UWE Bristol Engineering showcase 2015

Jonathan Powell
Meng Mechanical Engineering
Project Supervisor
Dr Rohitha Weerasinghe
Design of the 2015 Formula Student Chassis
Introduction
The current UWE formula racing team has already
designed and successfully competed with a
petroleum car and is now looking to expand into
using an electric vehicle alongside the already
successful petroleum team. Some conceptual
designs for an electrical vehicle have been
produced in the past but have never been entered
into any events and have only been intended as
learning exercises. The aim of this project is to
design a chassis for an electrically powered racing
vehicle to compete in class two events and to
eventually be part of a fully working vehicle.
Research
The first stage of the research was to find what
features improve a chassis performance. It was
found that one of the most important properties
of a chassis is it’s stiffness as this greatly affects
the handling of the vehicle.
Stiffness
The stiffness of a structure relates to the
deflection that a structure undergoes when a load
or force is applied to it. The stiffness of a vehicle
chassis directly affects its handling and vibration
behaviour. It is important to ensure that large
forces do not cause the chassis to deflect in large
enough amounts that may seriously impact the
vehicles performance.
.
Solidworks 3D Design
A design for the 2015 FSAE chassis was
produced from scratch using the CAD modeling
software Solidworks, The first step was to build
a wireframe structure for the chassis around
the driver and the selected powertrain
components.
A 3D model was then produced to ensure that
all of the components fitted properly.
Autodesk Finite Element Analysis
A detailed set of FEA simulations were done in
Abaqus to highlight areas of the chassis that
could be improved by adding extra frame
members to improve the stress distribution.
Project summary
The purpose of this project is to design and
model a chassis to eventually compete in the
2015 FSAE student racing event, as part of the
UWE racing team. The FSAE competition is an
event where a team of students design and build
their own race car to compete in the event. A
unique design for the chassis will need to be
developed and modelled in 3D simulation
software, as the vehicle 2015 is intended to use
an electrical power train with four electrical
motors. As a result of this the chassis will need
to have adequate support for both a battery bay
and the four electrical motors.
Project Objectives
• Investigate the engineering principles behind
chassis design.
• Investigate the forces and stresses that are
expected in a chassis during a race and ways
mathematically calculate them.
• Produce a chassis design for the UWE 2015
Formula Student car.
• Perform a structural Analysis using FEA software.
• Produce a refined chassis design that meets all
safety requirements and has a high performance.
Composites
To produce a lightweight vehicle, the chassis was
designed from advanced aluminium honeycomb
composite material.
Final Design Testing
Testing of the final design involved using FEA to
simulate the effects of the vehicle crashing or
rolling over.
Project Conclusion
The study produced a viable chassis design that
based on FEA testing and Force calculations meets
the safety requirements put in place. The project
also provided a good knowledge base for further
work to improve the design as the 2015 vehicle
develops.