Advantage to six wheel drive?

[Jared Russell]

Originally Posted by Hawiian Cadder

Another advantage to dead axles is that they can be tubes, while live axles in the .5 inch range would be very difficult to make hollow. I think a lot of people think that live axles allow for better reliability, because the forces acting on a dead axle are always in the same orientation, they are more likely to fail due to fatigue, or bend (depending on the application).

Try as I might, I cannot understand the logic here. An axle bears the same load whether it is live or dead. I have never seen a drive axle in FRC bend due to fatigue (violent shock loads are almost always the culprit, and live vs. dead makes no difference here). If your axle is fatiguing, it is woefully undersized (and/or a poor choice of material).