Two simple rules to improve results.

[MCoach]

M Coach, Yes that is what I meant and in total honesty and ignorance (I am not an engine guy and even less a 2 stroke engine guy) I have to say I could be wrong. Just walking in the street of Indian or Vietnamese cities made me doubting the emission efficiency of 2 stroke motorcycles. But I am open to some education here. I also have to say that my post was somewhat irrelevant as FSAE rules do not allow 2 strokes engine.
In any case if any new engine type had to be allowed in FS/FSAE I think hydrogen/fuel cell should be the choice. Providing of course (back to the beginning of this thread) the car weights less than 200 Kg!

There are some amazing personal watercraft and snowmobile two stroke engines available these days that I would readily consider for a power source for these cars. Emissions have come a long way with direct injection and active valve technology. They really are a world away from the Indian used engines you mention.

To expand on the argument for my rules 1 and 2 now that my hook has caught a big fish:

Two stroke engines have the ability to reduce complexity and weight of these cars. Many are lightweight and easier to work on. This would allow for lighter cars, as well as potentially less DNFs.
It is my opinion that some of the light weight cars could be running even smaller tires than the 10" wheeled choices used now. No one uses 8" wheels because the tire compounds are substandard.
6" wheels are the next step down, have significantly wider compound selections (even greater than the 10,13" choices) and the packaging constraints would readily push students towards simpler construction.


Would everyone go this direction? Not necessarily. Just like everyone hasn't converged to a single design direction already.
Currently today there are teams that use up to 15" wheels and engine displacements of 250cc up to the limit of 610cc. Some teams are also planning to push right up to the new limit as well.

The two stroke engines would potentially come at a cost of decreased fuel efficiency and power under the curve. Leaving it up to teams to decide if their power/weight requirements overrule their fuel efficiency and packaging requirements.
The 6" wheels would allow more compound choices but at the risk of no data available currently and a substantial loss of longitudinal contact length and potentially overall grip.


Both of these options are also available at lower costs than their counterparts for the budget minded.

I think opening rules to allow the cars to safely become lighter and simpler through lighter weight and simpler choices would help DNFs so the students can take the weight out of one more location. Rather than feeling confined to running certain choices such as the 13" tires and sport bike motors and then desperately trying to hit weight targets by running carbon monocoques, carbon suspension links, and undersized hardware.

[apalrd]

Some notes on emissions:

Hydrocarbons are formed due to rich clouds (or homogenous rich mixture), which are usually formed in 2 and 4 stroke engines by running fuel rich. They can also come from short-circuiting of the fuel air mixture through the cylinder, which tends to happen on 2-stroke piston ported engines with aggressive port designs. And finally, they can come from misfire.

Carbon monoxide is formed due to incomplete combustion, usually because of a rich cloud, and generally also appears in 2 and 4 stroke engines running rich.

Nitrous oxides are formed when there is excess oxygen and high temperatures, this requires lean combustion or stratified combustion. It is most prevalent with Diesel engines and turbine engines as they are stratified, but can be produced by other engines too.

Soot is formed when there is a very large excess of fuel in the combustion cloud, and carbon particles form. This usually happens with extremely poor mixing or stratified combustion (especially Diesel, which inherently has a rich cloud as the fuel spreads out before ignition), but I have seen a Briggs roll coal too.


**************

In 2014, the SAE Clean Snowmobile Challenge emissions event winners were as follows:
#1 emissions - SUNY Buffalo - 952cc IDI turbo diesel
#2 emissions - University of Idaho - 800cc DI 2-stroke SI
#3 emissions - Kettering University - 600cc PFI turbo 4-stroke SI

The point is that the engine calibration has a much bigger effect on the exhaust emissions than the combustion cycle. A modern 2-stroke or 4-stroke powersports engine will have roughly the same emissions, with slightly more HC from the 2-stroke.


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I think that engines in FSAE should only be limited to either fuel or air flow, and left otherwise unrestricted in size and design. Fuel restriction would be ideal and allow lean/stratified engines of similar power (including Diesel and turbine engines which inherently flow more air for the same power), but air restriction is much easier to implement. The rules change to 710cc makes that limit less relevant, which is overall a great thing.

[cajunboy]

2 stroke for the win! Kawasaki h2 750 w/ big fat expansion chambers all the way! or rg500, or nsr, or i could go on all day.. actually, at UTA's autocross weekend a couple years ago a guy had a formula car w/ a rotax 2 stroke. looked killer w/ those chambers on it. not sure the displacement on it.

[tim_pattinson]

Here's a slightly less radical suggestion:
Each team's Design score is scaled by the percentage of dynamic events they finish. (DQs counted, but not DNFs.)
An exception can be made for teams that want to compete as "Class 2" (statics only).

Here's another suggestion:
Hold Design after Endurance.
If your fancy system doesn't fail, great - you can boast about your unicorn-powered turbo 2-stroke hub motors.
Otherwise, a constructive discussion can be had on what went wrong and why.

[Claude Rouelle]

Tim,

Be realistic

- You would have to wait the end of the endurance to run the design final? Ask the organizers what they think about that.
- You can have a very well designed an manufactured car that fails in endurance for a stupid reason (shit happens) as stupid as a flat tire and for that it could not not win design....? What objective measurement will you use to weight that?

The solution is less point in dynamics and more in static. Many judges have been asking for that. The racing virus and focus at all cost on the performances instead of the knowledge behind the performance has been taking away the goal of the FSAE founders and the spirit of engineering learning that students can / should show in design.

I still do not get the relevance of Class 2. UK is the only organization that does that and I wonder why. Either you build and run a car or you stay home.

[Bemo]

In theory it would be a good Thing to have the design Event after all Dynamic Events. This would give the judges the possibility to observe the cars on track and later discuss what they observed with the students. Also failures could be discussed and evaluated. The Problem is that as an organiser you want to Keep the whole Event as short as possible as the rent for the venue and Hotel rooms for judges and volunteers are the biggest cost issues. The critical path in Terms of competition Duration are the dynamic Events. If you have 40+ Teams you will Need two entire days to run the dynamic Events. Before that you Need enough time for scrutineering. You can run the Static Events parallel to scrutineering but not parallel to the Dynamics. Having the design Event after the Dynamics would essentially mean to have one more competition day than at the Moment. This is impossible for most Events.

In General I'm biased towards the design Event. In my opinion it is a great Thing in theory. But in reality it is a highly subjective way of scoring. Very often you have judges coming from Event Sponsors who aren't even familiar with the rules. In my opinion at the Moment the students already tend to do a lot of complicated stuff for the design Event and Forget to build an actually working car. Therefore I'm not a friend of increasing the Points of the static Events as this would encourage this trend even more.

[DougMilliken]

In theory it would be a good Thing to have the design Event after all Dynamic Events. This would give the judges the possibility to observe the cars on track and later discuss what they observed with the students. Also failures could be discussed and evaluated. ...

As I posted earlier, no theory, this was reality! It was standard procedure for Michigan with 120 cars entered (100+ arrived), for many years. I don't know the actual history, but it's quite possible that Carroll Smith created this schedule, along with all the other work that he did to elevate the status of Design.

Michigan Design Finals were Sunday morning after Dynamics were over. The last couple of years before the change to current schedule, this was held at a General Motors facility at the Warren Tech Center -- 3-to-5 Design Final cars/teams in the big lobby early in the morning and the remaining ~dozen Design Judges caucused before lunch. This was followed by a banquet lunch and prize-giving in the large corporate cafeteria for everyone that was willing to stay (wild guess, 500-1000 people). There was no need to rent the expensive facility for Dynamics on Sunday.

I believe that this is the right way to do it. It will take a lot of effort to regain what has been lost, but it is possible!

[Claude Rouelle]

I think Doug has a point.

[Z]

Claude,

You have me baffled.

You say,

I still do not get the relevance of Class 2. UK is the only organization that does that and I wonder why. Either you build and run a car or you stay home.

I agree with you completely. If the car doesn't run, then stay home. Yes!

But just prior to above quote you said,

The solution is less point in dynamics and more in static.

Huh? Doesn't this move the whole competition TOWARDS Class 2?

The ultimate extrapolation of your "solution" IS Class 2. It is NO Dynamic points, and ALL Static points.
~~~o0o~~~

As a by-the-way, we have now finished the third month of the Australian FSAE season, so more than a quarter of the way through. Over these last 3 months I have spent significant time talking to several of the Oz-teams, all of which FAILED TO TURN A WHEEL at 2016-Oz-comp.

The talking from my side was mostly along the lines of,
"Very easy to get top-5 here ... just keep it simple ... but MUST finish car early ... then LOTS OF TESTING!"

The response from the students is nodding of heads to the "...top-5" part, then sceptical looks and evasiveness on the rest. Nope, they are certainly NOT at Uni to learn how to load trailers, and all that other "hands on" stuff. Nope, they seem to be thinking, "This is an ENGINEERING DESIGN competition!!!.

And, indeed, in the current FSAE RuleBook we find,
"ARTICLE 6: DESIGN EVENT...
Comment: Teams are reminded that FSAE is an engineering design competition...".

But (!) this is despite the fact that the RuleBook opens with,
"ARTICLE 1: FORMULA SAE OVERVIEW...
A1.1 ... Competition Objective ... challenge teams of university ... students to conceive, design, FABRICATE, DEVELOP and COMPETE with small, formula style, vehicles."

(My extra emphasis. And elsewhere in the Rules is also mentioned the importance of good Project Management, meeting deadlines, and all the other necessaries required to have a car that turns its wheels.)

Clearly, the overarching goal of FSAE is a lot more than just having a FSUK-Class-2-style "...engineering design competition".

Anyway, my prognosis is that the teams I am talking to will, yet again, FAIL TO TURN A WHEEL at the 2017-Oz-comp. The lure of Design Event is simply too great. So much easier to sit in front of a CAD screen, doodling all sorts of really cool stuff, dreaming of how impressed the DJs will be with all that brilliant bling...

Z

[MCoach]

The ultimate extrapolation of your "solution" IS Class 2. It is NO Dynamic points, and ALL Static points.
~~~o0o~~~
Z

There are two types of people in this world -- those who extrapolate from incomplete data.