Hi Everyone,
Long time lurker and first time poster! I am in the process of designing and building my first teardrop trailer and I am pretty torn on going with aluminium or steel for the chassis. A lot of weight savings comes with the aluminium, but I am a little concerned with stress fractures originating at the welds over time. Having a bunch of stuff bolted together just seems like to many points of failure for me. I don't think flexion in the frame will be a problem as the cabin bolted to the frame provides a lot of resistance to bending.
I do have access to skilled welders who would build the aluminium or steel chassis for me, but they are not designers and do not have experience with lower weight vehicles. Anyone with an aluminium trailer chassis care to comment on how it has performed? and more interestingly, how it is built? My trailer design sits 146" tongue to tail. The camper itself is 107" long and 62.5" wide.
The other big perk of going with aluminium is not having to do any surface finishing of the frame. With mild steel I would need to get it powder coated. For this reason to me there both come in at roughly the same cost.
Any documents that I could reference would be greatly appreciated in designing this. I really seem to be stuck at this point as all resources I have found are for much heavier duty trailers.
Thanks!