TBR Newsletter: February 2015

Manufacture of TBR15 Begins

NEWSLETTER february 2015

Newsletter TRANSPOWER JOIN TBR Team Bath Racing are pleased to announce a new partnership with Transpower Applications Ltd, joining TBR for the first time. Transpower have provided the team with financial support for 2015, enabling us to purchase a brand new differential from Drexler Motorsports. This differential, designed specifically for Formula Student, will provide the team with maximum torque distribution control at the rear wheels, and marks a major step forward for Team Bath Racing, who are now able to have two running cars.

With the existing Drexler differential remaining on TBR’s 2014 car, benchmarking can be carried out on the new 2015 car, giving the team a direct indication of the performance improvements between 2014 and 2015.

This can be anything from comparisons of straight line acceleration speed, to the transient performance and handling of the new car, allowing for setup refinement before summer competitions.

The team would like to thank Transpower Applications Ltd for their support and look forward to having two running cars at the end of 2015 - a first Basingstoke to start the manufacture of the rear spaceframe of the 2015 car.

Andy kindly offers his time, expertise and resources every year for the team to build a full spaceframe, or since the introduction of a carbon-fibre monocoque, the rear spaceframe. After some design tweaks at the start of the week, with double and triple checking of the Formula Student rule book, a more simplistic design was settled on.

With every machine thinkable at their disposal, the team were able to quickly get the rear spaceframe together in a custom made MDF jig. All the bracing and supports were

THE REAR SPACEFRAME TAKES SHAPE The first week after exams saw two team members head to Andy Robinson Race Cars near

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Written by Tom Stevens then cut to length and notched as required, before the assembly was TIG welded up by expert welder Dave.

The result is a stiff and strong rear frame that will give good torsional rigidity and excellent access to the engine compartment.

The final engine mounts and suspensions pickup points will be added to the frame back in the TBR workshop. Team Bath Racing would like to thank Andy Robinson Race Cars for his commitment to the team throughout his 10+ years of sponsorship and for providing us with the means to fabricate our spaceframe.

Written by Mike Graham

February 2015 NEW SUPPORT FOR TBR15 Team Bath Racing would like to thank new sponsor Loctite for their support of the team in 2015. The provision of adhesives and release agent/sealer will be used for the manufacture of our carbon fibre monocoque, as well as joining many of our components to the car.

Loctite’s products are of the

highest quality and the team is extremely grateful for their contribution to TBR in 2015.

We are also really excited to annouce Kistler as partners with Team Bath Racing for 2015.

Kistler are a manufacturer of sensors and measurement systems and have supported us with a brand new in-cylinder pressure transducer for our KTM. This will allow us to understand and refine the combustion events, as well as allowing us to make full use of our new fuel, E85!

We are now in the middle of our powertrain testing first year up to final year were able to take part in the mould layup, promoting teamwork and knowledge transfer of these high performance materials.

With the completion of the mould layup, the manufacture of the monocoque could then begin. The team made a start on the first skin of the upper half, resulting in a 12 hour layup process. The next few weeks will comprise laying up the first skin of the bottom half and adding aluminium honeycomb as core material.

We would like to thank Cytec Industries for their support and supply of surface and tooling carbon fibre, as well as

MONOCOQUE MANUFACTURE BEGINS After a successful implementation in 2014, Team Bath Racing will again produce a carbon fibre monocoque for the 2015 season.

After revising the monocoque shape to conform to the new set of regulations, the existing pattern was modified and manufacture of the moulds was under way. The mould laminate consisted of 10 plies (a mix of surface and tooling carbon fibre) layed up quasi-isotropic to ensure optimum rigidity in all directions.

Due to the amount of layers needed and the time intensive process, team members from

schedule and hope to update you all as it draws to a close.

Written by Tom Peirson-Smith the extreme high performance carbon fibre for our 2015 monocoque.

Written by Kevin Johnson

Newsletter

February 2015

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