Mechanical Design Meeting

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It’s amazing how fast time passes when discussing driver positioning.  Saturday, I was sitting in the computer lab having just modeled a rough ballast box that should hold our maximum required ballast of 30kg of lead shot.  This estimate is based on our lightest driver, Valerie, who weighs in at just over 50kg, and that lead shot with average diameter of 3mm packs 1kg into 148 cubic centimeters.  I also picked out hinges and latches for the door to this ballast box.  It is currently a semi-circular shape that lies under the driver’s knees.  It may need modification when we get a better idea for where the driver’s legs will be.  This will be determined in part by Jess’ models for the acceleration and brake pedals.

Matt ran four computers at the same time in an attempt to get the drag down below 60 Newtons.  He is optimizing the fairings and airfoil geometries using Daniel Prosser’s code (see previous post for more information).

Dan is impressed by Donald Yang’s efforts on the roll cage.  We discussed the sizing of the driver’s head plus helmet plus the required 5cm spacing that must fit inside the roll cage.

Dan is modeling a king pin to use in his suspension verification efforts in NX motion, which uses ADAMS as a solver.  He plans to do all of the geometries for the suspension this week “or Dan will writhe in madness.”

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