Formula SAE
 

Thought id share what i do with the OTHER half of my life

heres a promo we use for our freshmen orientation. Click on "High quality" on the bottom right side of the video screen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqVyqyeIeP4

The team has placed in the top 20 for the past decade, running against anywhere from 50 to 130 teams. and Featured in road&track magazine.


Heres are the specs to 2 of our most recent cars.
This si the 2007 car.
2006 Suzuki GSXR 600 motor N/A with 20MM Restrictor
97 Gasoline
75HP and weighs 560lbs. w/ fluids
0-60 in 3.6s
6 speed sequential pneumatic shifter

the 2009 car is our little secret but heres some specs
2008 Suzuki GSXR 600 Motor w/ GT12 Turbo & 19MM Restrictor
Ethenol
90HP and weighs in at 445lbs. w/fluids.
0-60 in 2.79s:whistle:
6 speed sequential pneumatic shifter

O yea and im required to say this. Clears throat**
Thanks to our sponsors Hitachi, Panoz, Hoosiers, TSI, DynoJet, Lake Point Tubes, Chattahoochee Composites, NOR RAL, APEX, Tubular and all Bronz level Sponsors.

very cool. Where do you race those things? Looks like lots of fun. I think I would enjoy the design and build as much as the actual driving.

Is this a job or just another expensive hobby?

its more of a "educational experience"
...or as our sponsors put it "buncha drunk college kids thinking they race car engineers":lol:

FSAE is a International Intercollegiate competition. We race in Virginia, Michigan Speedway (main race), and the Redbull invitational in Alabama. There are also hubs in Europe, Australia, and Asia.

Yes these things are a doozy to design. Youd be shocked at the stuff us "drunk college kids" think about when designing these:angel:

BTW...as im 10 minutes ago...the 2009 car has launch control

Why the restrictor plates? Are they uncontrolable with out them?

Nice! I use to work with a guy in 1989 that raced a car that looked just like that but used a 440cc snowmobile engine instead of a bike engine and no big roll bar.

its part of the competition. Gasoline motors run 20MM and ethanol runs 19MM. Yea they are just stupid fast, starts to hurt your laptime.

Georgia Tech took their restrictor off and tried to race us...they lost....:na::na:

I'll be watching this.

Most every engineering field has this type of national competition. For Civil Engineering (and some Mechanicals) our national competition was a concrete canoe. I think they still do this one.

Its a great way for students to actually apply theorums and the knowledge they have gained.

A concrete canoe? That would be interesting.

I'm into Formula Student as well. This is our new car:

http://www.amzracing.ch/amz/files/amz1064.jpg

http://www.amzracing.ch/amz/files/amz1052.jpg

http://www.amzracing.ch/amz/files/amz1067.jpg

It's running on E85 bio ethanol. I made the CFRP axles and other drivetrain parts. We'll be attending the competitions at Silverstone and Hockenheim. For more information and pictures, check our website http://www.amz.ethz.ch/

This is our last year's car:

http://www.amzracing.ch/amz/files/amz691.jpg


Andrew, why are you always using the latest GSXR 600? We have been running the K4/K5 for three years, because it's easier to find wrecked motorcycles with that engine and use old engines for spare parts and on the test bench.


Regards,
Thomas

At the moment, we are designing our next year's car. And guess what, it's electric! It should race on one battery for 20 minutes and do 0-60 mph in 3.5 seconds.

Does anyone have experience with Strecker motors from Germany or know any other 30 kW brushless motor?

Thomas,

I like the Formula SAE, but isn't there a budget cap? I won't share my ideas, but the items I'll be using for them is not currently available for the public. I can get it, because they're my client's, but I have to get them commercialized for mass production. I'll give you the same info I gave zeropointbug and this will allow you to kick ass in the Formula SAE. Send me an e-mail: brasuca2478@hotmail.com.

Regards,

Luciano.

Can we get some engine and drivetrain pics?

works well when the math is done right!!
not like the local guy here that made a concrete yacht, once side was a perfect cruizing sloop and the other side was a sleek racing yacht:lol:
while launching, it just kept going down and down and down until it hit the bottom:rofl:

awesome coarse you are taking there!! it's like an oversized go kart crossed with brushless with revo suspension on steroids!! we never get anything that cool down here. we only used to get gay peddle powered stuff if that!

here are some pics of our old car. its in the rebuild process for the redbull invitational :)

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/d...94051_6000.jpg

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/d...94052_6282.jpg

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/d...94056_7470.jpg

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/d...Photo-0018.jpg

Wow, there is alot going on in a small space, it looks like a road version of those mini sandrails except for the suspension. It would look just like an F1 car if it had the spoilers. How much fuel does that nose tank hold?

haha we actually have a large shop and a lower dyno shop, but with 5 cars, it starts taking space.:oops:

but the nose is not a tank, but a impact attenuator as required in the rules

:lol:, I thought that was an odd place for a fuel tank.

There are no budget limitations for teams, at least not in the rules. The maximum price of 25'000 USD per car was only a theoretical number for the cost event, where you had to calculate your production cost for 1000 units per year (including every single screw and assembly operation).

I asked Castle to build an ESC for us, 30s LiPo and 500 A, but they are very busy.

I'll send you a few links of some good things :lol:. I urge you to ask the places for sponsorship as some of the items can be costly. Is your team only going to enter in the electric only class or are you going for the hybrid one?

Let's see if I can paste this article in here:

Since global warming and dependency on foreign oil are popular problems nowadays, my FSAE team AMZ has decided to replace the Japanese engine running on wood waste by electric motors full of rare-earth magnets.

While there are many different solutions of placing the components in a car, I would like to show you our layout.

Furka's exterior is pretty similar to our previous car simplon:
http://www.datacomm.ch/htrainer/Form...0als%20ISO.jpg

The biggest difference between combustion and electric drive is not the electric motor, but the batteries. We have designed two battery containments, roughly 25 kg each, which are mounted to the sides of the monocoque and covered by sidepods. These containments incorporate additional side impact structure and a pair of chunky relay switches to protect the batteries, or their environment respectively.

http://www.datacomm.ch/htrainer/Form...nt/Akkubox.jpg

The power from the batteries is directed into the rear section of the monocoque, where it feeds two motor controllers. The rear wheels are driven independently with two chains.

http://www.datacomm.ch/htrainer/Form...%20Schnitt.jpg

The rear section of the monocoque can be detached from the front, including the entire rear suspension and drivetrain. By placing the motors in the center, we were able to design a pullrod setup. To reduce parts count and weight, we integrated the sprocket mount into the aluminium tripod housing and the jacking point is enclosing the anti-roll bar.

http://www.datacomm.ch/htrainer/Form...t%20hinten.jpg

We're looking forward to seeing you at the competition.

Thomas

www.amz.ethz.ch

http://www.amzracing.ch/amz/files/amz1530.jpg

It's working. At 215 kg (with full batteries), it's even lighter than expected.
See a video of the shakedown and rollout here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tLzXR-P0ng

http://www.amzracing.ch/amz/files/amz1527.jpg

We have tested with 500 A per motor, it was a bit quicker than the old ICE car, but we broke a motor on the second day. The brushes simply soldered to the brush holder.

http://www.amzracing.ch/amz/files/amz1528.jpg

More info: http://www.amz.ethz.ch/

AWESOME! Wow!

Will have a look at your website right now!

Last weekend, we won our first competition at Silverstone. We were almost as fast as the best combustion cars. Has some problems with the controllers, top speed was limited to about 80 km/h.
You can see the endurance run here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FN_Kbes4-4o That was with a current limit of 350 A per motor. During autocross, we allowed 500 A, which made the traction control work a lot more.

http://www.amzracing.ch/amz/files/amz1642.jpg

Picture gallery: http://www.amzracing.ch/amz/galleryD...?folder_id=843
Read what we're up to on Twitter: http://twitter.com/amzracing
Press release from the organizer: http://www.formulastudent.com/Files/...%20release.pdf

Regards,
Thomas

For our new car Novena, we have developed and built two brushless outrunner motors which produce well over 30 kW and weigh roughly 10 kg. The batteries are 36s4p LiPo with 13.5 Ah each. The gearbox is also completely student-designed. I myself have developed the carbon driveshafts.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...0576106&type=1

http://www.amzracing.ch/amz/files/amz1829.jpg

This year, AMZ Racing built an even faster electric FSAE car: umbrail. It has two student-designed motors with 40 kW each, 5 kWh of LiPo batteries, a complete aero package and weighs just 170 kg.

http://www.racecar-engineering.com/n...leration-test/

Wow, I would love to do what you are doing. How do I get there>? :smile:

It's a student design competition, so you would have to be a student. Me personally, I was studying mechanicl engineering at ETH Zurich. Actually, I graduated last year and am not part of the team anymore.

There is an FSAE competition in Canada:
http://formulanorth.com/
http://www.facebook.com/formulanorth?ref=stream

I'm sure they are happily welcoming volunteers. So even if you're not a student, you can be part of the event.