Brown Davis weld-in roll cages are built to the most stringent engineering and safety standards possible. With over 40 years of experience, the team at Brown Davis aim to build your safety cage to completely suit your needs.

No matter the class or category you compete in, tall, short or broad, we can design a cage to fit you in with minimal compromise.

A weld in cage, allows us to stiffen the body up more than a basic bolt in design, due to the option of more welding attachments into the shell. The benefit being not only safety, but a car that is more repairable after an accident and Suspension setups that can be optimized with far more speed and reliability.

All of our Brown Davis weld in roll cages are built to meet C.A.M.S requirements and come with required registration papers supplied.

Roll Cage tube material and specification

The CAMS/FIA regulations stipulate exactly what material specifications are required to be used in the construction of a Roll Cage for motorsport use. There are two main options available, and largely depend on your budget and individual needs.

Cold Drawn Seamless (CDS) high tensile steel tube (350MPa): The most commonly used material for Roll Cage use, offering a great affordable ROPS solution. The design of a ROPS with this material only needs to comply with the standard design principles as published in the CAMS regulations (Schedule J), to be eligible for registration needed for Australian competition use.

Cromoly (650MPa): The more exotic of materials, with a great benefit in the weight department, being significantly lighter than other materials due to higher yield strengths allowing the use of thinner wall thickness. However, this material is harder to work with and requires more time in the fabrication process. It is also the more expensive option for a ROPS, with a higher material cost, requiring a lot more intricate design to satisfy CAMS/FIA regulations. Cromoly also requires a designated and independent ROPS specialist engineer to assess and sign off the design before CAMS registration can be given. This additional engineering consultation is not cheap and adds to the overall cost of installation.

Roll Cage design and Finite Element Analysis (FEA)

Finite Element Analysis (FEA) offers a detailed visualisation of where ROPS structures bend or twist, indicating the distribution of stress. This allows designs to be created, optimised and finalised in 3D before the design is manufactured. FEA in ROPS creation has become a very useful tool, with its ability to allow insight into real world outcomes prior to destructive testing of actual prototypes. The resulting stress and deformation can be measured for simulated rollover loads from nearly any axis, and therefore each component of the structure can be re-designed or modified accordingly, until an effective computer model meets the load levels Brown Davis Automotive or CAMS deem acceptable.

Brown Davis incorporates both physical (destructive testing), as well as computer based analysis. Physical testing is carried out to confirm FEA results and substantiate the computer model. Complex motorsport ROPS produced by Brown Davis Automotive have been compared against FEA models and revealed a result within 5% (FIA approval cannot be issued without such FEA proof for ROPS in motorsport).

It is this combination of critical data that enables very efficient progress of each design, and ultimately produces a superior product, providing the maximum roll over protection achievable. Furthermore, for Brown Davis to be able to obtain the necessary documentation and engineering checks required to comply with CAMS/FIA specification, such FEA models are required for approval.