Design, Analysis, and Verification of an Open-Wheeled Formula-Style Race Car Suspension System

This honors thesis presents the design, measurement, and analysis of an open-wheeled formula racecar suspension system. This racecar is the second iteration of Syracuse University’s Citrus Racing team student competition vehicle. The race car’s suspension system features several designs that enable geometric adjustability to impact the vehicles dynamic performance. The purpose of this research is to find an analytic approach to verifying the correlation between suspension design tunings and their effect on vehicle handling and road holding capacity. This was done by analyzing measured data obtained from a system of damper-mounted travel sensors as the vehicle drives through numerous realistic competition scenarios

DESIGN AND OPTIMIZATION OF A FSAE VEHICLE

The purpose of the Formula SAE Competition is to provide students the opportunity to design and build a prototype racecar for an amateur autocross racer and then demonstrate its performance in a competition setting. The project team built upon a car that was originally intended for use in the 2013 FSAE Collegiate Competition. The team performed component evaluation and reviewed past project team’s reports to determine what systems needed to be completed to make the car both operational and competitive. The areas that were addressed included the rear suspension, exhaust, continuously variable transmission (CVT), the body, and the wiring harness. All of the systems addressed were designed and validated. These subsystems were manufactured and integrated with the existing car

Meetod elektrisõiduki aku laetuse taseme täpsemaks hindamiseks

The electric vehicle (EV) is a complex, safety-critical system, which must ensure the safety of the operator and the reliability and longevity of the device. The battery management system (BMS) of an EV is an embedded system, whose main responsibility is the protection and safety of the high-voltage battery pack. The BMS must ensure that the requirements for health, status and deliverable power are met by maintaining the battery pack within the defined operational conditions for the defined lifetime of the battery. The state of charge (SOC) of a cell describes the ratio of its current capacity (amount of charge stored) to the nominal capacity as defined by the manufacturer. SOC estimation is a crucial, but not trivial BMS task as it can not be measured directly, but must be estimated from known and measured parameters, such as the cell terminal voltage, current, temperature, and the static and dynamic behavior of the cell in different conditions. Many different SOC estimation methods exist, out of which (currently) the most practical methods for implementing on a real-time embedded system are adaptive methods, which adapt to different internal and external conditions. This thesis proposes the use of the sigma point Kalman filter (SPKF) for non-linear systems as an equivalentcircuit model-based state estimator to be used in one of the current series production EV projects developed by Rimac Automobili. The estimator has been implemented and validated to yield better results than the currently used SOC estimation method, and will be deployed on the BMS of a high-performance hybrid-electric vehicle

Formula SAE Final Project Report

The Formula SAE team at Trinity University has been working on a race car project since 2015 and has made significant progress in constructing a nearly complete car. This year, the team focused on continuing that progress by working towards implementing a new design, an airfoil, and redesigning suspension components, while also ensuring compliance with various regulations and standards. This year’s team has faced several constraints along the way, including time and budget limitations, complying with safety, technical, and environmental regulations, and following specific design constraints for the airfoil. To achieve set goals and eventually participate in FSAE competitions, the team must also follow applicable codes and standards, including the General Regulations and Rules of Conduct in the 2023 Formula SAE rules and specific standards related to the subsystems of the car, such as bodywork and aerodynamic devices. The team identified incomplete subsystems that needed to be addressed, one of which was the engine\u27s ability to idle. The team tested the spark and injector timing relative to the crank position using a 120 frame per second high-speed camera. Then using TunerStudio, a software for tuning an aftermarket MegaSquirt ECU, the team came up with four separate tunes that had varying spark and injector timings to get the car to start and idle. Despite getting combustion to occur and for the car to run for a few power strokes, the team was unsuccessful in achieving a consistent and steady idle. The team had ambitious goals for the project, but unforeseen difficulties prevented many of the design requirements from being met. Requirements such as maximum speed, user control, safety belts and seat, steering system, and airfoil mounting system were not fully tested or implemented. The team identified components that need to be fabricated by future teams, including a brake failure emergency shut off switch and a brake light. The team developed a CFD wind tunnel model to test the proposed airfoil design and conducted a validation test for the CFD model using literature results as the subsonic wind tunnel facility on campus was not available. The FSAE team planned to compare the downforce generated by a 3D printed model of an airfoil to the Ansys CFD model by testing the 3D printed model in a subsonic wind tunnel, but access to the wind tunnel was not available. Instead, the team compared the Ansys coefficients to those obtained from an experiment, and the results show promising accuracy of the Ansys model. However, the team suggests focusing on the performance and accuracy at higher angles of attack to improve the model. Furthermore, the team created a hypothetical racetrack to analyze the performance benefit of the airfoil and made several assumptions to simplify the process. The team calculated the lap times by dividing the distance traveled by the velocity of the car at different points of the racetrack, accounting for the aerodynamic effects of the airfoil, and the effect of downforce on the car. Overall, the 2022-23 Formula SAE team at Trinity University has faced numerous challenges in their race car project, including adhering to regulations, addressing incomplete subsystems, and conducting validation tests without proper facilities. However, the team made significant progress and will continue to work towards implementing a new design and analyzing the performance benefits of an airfoil

Performance Evaluation of Automated Static Analysis Tools

Automated static analysis tools can perform efficient thorough checking of important properties of, and extract and summarize critical information about, a source program. This paper evaluates three open-source static analysis tools; Flawfinder, Cppcheck and Yasca. Each tool is analyzed with regards to usability, IDE integration, performance, and accuracy. Special emphasis is placed on the integration of these tools into the development environment to enable analysis during all phases of development as well as to enable extension of rules and other improvements within the tools. It is shown that Flawfinder be the easiest to modify and extend, Cppcheck be inviting to novices, and Yasca be the most accurate and versatile

Design of the WUFR-19 FSAE Suspension

This report outlines the rationale and design constraints for Wash U Racing’s WUFR-19 suspension for the 2019 FSAE Michigan competition. This includes competition rules, team design goals of drivability and control, and compliance with good engineering practices. To stay competitive, the team has reinvented the design philosophy of the car for the 2019 season, highlighting the use of multiple software packages and several parallel problem-solving methods when possible. The system was designed using MATLAB, SolidWorks, and OptimumKinematics racing software. Simulations were created to evaluate the car’s grip potential through heave, pitch, roll, and steer motions. These results were compared with tire data models to tune for improved control at peak conditions. Additionally, kinematic equations were used along with sensor data from past iterations of Wash U Racing projects to alternatively predict handling capabilities for the new platform. This paved the way for the creation of front and rear geometries in SolidWorks to be the basis for the WUFR-19 chassis and the rest of the project development

3D LiDAR Point Cloud Processing Algorithms

In the race for autonomous vehicles and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), the automotive industry has energetically pursued research in the area of sensor suites to achieve such technological feats. Commonly used autonomous and ADAS sensor suites include multiples of cameras, radio detection and ranging (RADAR), light detection and ranging (LiDAR), and ultrasonic sensors. Great interest has been generated in the use of LiDAR sensors and the value added in an automotive application. LiDAR sensors can be used to detect and track vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists, and surrounding objects. A LiDAR sensor operates by emitting light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation (LASER) beams and receiving the reflected LASER beam to acquire relevant distance information. LiDAR reflections are organized in a three-dimensional environment known as a point cloud. A major challenge in modern autonomous automotive research is to be able to process the dimensional environmental data in real time. The LiDAR sensor used in this research is the Velodyne HDL 32E, which provides nearly 700,000 data points per second. The large amount of data produced by a LiDAR sensor must be processed in a highly efficient way to be effective. This thesis provides an algorithm to process the LiDAR data from the sensors user datagram protocol (UDP) packet to output geometric shapes that can be further analyzed in a sensor suite or utilized for Bayesian tracking of objects. The algorithm can be divided into three stages: Stage One - UDP packet extraction; Stage Two - data clustering; and Stage Three - shape extraction. Stage One organizes the LiDAR data from a negative to a positive vertical angle during packet extraction so that subsequent steps can fully exploit the programming efficiencies. Stage Two utilizes an adaptive breakpoint detector (ABD) for clustering objects based on a Euclidean distance threshold in the point cloud. Stage Three classifies each cluster into a shape that is either a point, line, L-shape, or a polygon using principal component analysis and shape fitting algorithms that have been modified to take advantage of the pre-organized data from Stage One. The proposed algorithm was written in the C language and the runtime was tested on a two Windows equipped machines where the algorithm completed the processing, on average, sparing 30% of the time between UDP data packets sent from the HDL32E. In comparison to related research, this algorithm performed over seven hundred and thirty-seven times faster

Design and Analysis of a Disc Rotor for a Small Race Car's Braking System

The purpose of these report is to record the information regarding on Final Year Project. It includes the data gathering, calculations and design stage that had been gone through by author. The objective of the project is to design the disc rotor for a braking system of Formula SAE according to rules and regulation of Formula SAE car. FSAE car braking system that is designed by author is based on the dual hydraulic circuit, which the standard front to rear split that generally used in rear wheel driven car. Moreover, the braking system uses a disc braking system instead of using drum brakes. Advantages of using disc brakes system are more fade resistant, possible to stop in wet condition, reduce the overall weight of the car and easy to make service during the race. In the Literature Review, the first stage in designing is made it according by the rules and regulation of Formula SAE guidelines. Moreover, the formulas were identified in getting the right formula of braking performance, component sizing, and adhesion utilizations of the car. In the Result and Discussion, it shown the target of brake bias setting is 55:45 (front to rear) has been calculated in the Excel form. Also, adhesion utilization curve is generated and shown the both axles will lock up simultaneously at deceleration rate, z=k at 0.58g. Next, the rotor have been designed by using CATIA. Also, the rotor's thermal analysis have been analyzed using ANSYS Workbench. The manufacturing process of the rotor have also been proposed by the author. As conclusion, a certain amount of understanding of the brake system has been obtained