MIT Solar Car Team (2010-2012)
Solar Car - Engineer, Welder, Driver
Winter of my sophomore year, I joined the solar car team at my university. My years with the team culminated in the 2011 World Solar Challenge in Australia, in which i was one of two race drivers for the team.
Along the way, I learned to weld and the importance of extensive mechanical testing. Driving a test vehicle for hours puts you in a good head space for thinking about design for robustness and failure mechanics.
Hub and Spring (Re)Design
This project was to redesign the hub and spindle of the front wheels of the car. The previous spindle would plastically deform whenever the car went over a large road bump. The deformation led to greater bearing forces, higher wear and greater energy losses. Additional requirements were to make these parts as light as possible without sacrificing strength and stiffness.
On the right is the CAD models of the hub and spindle - key feature is the hollowed out center and tapar from right to left of spindle. Initial models showed that the center did not contribute to stiffness. Models and FEA simulation showed that the spindle area furthest from car (left side in picture) had a lower moment than the right, thus the spindle could afford a smaller radius resulting in some weight savings.
For further details - including design requirements, modeling, FEA simulation and fatigue analysis, please see the full report here.
Steel Chassis - Welder
Tig Welding
The team began a rebuild of the car summer 2010 to update aspects of the design, including the chassis. The plan was to build the chassis of steel tubing welded together.
As I had attended previous workshops in welding with the Department of Materials Science, I volunteered to learn TIG welding and become the team’s primary welder.
On right is the complete chassis, post-paint. I was responsible for welding the entire chassis seen on right painted white, and the joints of the suspension A-Arms painted blue. The chassis was designed by another team member, Michael Roberts.
Summer 2011, the car crashed during testing, including the car flipping upside and landing in the ditch. Fortunately, the driver was unhurt, having been protected by the chassis. The only damage to the chassis after eye inspection and professional ultrasonic testing was a crack at the battery platform joint in front. This crack was repaired and the car successfully raced in the 2011 World Solar Challenge and 2012 American Solar Challenge.
