.
This is what I have so far. I posted another mock up a while bike. You may notice the bike is shorter in the rear, more rake in the front, and obviously the new front end and some color scheme that I think I will go with. I just need to do handle bars.
