Crushing Carbon
The construction of carbon fibre parts has been very successful thanks to the fantastic relationship we have DJ Racecar Engineering, who have not only provided infrastructure and consultancy services for the team but have also formed an invaluable relationship with the team. This has allowed us the to provide team members with the opportunity to spend their year industry at the company in various roles. The knowledge gained has been transferred to the team over 3 years, resulting in the construction of our carbon fibre monocoque last year. This year, with the aid of our Composites manager, our Crash Structure Lead has been developing a structural nose cone to replace the aluminium impact attenuator.
What is a structural nose cone? The nose cone traditionally in FS is used for aerodynamic and styling purposes, but in our case the nose will act as the impact attenuator, which deals with any frontal impact in the event of a crash. The Crash Structure manger has been using numerical solutions to determine the deceleration caused by the nose cone is safe and within the rules of the competition. Finite element analysis is also being used to ensure the geometry of the nose cone is buckling uniformly and not forming hinges during crumpling which would circumvent the effect of the impact attenuator.
Manufacturing Begins
Manufacturing has begun! Early last week held our manufacturing presentation where displayed our designs and key areas where the team can get involved in this year’s manufacturing. The first few prototypes of drivers environment parts have been made using rapid manufacturing techniques. From this we can refine the ergonomics, an example being button placement on the steering wheel and comparing the range of motion of the drivers thumbs and where is best suited for the buttons to be placed.
Having set aerofoil sizes has dramatically reduced the design time for the aerodynamic packages and allowed us to reuse the moulds from last year and reduce the overall manufacturing time for this subsystem.
Meet the Team
Meet the Team is an opportunity for us to give a chance to learn a little more about the people who make up SHU Racing. In this blog post the team would like to introduce Samuel Abuku, the Crash Structure Lead for the SR13. Samuel is leading the design and validation of the structural nose cone, ensuring the new technology will provide safety to the driver and meet the extensive regulations of competition.
Name: Samuel Abuku
Age: 27
Course: Advanced Mechanical Engineering
Role: Crash Structure Lead
Number of years with the Team: 1 Year
Hobbies and Interests: Dancing, Video games, Technology, Fashion, S
pending enjoyable time with family and friends.
Favourite Car: Land Rover Range Rover
Dream Job: Inspired to be an Automotive engineer.
Reasons for Joining SHU Racing: I joined the SHU Racing because I needed something different outside my degree knowledge. SHU Racing has offered me an opportunity to learn and develop my technical knowledge in an automotive application. All this could not be achieved without a brilliant team of different like-minded people. Which made me realise there is greater strength in teamwork.
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