FORMULA STYLE CAR DESIGN

This has been an experience of lifetime, which I am sharing with all!
I have been a great formula1 fan since 2009. I started following f1 after the 2009 Singaporean grand prix. Though I did not watch every race I was still quite interested in f1. I started following all the races and all the sessions of every formula 1 race since 2011. India held its first grand prix and I went to watch it. The event cemented my love for racing and formula 1. Unfortunately f1 hasn’t gained a strong foothold in India and it’s not too popular with the masses.
I was always interested in formula one design and read a lot of articles initially to learn about the complexities of designing the most performance oriented vehicles on the planet.
It came as a great surprise to me when I found out that there was a summer course on formula design in India.


I was very excited about the course and wanted to join it, but, I found out that it was for engineering students. Later when I talked to the concerned people, they were happy with my knowledge of the subject and informed me that I could join the course.
                                 I was on cloud nine! I enrolled for the course and couldn’t wait for it to get started. And start it did, in a while. When I got there it was an absolutely amazing place. On the first day we got there we were introduced to the formula car, and the differences with normal road cars. 


The design philosophy of an F1 car is performance oriented, no room for luxury or error. A F1 engine is not meant for mileage or longetivity, its job is to provide the maximum power at all times at all costs even if it is destroying itself gradually in the process.


The next day with our minds performance oriented we started learning the design software CATIA. We learned the basic tools of CATIA. 
Then we learned about suspension design and suspension geometry. We proceeded through the suspension design by iterating and reiterating. Then we designed our suspension on CATIA after learning how to do so.


 With our suspension designed we learnt about mathematical modelling and designed the chassis around our suspension. Then we used software called ANSYS to find out stress and strain and deformation in chassis. We used for every part we designed e.g. Differential Flange, Wishbones etc.



            We also tested our car on various software for aerodynamic efficiency. Next we used an already built CBR 600 RR engine on our car. It is a 600 cc engine who’s ECU we tuned to add performance and we also increased the stroke of the engine without it knocking. All in all we added a lot of horsepower to the engine which revved freely till 15,000 rpm.

 In the process we learnt a lot about engines, we also designed our own cooling system whose radiators we installed in the sidepods. We installed the stock CBR 600’s gearbox and mated it with the engine. Next we studied about the various electronic circuits in the car. 

 After gaining knowledge we designed our own electronics systems. Simultaneously, we also designed the brakes for the car and devised a system to change the braking bias of the car keeping in mind the mechanics of the lever.


We brought everything together on the chassis, installed the engine and the gearbox, and wired the electronics mounted our brakes along with the suspension. 


The final product was the car that we made and were so proud of. 


I was happy our team could finish the car on such a tight deadline and I was proud of myself that I could design a car with other engineering students and could do all the things they did.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

HAN Eco Marathon

Image
The HAN Eco marathon is a student event organized by the HAN University of Applied Sciences. The objective of the event is to design and produce a car that can travel the furthest distance for each gram of CO2 produced. The powertrains allowed were combustion engines and electric drivelines. The car is supposed to be designed under certain rules which exist for the safety of the drivers, spectators and the engineers making the vehicles. The teams have a limited budget of 1000 euros and all the teams are allowed one testing day at the circuit and the main event took place at the Lelystad circuit in the Netherlands. Maximizing efficiency was the objective of our team we had to have the largest distance travelled per gram of CO2 expelled. The team made the choice to use an electric driveline due to the higher efficiency of the electric motors as compared to combustion engines. The CO2 use for electric vehicles was calculated by seeing the energy consumed and then calculating ...
Read more

Work Experience with the HAN Formula Student (HFS) team

Image
In September 2015 I was selected in the HAN formula team which was the university team competing in Formula student races. Formula Student Germany 2016 was the HAN formula team ’ s first event for which we, as a team started preparing for in September 2015 even though the event was in August 2016. Since we were a new team preparing for our first event we naturally had to overcome lots of obstacles. We sourced a used engine from a Yamaha R6 which satisfied the 600-cc capacity rule that the engine is allowed. Similarly, we sourced a lot of components from our sponsors who were helpful and understanding. Since we are a first-year team, we did not have a great budget and the sponsors helped a lot and gave us the tools and resources to turn our ideas into reality. I joined the team as a steering engineer and we worked to research on different steering systems to choose for the car, eventually, after several choice table iterations, we decided on choosing rack and pinion steering ...
Read more

Building Chopper bicycle in year 2012

Image
INSPIRATION The inspiration to build the chopper bicycle came from a show on television called ‘American Chopper’. It’s based on a company called Orange County Choppers  ( http://www.orangecountychoppers.com ) which builds one-off custom motorcycles for their customers as they push the boundaries of creativity to incorporate amazing themes in the motorcycle. I really liked the idea of building a custom motorcycle since everything is personalized and you can have it the way you like it. I liked the way they stood out from the crowd and just how creative they were. When I built this cycle I wasn’t old enough to ride motorcycles. So I though why not customize a bicycle? I can still have a one-off custom bicycle and I can be creative with it. The output was as below…. But wait – see how it was made further down ! PROCESS At first I thought I would just customize my bicycle through a custom paintjob. But then I though I wouldn’t be able to express my crea...
Read more