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Thread: 2016 FSAE-A Australasian Competition

  1. #41
    Very happy to see that there was no tyre barriers used in this years track!.

    Looking at the times from natsoft the second endurance appears much faster. Did teams save their faster drivers for the afternoon? or did the track clean up maybe?
    Curtin Motorsport Team
    2011 - 2014

  2. #42
    Senior Member
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    352
    From my experience, teams usually do a banking run in the morning and a fast driver run in the afternoon.
    Jay

    UoW FSAE '07-'09

  3. #43
    And the final results!
    Attached Images
    Johan Sahlström

    Lund University 2010-2015

  4. #44

    Utas

    It seams Thursday of comp is just to setup and keep building your car if you havn't finished it yet.
    We identified some tech inspection issues our self, the usual steering column protection which we brought some materials for, some bolts that needed drilling and lock wiring, and our new tyres still hadn't arrived.
    Parts of our paddle shift system where zip-tied in place, it worked a bit but was temperamental.
    Then we discovered the leg template would not fit, so it was a long drive to Monash workshop and a late night cutting and welding the chassis. (Arrive back at camp before 4am).

    Fridays early tech inspection was all fine (however I'm still sleeping at camp). I'm partly upset we passed tech inspection first go because I know at least one thing that should have been picked up.
    Our ARB adjustable links did not have jam nuts on all threads. Even if trivial, an ARB link is suspension (so technically "critical") and should be under the same rules as a pushrod with jam nuts. A couple of suspension bolts didn't quite have 2 threads showing.
    In 2014, tech inspection told me to re-lock wire some brake bolts, just because it wasn't neat enough or wasn't pulling in the right direction. I'm not sure if they had that attention to detail this year.

    I identified some things in our car which I thought could fail in dynamic events. (I'm not head engineer so I can't just run around and fix or remake anything I want).
    • With 10 bolts and 10 nuts holding each wheel rim, tyre change is taking too long and holding up the team.
    • Wheel hub "whub" bolt pattern allows air to leak from split rims when the wheel is changed.
    • Tyre valve hole was drilled the wrong size. Temp fix with some silicon.
    • A fuse had been placed between the battery and isolation switch, taking all current (starter current!!!)
    • Wiring harness now a mess compared to previous year, too many unknowns...
    • Manual gearshift pivot is now just a M6 bolt left loose to allow movement, stiff with high friction (causing problems for paddle shift)
    • Rear wing lateral control rod looks bad to me. (A similar rod bent on our car early in the year).
    • One feature of our "whubs" looked like a stress riser to me.

    On the whole, UTAS did extremely well in dynamic events. The third car and third year for this team. It's our second year with the Honda CBR600RR, but the first year with 10" tyres, LSD and paddle shift.

    Acceleration went well, using launch control in the MoTeC M400.

    After autocross I changed the LSD ramp rates from driver feedback, which worked well I'm told. The team repaired the front wing with wet carbon, impressive turnaround.

    Paddle shift is apparently not been working so is totally disabled.
    Last edited by Jonny Rochester; 12-18-2016 at 06:46 PM.
    University of Tasmania (UTAS)

  5. #45

    UTAS endurance

    Our car struggled last year with tight corners in the track, and heavy steering in our car, and large turning circle.

    I wasn't a driver this year, but both those problems where fixed. A much faster and flowing track design, and a new steering rack ratio and 10" tyres for us. I did alot of work selecting rack ratio and we use about 86mm/rev from memory, toe-base around 70mm. Also we managed a much smaller turning circle (lots of steering lock).

    It's been said a few times, so I don't mind saying our UTAS car looked and sounded awesome out on track. Driving it you realise there is a very wide power band (thinking now this could be due to standard diameter exhaust runners and slightly unequal length primarys.) I hadn't really put a rev limit on it, so the rev cut is at 16000rpm. As other drivers comment also, you can almost use any gear, or just keep it in the one gear if you like. But drivers that let it rev and open the throttle seam to get the most out of it.

    We failed morning endurance. The first driver experienced a misfire and needed full throttle to run on 3 cylinders. At driver change, when the starter was pressed the main fuse blew. The end. Don't ever say it was bad luck. I didn't have a fuse in this location last year, I advised them not to put a fuse there. A normal car or bike does not have a fuse there. This problem happened in testing back in Tasmania, and I again warned them of the problem...

    At lunch a replacement cable bypasses the fuse, and the misfire was found to be poor wiring.

    Endurance after lunch went well, so we gained the points. But during this run the throttle was sticking (known issue, too late to redesign) and a rear tyre went flat. Rear tyres also starting to rub on defuser.
    Further problems show themselves on driver swap day, but we got endurance done. (Failed reliability, but Gold stars for all!!!)
    Last edited by Jonny Rochester; 12-17-2016 at 08:25 PM.
    University of Tasmania (UTAS)

  6. #46
    Thanks GTS, Jay and Mitch for the Kind words on the GRT car
    Everyone seemed to enjoy spectating the Griffith car on and off the track so as a small team we were quite overwhelmed at the support as well as humbled by the kind words! thanks to everyone at competition that I had the pleasure to talk to about our car as well as going around through the pits myself to have a squizz at everyones hard work, its a great atmosphere and community.

    As Bill Mentioned alot of work this year went into simple key elements which would improve performance of the car without large cost of man power, $$$, and reliability, as TD/chief engineer for this year i spent alot of time myself and with others purely refining our design so that it was correct the first time and as simple as it needed to be to get the job done. I think this would be the key to make any car do well in the dynamic events. For us, we now need to bring our static events up to scratch to become more competitive.

    Our goals for the year were as follows:
    - KISS, keep it simple stupid...plain old double wishbones and a 600-4 with a swinging pickup which was a nice familiar territory, nothing fancy, no diffs, no aero, no traction control, no flappy paddles, no problems. (not saying I wouldn't attempt some of these with more man power and ample testing time)

    - Make it Light...reduce component count, combine components, make everything as light as possible while maintaining reliability... Last Year Mitchell dropped the hint that they managed to create a 200-210kg car without any significant trouble purely through good load paths...it 100% works! we spent very little effort for large amounts of gain in simplifying our chassis and powertrain package managing to achieve a sub 200kg 600-4. Our 2015 car weighed in at 243kg last year at comp comparing to 194kg in 2016. It surprises me that more teams don't move down this route, simple aspects like moving to m4-m6 bolts throughout the car and m6 rod ends.. using only the necessary bars required for the chassis, shortening chain lengths, using the most simple triangulation possible, minimalistic drivelines, simple fuel systems, removing weak links in systems..(every bolt up connection is another place for human error and likely failure). The added bonus of making everything light is that the lighter car means less load on components anyway. (if your design everything much stronger than it needs to be then it becomes heavier which means it needs to be that strong to survive, it you are strict on your weight from the get go and have a target, than you can design stuff lighter and in the end come out overall lighter than desired anyway meaning everything is still amply strong enough...odd theory but its works). We went from a 42kg space frame to 27kg, we lost 10-12kg through our driveline and around 4-5kg through our suspension outboards with minimal effort.

    - Low COG, anything on our car that was heavy was placed at the lowest point possible... shocks on the lower chassis, driveline low as allowable, wiring run low, brakes placed centrally and low as possible, calipers on lower side of uprights.. its easy to do in the initial design phase and allowed us to run a narrow track width without fear of picking up inside wheels.

    - Have ample power down low....we struggled with our power in 2015 making 58hp and 32ft/lb of torque i believe at around 10,500-11,000rpm with a horrible flat spot making it very hard to drive. we found that amateur drivers will thrive best if you have ample power at the lower rpms to allow forgiveness in wrong gear selection etc. 2016 changed us to an r6 for power and also chassis design purposes. I mentioned early on in the piece that some fiddling of the cams along with the correct exhaust could do us wonders and Bill having some prior knowledge chipped in with some magical cam angles which along with the hard slog on the exhaust and intake managed to produce delightful results. A healthy 72hp and 42ft/lb at 8800rpm. But we quickly learnt that it wasnt the maximum figure that was important but rather the fact we could maintain the 38-42 ft/lb of torque from 4800rpm all the way through to 10000 making a car with enormous drivability in any section of the track but also capable of simply beautiful body slip angles of 20-30 degrees in 2-4th gear

    Where we lost out this year is places such as ergonomics, making the driver controls so simple...ie no seat and basic rhs un-adjustable pedals for simplicity and reliability..i know some people simply cant drive there best unless they are in the perfect position. our steering wheel was much to low from making such a tiny car but most of the stuff was minor and will only need small updates for 2017. For me personally I find that a lack of visibility to be my main hinderance in driving any vehicle quickly around a track.

    Overall though we have taken many things back from competition this year from our own car and experiences as well as from other teams successes and setbacks. The Judges also do a great job at probing your brain about the choices you made on your car and how it can be improved, what was overlooked.

  7. #47
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Perth, Western Australia
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    717
    Quote Originally Posted by Jonny Rochester View Post
    [*]Wheel hub "whub" bolt pattern allows air to leak from split rims when the wheel is changed.
    Jonny,

    Why don't you look at welding your two wheel halves together? Its what ECU does and we haven't had air leaks since.

    Kev

  8. #48
    Good idea. If it's ECU approved, consider it done.

    I am cautious of anything with aluminium welds that is under stress. I'm always expecting cracks.
    University of Tasmania (UTAS)

  9. #49
    Quote Originally Posted by Kevin Hayward View Post
    Jonny,

    Why don't you look at welding your two wheel halves together? Its what ECU does and we haven't had air leaks since.

    Kev
    Interesting approach i would never have thought of, is much warpage present afterards or the tyre is that stiff it straightens out the 3mm ally regardless?

    GRT silicone ours like a standard 3 piece in the valley currently, no problems for us either. i noticed Monash make a nice ring plate with orings and grooves to sandwich between so that it can come apart and back together easily.

  10. #50
    +1 on welding the wheel bands together. We got sick of dealing with sealant so since we have been running 10" wheels, we had them welded together by a team member who is quite handy with a tig torch. Ours are 4mm thick I believe.

    We made up a turntable for the process so it would make his job a lot easier to get a good bead and haven't had any issues (granted we run carbon wheels now but the ali bands are always there as legitimate spares).

    Stress cracking was something I was concerned with, but the only issue we have had so far is that one of the tyre valve holes were drilled slightly too big!
    Luke Sullivan
    Swinburne University of Technology

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