FEA is Awesome

Hey guys, just a quick post for now.
I wanted to show you something about FEA that I think is just great. The whole idea of FEA or FEM is awesome, any engineer that has used a good program and gotten good results would probably agree with me.

Well SolidWorks has this new FEA and analysis addon that I have been poking around with. Check out this picture. This is the suspension chocolate block that I was talking about a few posts ago. I actually did this a while ago with the intension of posting here. So as you can see there is a factor of safety of 2 for the piece in the way that I had loaded it. The actual loading would not be in this direction, but I generally check all cases and this one was interesting. I then decided to weld a end cap on the two ends there to help with the factor of safety, and look what I got. The factor of safety is now 1.8 for this piece. I would have not guessed that it would lower with more support. Because I was able to analyze this before actually building it, I was able to avoid the posibility of lowering the strength of my suspension.

So I hope you can see why I am a huge fan of FEA/FEM and general order of magnitude. I think Jersey Tom talked about being a fan of ROM (Rough Order of Magnitude) in one of his last posts. Well Jersey Tom, I totally agree with you.
Now that's about all I have, just wanted to share something cool with those readers out there.
I'll see ya when I see ya.

Update

Hey guys! So to be honest, I really have no idea how many people are reading this at this point, or if there is any one at all. But I am ok with that and am sure that within due time...

So how about an update? Sure.
I am back up at school and am quite busy, but it seems that almost every weekend I put in a few hours or so. I like to think of work and projects like an engine, the harder you work (the higher quality of fuel you put into the engine), the more 'work' (haha get it? Yeah I am an engineer, so what?) you get out. And getting tools, like a new computer, a better CAD or CDF package, or new calculator, is like building a better engine, adding nitrous, or boost or something.
ANYWAY, yes I am quite busy but am getting somewhere. I have been doing a lot of work on the rear setup and drive train equipment. This picture here is the rear assembly that I have been working on. Its still in progress, but the basic idea and most of the details are there. The idea is to mount the suspension, single rear brake, and most of the drive train all in one housing. The box is made from 5 major pieces with some bracing here and there. Recently I have done some FEA on the box to see what kind of numbers I can work with. Luckily most of the results have been positive, with the lowest factor of safety around 15. I have not done all the tests I want to, and those were all rather quick (20 min max). I want to bump it up and actually simulate some of the hardware and fasteners needed to hold the thing together and see if I get similar numbers.

Since I don't have much in terms of suspension geometry, this could all be for nothing in the end if I am not pleased with the product. I tried to make this as flexible as possible for when that day comes, but there is always a chance I missed something. We shall see.

Well I wanted to make an update, but keep it short, so I think I will end it here. Have a good one.

One Step Backwards, Two Forward

Welcome to the new year. I am excited for 2010, for this is the year I graduate and I'm sure a lot of other good things will come.

I feel like I need to take a step backwards before I continue. It seems like I maybe getting ahead of my self. For those of you who know what F1000 or FSAE is all about, you can probably pick up on this stuff quickly. For those of you who are not all that familiar with them, this post should really help you out.

I figured I would go through and talk about the "Big Picture". The overview of the car, what I want to get done, that kind of stuff. So lets get crackin'.

Over all car
I want to build a car that meets F1000 racing rules and is allowed to complete. The car needs to be within all specifications and meet all restrictions. Also, the minimum weight for the car is 1000 lbs, I would like to be within 100 lbs of that. What else can I say here... oh yes the color, Bullitt Green.

Frame or Chassis
Since this is my strong point I can say a bit about this frame. I want a frame that is as light as possible and as strong as possible. It needs to fit me and the motor I am thinking about using. Also I want to use a type of modular suspension mounting system that is commonly referred to as a 'chocolate block'. If you check out this picture, notice the little block sticking out where the suspension mounts are. Those are often called 'chocolate blocks' and I used a similar idea for my chassis. If you were to look at one of the older posts and notice the square tubing in the fore section of the car, that is where these blocks will be mounted to. For some actual numbers, I would like the frame (with motor) to be about 2500 - 4000 lbs/degree for the torsional stiffness and a weight under 200 lbs. I do think I can get the weight under 100 lbs and the stiffness above 3500 lbs/degree, but a little room to breathe is always good.

Suspension
Now I know that suspension is one of the most complex parts of a race car right next to engine design, and I have no problem saying that I am still learning a lot about it. I can say that I will be using a double A-arm type suspension with 4 push rods and an anti roll bar. I need to start looking at some mountain bike springs and shocks and determine what is good for my application. Other than that, I know that I would like to tuck away the uprights in the tire and use streamlined tubing for as many of the members as possible. The rest I will have to learn as I go and see where the road takes me.

Engine
As for the power plant, a CBR1000rr is on my scope. At Clarkson we use a CBR600F4i and have had a lot of luck with it so I would like to use a similar motor. Now the rules say that the stock electronics and ECU need to be used, but it also says a piggy back fuel mapping system is allowed. I will definitely look into that. Just about everything else needs to remain stock, and so it shall.

Drive train
As for getting the power to the wheels, I would like to use a Torsen differential. Once again at Clarkson we have used one for many years and it has truly left a positive impression. I have done some MatLab work to determine my gearing ratio and some other things like distance from engine to differential ect. I also want an inbound break on the differential to help reduce my unsprung weight in the rear. It will be larger and I will have to do some duct work to help cool it off, but it seems worth the effort. Also I would like to construct a rear box from aluminum that not only holds the suspension, but the diff, shocks/springs, and rear brake.

Aerodynamics
Wings. The F1000 rules say that wings are needed, and even if they didn't, I would still like to use them. Also a under body diffuser is great too, you can reduce drag and increase down force, seems like a win-win here. I am also looking at a front and rear wing for increased down force. For the rear wing, I am going to look at mounting on either side of the wing, or a pedestal mount. After viewing some videos of F1000 cars in race, I see the wings vibrating furiously and being an aeronautical engineer I know that the vibrating is not helping with drag or down force. So I will construct a small trade study to test which will yield the best results.

And that's about all the basics for now. I hope that helps put a little more direction to this blog. And as always, more to come.

Lets Get Crackin

I say, I do enjoy the holiday season. I get to relax a little, see my buddies from my home town, and family time is always a good thing.

So as I said before, I have already started some design work. I have been mostly working on the chassis for that is one of the first things that needs attention. The frame of our FSAE car up at Clarkson is my speciality, for I have been doing research and a lot of reading on the subject, as well as plenty of school work. Since my major deals 99.89% of the time with aircraft, lightweight, strong, and complex airframes are not a foreign subject. While aircraft deal mostly with aluminum, there are some other differences between racing and flying, but few none the least. There are a few basics you need to remember for any frame and one is how the material is loaded. What I have tried to do here to the right is create a frame that uses the materials in tension and compression more often than bending. It is never possible to load every member in pure tension or compression, bending happens, you just need to know where and what to do about it.

So this is the front half of the frame I have so far. The suspension mounting points have not been actually calculated from a suspension analysis yet, so the front box may look a little wacky. Other than that, I am rather happy with this portion of the frame. I did a small sizing analysis involving a wall and a floor up at my dorm to see how much space I would need for the driver, pedals, helmet heights, and things like that. I used the FSAE 95th percentile male template as my basis and went from there. Basically the car is designed around me.

By using some of the rules from the FSAE booklet, I decided on many of the wall thicknesses for the roll hoops and around the driver area. Otherwise just my past experiences and knowledge from designing a FSAE frame lead me in that department. Now I have only seen a few bare F1000 chassis, but it looks like the main roll hoop does encompass the entire driver's profile, but not the entire car profile. The profile can be seen here in this picture, from Ralph Firman Racing. http://www.rfrcars.com/ This makes since for reducing the overall frontal area of the car, but makes me wonder about safety. Now they could have some other side members in place that take care of that issue, but once again, I have not seen very many bare F1000 frames.

Well I bet I could talk for another 10 pages about this frame. Maybe I'll put in a little more in the next post. Otherwise that's it. Adiós muchachos.

Cars and Going Fast

And hello. One thing I do want to talk about is where I get some of my inspiration and how. There are a few places, but the one I am most excited about would be a man by the name of Dick Fritz. Dick if you are reading this at any point, then my hat is off to you sir. Dick Fritz is a rather cool guy, he started out after college in the early '60s working with Chinetti Motors in New York, the first company to import Ferraris into the US. They were not a well known car manufacturer at this time and even his father thought they were crappy cars. Dick then went on to work with many of Ferrari's racing divisions and was part of their Formula 1 in '69. Besides Ferrari's he is credited for getting the McLaren F1 street legalized for use in the United States. He also tangoed with the Russian mob when they tried to sell him 2 cars, then scammed him and ran off. Not only did he get his money back, but he got the cars in the end as well. He is also considered a legend by Car and Driver magazine. Let me tell you, the man is quite interesting.

Now you maybe wondering why I'm talking about this Dick guy so much. Well it turns out he is a Clarkson University graduate and has come back to help out with our FSAE team. In the 3 or 4 hours that we conversed with him and showed him around our facilities, I learned a great deal. He left us a resume so we may look it over. There was one page with some brief history, then about 8 or 9 magazines that he was all mentioned in, along with some Ferrari manuals. Cool stuff.

My other location for a lot of my inspiration is the Internet. Doesn't sound to exciting, but I have learned a lot. Looking at other race cars, Formula SAE cars and Formula 1000 cars, has yielded me a great deal of ideas. Check this one out, its from Stohr Cars and is not an amazing photo, but does show quite a bit. http://www.stohrcars.com/f1000.php I do like their differential housing and suspension mounting 'box' that they use and will look into something like that for my car. I have many more pictures like this that have good information in them that I review from time to time to inspire my self and gather ideas.

Well that's about all I have for now. Have a good one.

Hello Once Again

Alright, so I just arrived home after finals and its nice to be able to relax for the next few weeks. Anyway, back to fast cars...


If you have not read the Formula 1000 rules, I would suggest taking a quick look. http://www.formula1000.com/
Interestingly enough they are only 6 pages long and are rather straight forward. There is a reference to this measurement figure on the right, that is part of another set of rules in the SCCA rule book. Some of the most important features are the size along with the engine restriction and weight. Other than that there is not a lot limiting a manufacturer or company to do what they want, which is really interesting.

Since I am not a large company, I am not really going to look at making a thousand of these cars or attempting to mass produce them. Castings and most forgings are something I am not going to pay attention to. Simple forgings like rings may be a good idea though. Also, the more machining I can do, the better, so I will try to stay away from designing parts that need to be milled on a 5 axis CNC. I don't want to spend a million dollars on a weekend racer, but I don't want to cut any corners. Materials like carbon fiber are great, but do I really need half of the car to be built from this stuff? I say no, but making a few things like the seat and a few smaller components may be well worth it. The rules do say that carbon can not be used as a body panel, or any other part 'licked' by the airstream.

Well, that's about it for now. I will start posting about what I have done so far soon and actually kick this blog into high gear. Have a good one.

And So It Begins

Well, here I am, I now have a Blog. Blog Blog Blog, blogoshpere, interblog, blargonet, blog.

My name is Pierce, but you can call me Two Toes, and I am a senior at Clarkson University. It is a tiny engineering school up in New York, but it kicks ass. My major is Aeronautical Engineering and I am lovin' it.

So as the title may tell, I am part of our FSAE team up here. This is true. Its a great program along with all of the other SAE and student project teams. I would highly recommend joining if your school offers these programs. Check out this FSAE link, it has a lot more information: http://students.sae.org/competitions/formulaseries/

Last year I was the team leader for our FSAE team and unfortunately we did not make it to competition. We were low on man power, were still learning a lot about cars, and had a lot of broken promises. As well as the team leader, I was in charge of designing the new frame for our car. It was my first time doing something at this scale and the outcome was less than favorable.
This year is a new year and the frame looks a lot better. As for being the team leader, another student stepped up and I didn't have an issue with it. He is a hard working individual that should have been the leader from the start. Unfortunately, I don't think he is that good of a leader.
We are moving forward though, and a decent car is getting built, so I do see us going to competition this year.

Well at this point you may be wondering what the hell am I going to start Blogging about any way. Good question. Over the summer I started to think about after college and decided I would like to keep my hobby of building a race car. After some research I found Formula 1000. http://www.formula1000.com/ Its the next step up from a FSAE car and it got my attention quickly.
I started to design a car from the ground up in my spare time shortly after that. I then ran into Jersey Tom's F1000 http://fsae1000.blogspot.com/. It inspired me and gave me some ideas, one of them being this blog here. So Jersey Tom, here's to you, thanks for inspiring me and I hope we can talk design some time.

Other than that, I made this blog to basically share ideas, post what I have been working on, and hopefully inspire some other engineers or race car enthusiasts to do the same. I have some basics down and shortly I will start uploading them here and discussing what I'm doing.

See you then.