DUT Racing Formula Student Team Delft Newsletter
March
Formula Student Team Delft Newsletter March 2014
dear reader, Welcome to the slightly late version of the March newsletter! The team and its cars has been all over Holland for different fairs, and we even went to Germany for CEBIT! Here at the workshop, aluminium has been machined, carbon has been laid, and foam has been “CNC’d” for the production of the DUT14! Read on for an update on our SKF excursion, rim production, and electronics news! Regards, The DUT14 team
Formula Student Team Delft Newsletter March 2014
Team Update
This month the team attended a lot of fairs. We went to Speed & Action in Gorinchem, to CEBIT in Hannover, the DUT11 was present at ESEF 2014 together with ODS, our raw material sponsor, the DUT13 was present at the Technishow 2014 together with Jeveka and the DUT12 attended the National Careerday at the Amsterdam Rai with Sogeti. In other words a lot of possibilities to present ourselves. Furthermore we went on an excursion with the whole team to SKF at their Benelux headquarters in Nieuwegein, more on that later on in this newsletter, and Henkel came by to give our team members a detailed glue training which will help us during our assembly phase.
Aerodynamics: Our aerodynamics department has finished the moulds for all the wings and sent the drawings to Mouldcam who will mill all the elements. At the moment they are still running some fluid calculations and are preparing for production.
Chassis: The monocoque is almost finished! The first layers of the laminate are laid together with the core and all the inserts. The monocoque is not the only object being produced using carbon: the steering wheel was just finished, weighing in at a mere 60 grams!
Formula Student Team Delft Newsletter March 2014
Powertrain: The powertrain department has a lot of parts in production at the moment. The uprights are in production, all the gears and the accumulator casings. Furthermore the motor shafts finished production.
Electronics: The electronics department tested the first iteration of all the PCBA’s and used these results to design a second iteration with the welcome advice given by Sogeti High Tech. This second iteration was sent to the manufacturers V-PS and tbp electronics last week.
Vehicle Dynamics: The first compound test tires of Apollo have been produced and were tested last week during the first two big tire testing days. Three different compounds were compared to the Hoosier LC0 in our indoor test area at the Greenery in Breda. Many thanks to those guys letting us test until late into the night!
Formula Student Team Delft Newsletter March 2014
Rim production
We all know the tire dimensions have radically changed this year, but what often is not understood, is that the width of the tires changed along. Here, you can see an old 6-inch-wide (18-inch diameter, the standard Hoosier dimensions) rim on the right, and a brand-new, custmom, 8.5-inch rim on the left.
So how does one produce such a rim? As you can see on the left, we have an aluminium mould in which the carbon fiber is placed. The rim consists of two parts, so we have two moulds. The process is more straightforward than the production of the monocoque, but it is just as tricky to get right: too little release agent or resin will stop the rim from coming loose, so it’s all about getting the right amount to the right place!
As we speak, Maarten, our rimexpert, is sitting downstairs, working hard on producing the next rims. With a production rate of 2 rims every week, he and his buddy will be busy for the coming 6 weeks to create the 3 sets that will be used at the competitions!
Formula Student Team Delft Newsletter March 2014
SKF Excursion On the morning of the 3rd of March, we were picked up by a special SKF bus for our team, to leave for the SKF R&D centre in Nieuwegein, starting our awesome SKF excursion. After 50 minutes of driving, we arrived the SKF technology park in Nieuwegein. The area is not like a factory, but really looks like a park, full of green. To give us a taste, we were shown the sustainable concept from SKF: BEYONDZERO. Then we were given a brief introduction about the company, and we gave SKF a brief introduction about us. What surprised us a lot was that SKF people are so familiar with Formula Student that they actually asked us to skip the intro about the Formula Student competition. Of course they know, they have been the specialists in the racing industry for more than 60 years (65 years ago they began to sponsor Scuderia Ferrari until now). After the introductory session, SKF took us around their R&D workshop, we saw how they implement sensing technology into bearing designs, how they test their products, how they develop their own analyzing application softwares, how they communicate with other
SKF branch company in the world effectively, etcetera. In the afternoon, after a delicious lunch with hot food in the SKF staff cafe, we attended an interactive session with SKF designers which was about how to modify a car suspension system to gain a lightweight design, you’re right, lightweight! No doubt that our teammembers came up with dozens of creative ideas about losing mass while preserving performance. With an informal but also great drink at the SKF staff cafe, we concluded the excursion, and everybody really enjoyed this unforgettable experience. Thank you SKF!
Formula Student Team Delft Newsletter March 2014
Electro Testing Usually, electronics is the bane of an electric car. It is sometimes so hard to predict how it works, one might seriously start to wonder if they just discovered a new quantumtheory, or if it is just the connection that is a tad loose. So why is Marinus, our Chief Electronics, looking so happy in that picture? Turns out there are a few reasons, besides the excitement of knowing that there are new challenges ahead!
putting it to the test. Now, we have reached the tipping point of the balance, and it is time to test!
Testing, testing and more testing. This is the point at which we will find out whether our design and mapping choices used the right assumptions (regarding interference for example). It is no more a question of assumptions and research, it is now time to fill the boards up with electrons and see what happens. So far, it is going very well: we found a few mistakes which we were able to fix and prove to be working. This week, the final design Before we start, it is important to understand of the PCB’s will be sent back to our printer and the process of designing the electronics of a car like producer (VP-S and tbp B.V. respectively). Within the DUT14: there is a certain balance to be found. two weeks, they will have produced our second The two elements on this balance are designing on iteration and the testing process will start again. one hand: the more you spend time on the design, the more mistakes you discover and remove, before Wiring harness. Meanwhile, the boys from the you spend the capital to print the board. However, wiring harness, Tom & Tom, are finishing up their last after a while, finding mistakes becomes really drawings in CATIA. They will then start preparation difficult, and it is better to test the board. On the of the wiring harness assembly outside of the car other hand, there’s testing: you could just make a (the so-called “electronics dummy”) to be able to basic design, have it printed, test it, and start the start testing the wiring harness without needing the cycle over, but this would take very long if the initial car. This makes their task easier for several reasons: design is too rough and full of mistakes, which could everything can be checked to see if it fits and have been easily spotted during design. This is the accessibility is far better when still outside of the car. balance that we mean: between designing, and
Formula Student Team Delft Newsletter March 2014
Thanks for reading!
Formula Student Team Delft Newsletter March 2014
Faculties: Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Industrial Design Applied Sciences Technology, Policy and Management Aerospace Engineering
Formula Student Team Delft Newsletter March 2014
a d va n c e d
lightweight engineering
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