That's a 'school boy howler'.
What you were told all those years ago was that the hollow axle was stiffer than the solid one ........ when when compared to the MASS. I.e., Kg for Kg, the hollow axle IS stiffer..... but when you simply forget the weight, the SOLID axle is stiffer! If that wasn't the case..... it would be better to make an axle out of hundreds of wafer thin concentric tubes, each inserted one inside the other so it would have all the 'extra' stiffness of all those 'hollow' axles.......
However, if the inner wall could be 'hardened' in a way that would make it stiffer (not easy to do!), then a hollow axle MIGHT be stiffer.
What really amazes me is the insistence by metallurgist on this site that ALL types of steel have extremely SIMILAR 'stiffness' and that the claimed significant stiffness of one type of steel over another is karting HYPE!
Ian
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