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TBR14: uk’s fastest car
Newsletter July 2014 silverstone
Newsletter SILVERSTONE 2014: THURSDAY/FRIDAY TEAM BATH RACES THROUGH STATIC EVENTS 95 student race teams from 38 countries met at Silverstone, the week after the British GP, to showcase their latest prototype racecars, designed and built from scratch in 12 months. The rules of the competition are extremely open, to encourage innovation and creativity. This is something that students at the University of Bath have taken to the extreme this year. Producing a lightweight carbon fibre chassis coupled to an Aprilia 550cc V-Twin engine, they have created a car with the same power to weight ratio as an F3 car. The result after 4 days of hard fought competition was Bath’s best result for 5 years including a highlight of finishing 4th place in the main endurance race, chasing home the world #1, world #2 and a German team with a є1.3million custom Mercedes engine. To start the event the car must be
qualified as safe and within the regulations, therefore first the car is put through a thorough inspection, called scrutineering. Here the safety features of the car – brakes, steering, suspension, impact absorbent strucPROUD TBR14 ture, fuel tanks and seat belts – Photo Credit to Will Ramsay MEMBERS are checked against the 163 page rule book. Passing safety scrutineering quickly and trouble These are assessed by industry free early in the weekend, was a key experts, often alumni of Formula factor in TBR’s event running Student, who want to contribute to smoothly. This is testament to the this tremendous learning exercise. build quality and attention to detail Often they are on the lookout for paid during the 12 months building new recruits for their companies up to the event. too. After this the team competed in the Against 95 competitors, Bath static events, which are designed to scored an impressive haul of points, assess students engineering, cost from 4th place in cost analysis, 7th and business decisions throughout place in engineering design, and the project to demonstrate that the 6th place in the Dragon’s Den busicar they have produced is the best ness presentation. compromise between conflicting requirements and resources. Written by Tom Stevens
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July 2014
SILVERSTONE 2014: THURSDAY/FRIDAY TBR15 ON COURSE FOR FUTURE SUCCESS The car you see in the photos of this newsletter is the Class 1 entry, for complete cars which compete on track for overall honours. The IMechE also runs an event called Class 2 for ‘next year’s teams’ to demonstrate their designs in a paper based competition to best prepare for FS2015. It involves the design, cost and business presentations and is an excellent indicator of potential for future years. An ambitious and advanced design from TBR15 meant the team were confident of an impressive result against the 21 other high calibre teams competing. A strong finish of 4th place in the design presentation event was awarded. The concept presented was a switch to a single cylinder engine with a turbocharger running on ethanol fuel coupled to an all composite chassis. In the Business presentation, delivered by Toby Davies and Jack
Carroll, a business idea centralized on expansion to Europe was rewarded with 2nd place, with judges feedback indicating that it was on par with 1st place in all but one small area. This bodes well for an TBR15 WIN excellent result in the COSTING 2015 competition. The final Class 2 event was the Cost and Sustainability presentation, where TBR15 needed just 10 points more than the University of Eindhoven to clinch the title of overall winner. Presented by Tom Peirson-Smith and Ryan Marsh, and including a cost report by Peter Alton, the judges were extremely impressed with the work of TBR15, giving us 1st place for the event! Once all the scores were summated, the team finished a very creditable
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second overall, just 0.7 points out of 350 from victory. The team returned to the University with silverware for winning the costing event, along with some extremely positive feedback from the judges. TBR15 is now planning some final design improvements to ensure a successful trip to Silverstone, for Class 1 in 2015. Written by Tom Peirson-Smith
Newsletter
4th Costing 4th
tbr PIT
75/100 pts
business 6th
tbr14 PUSHED TO THE LIMITS
65.1/75 pts
design 7th 135/150 pts
7th O
acceleration 8th 37.6/75 pts skid pad 9th 35.6/50 pts
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July 2014
SKID-PAD PREPERATION endurance 4th 235.9/300 pts
Overall efficiency 11th
photo credit: will ramsay
63.7/100 pts
autocross 12th 84.4/150 pts
FINAL endurance time
Newsletter SILVERSTONE 2014: SATURDAY/SUNDAY MORE TO COME AFTER ENCOURAGING DYNAMIC EVENTS TBR competed in three dynamic events on Saturday: ‘Acceleration’ – a 75m drag race, ‘Skid Pad’ – a 15m diameter figure of 8 to assess steady state handling, and ‘Autocross’ - a 1km qualifying lap on a coned out circuit on the Silverstone track. A minimum of 4 drivers are required to compete across the weekend to demonstrate the cars adjustable ergonomic controls. Josh Wesley and Adam Phelps
were the drivers selected for the morning’s acceleration and skid pad events, both having racing experience with go karts and hill climb cars respectively. Adam scored TBR’s most competitive acceleration time of 4.166s, beating many powerful 4 cylinder cars to secure 8th. The main competition came from the 4WD electric cars, who can benefit from turning up their power, to the max permitted of 85KW, for a 3.5s short burst; something their batterMONASH’S NOVEL ies can’t sustain for the longer DRS SYSTEM track events. The skid pad event followed and Bath again achieved a top ten finish. A 5.134s average time to compete the 15m diameter circles was rewarded with 9th place, just 0.3 secs
THE POWER OF RELIABILITY After four days of blistering sunshine at Silverstone, Sunday began with an overcast sky. Work began early, with final checks and set up changes to be completed. Following driver feedback combined with data analysis from the sprint event it became apparent that TBR14 required some tinkering to inspire the drivers with the confidence to push to the limit. Understeer on corner entry and a soft ride appeared to be limiting their ability to drive the car on the front axle. Following this, the damper rates were increased and rear anti roll bar stiffened. The main endurance race involves a 22km timed run, with a pit stop and driver change at the mid point. Bath deployed their team of elite
off the winner, Monash University. Josh Wesley demonstrated the cars potential with a 4.977s time which would have put Bath 5th, however clipping a cone incurred a small penalty. This bodes well for future events in Germany and Austria where TBR can unlock the true pace of the car. The 169.5kg car from Bath was performing well, as TBR prepared for the afternoon Auto-cross event. Here Alex Summers and Dave Turton (both experienced TBR drivers) took it in turns to set fastest laps on the 1km dry circuit. The overall best time was good enough for 13th place, which although below our expectations, qualified Bath for the afternoon session of endurance race on Sunday, enough to put us out of reach of the rain showers predicted for the morning. Written by Rob Ashburner
drivers with Alex Summers leadGermany and Australia did run ing the first stint and claiming quicker (world #1 and #2) , stealing the fastest lap of 1:04. At the mid the podium position from Bath way point, Dave Turton, took over however with a new team and a and continued the good run to new car, 4th place is a very credible bring the car home safely despite finish. Bath also scored the highest losing the front brake circuit due to points in the fuel efficiency event a fault. At this finish point, Bath had for any petrol powered car, showset the fastest time for this event. ing how we have balanced perforIt is important to take note here, mance with road car relevant chalthat finishing the main race is an lenges of fuel economy. achievement in itself. Last year 38 out of 56 starters did not achieve Written by Ryan Marsh this. Credit must be given to the technical design team of TBR for designing and executing a quick yet reliable challenger. Having achieved this as second nature, we now looked to see how our outright speed faired against our competiPhoto Credit to TBR14 PREPARES Gardner Photography tors. Later in the day some TO HEAD OUT strong competitors from
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July 2014
SILVERSTONE 2014: SATURDAY/SUNDAY TBR14: STILL THE FASTEST, STILL THE BEST After another successful year at Formula Student Silverstone, TBR14 was able to claim the title for the best performing UK car at the event. With an overall ranking of 7th at the competition, the car scored more Dynamic Event points than any other UK team, including close rivals Oxford Brookes and the University of Hertfordshire. Despite not winning any of the Dynamic Events outright, a high level of drivability coupled with a increased level of reliability, meant that Team Bath Racing was consistently in and around the top 10 for the Dynamic efficiency
endurance
autocross skid pad Acceleration
events. The particular highlight of the weekend was a very strong 4th place in the endurance event, as well as being the 3rd fastest comTBR14 FINISHING bustion car in a straight line. Photo Credit to Gardner Photography CONSISTENTLY All of these great results combined meant TBR14 finished award maximum points, Team Bath with 457.2/675 points for the Racing firmly believes that the Class dynamic events, more than any 1 Team and their car are capable of other UK team. The car even achieving the highest accolades at outscored last years winner ETH the next event. The team is targetZurich during the endurance event, ing to remain the UK’s fastest team, as well as beating Monash in the as well being the overall top UK straight line acceleration. Team, and finishing the weekend in With the UK event now in the past, the top 5. Team Bath Racing is The team now look forward to the preparing to take the German and Austrian competitions car to Germany, to where members from the 2015 further improve on this team will be shadowing the current result. With the valuateam at all events to further their ble lessons learnt from experience for next year. Team the weekend at SilverBath Racing would like to thank all stone, including the their sponsors past, present and optimum way to setup future. We hope you enjoy sharing the car and what the the journey (and silverware) with static event judges are us! looking for in order to Written by Tom Stevens
PROJECT MANAGER LEADING BY EXAMPLE The outstanding personal contribution made by Team Leader, Dave Turton, to the TBR14 campaign, was recognised by the IMechE when he was awarded the Craig Dawson Most Valuable Team Member Award at the Formula Student UK awards ceremony, out of 3000 students. This award, in memory of Craig, is made to a member of a team who has gone far beyond the
call of duty and contributed most to driving their team forward. Everyone at Team Bath Racing was delighted that Dave's huge efforts across all areas of the team's operations were recognised and acknowledged by this very prestigious award. It would be hard to imagine a more worthy recipient in any team. Written by Dr Kevin Robinson
DAVE COLLECTS HIS AWARD
Newsletter
July 2014
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