Quote:
Originally Posted by melvin
I just can't understand what would make the engineers change the angle of the B-Pillar. Would it really be any less functional to have it flow with the angle of the door. Maybe they have a reason for it, but to me it just looks like it got overlooked. Oh well...it's not gonna stop me from getting one. Everything else looks great.  |
The further the piece leans, the more stress is introduced into the structure. When the load is not vertical, it exerts a torque around the lower pivot point. Try holding a baseball bat at 30 degrees off vertical vs straight up. It takes a whole lot more force to keep it in place when its angled. The same hold true for the pillars on cars. This means that the same sized pillar won't support the same weight resulting in the need for reinforcement. Unless you can triangulate the braces like a roll cage, its better to keep loads linear.