2024-12-09 Mechanical Meeting

Announcements

• This will be the last regular mechanical meeting of the semester

  • I will be holding at least two meetings over the break to check up on progress/get everyone together to work on kinks

  • I understand if you are busy but I highly encourage y’all to attend if you are able

  • Should we keep it on Monday or should I send a when2meet?

Highlights

Blockers/Conflicts

Do you have any blockers or conflicts that are preventing you from making forward progress/completing certain tasks OR making things more difficult than they should be?

can we make roll cage smaller - TBD ask Josh

Ansys whitelists? - over winter break

nah. (yay yippee woooooooo hooo!!!!!!!!)

General Updates

Unsprung:

• Upright sims for accuracy passed on last year uprights, sims gave similar results to conservative solutions

• Hub CAD exists, needs to be simmed correctly still

• Brakes are mostly done, just being refined to find lighter solutions and smaller brake disks

Suspension:

• Got visually reasonable results from suspension force solver

• Hardpoint sketch pretty much done, maybe need to slightly move outboard points

Steering:

• Convo with fergo led to placement of steering rack and angle-ing of steering rack

Battery Box panels completed and ready for waterjetting

Finalized shell all but done

• lots of sims so we actually have validation

Frame

• Frame members on the ansys grind (both for tubular frame and now composite panelling)

• ANSYS result log made so we can keep track a lot better this year

Ergo

• Next Gen steering wheel -1st iteration design/CAD essentially finished → 3 piece, carbon fiber structure

• Next Gen ballast box - 1st iteration design is underway → general structure finished, still looking into mounting structure

• Next Gen pedal box - working on top slung mounting (could potentially shrink the front of the frame)

Winter Break Plans

Unsprung:

• Finish CAD on uprights and swing arm

• Sim new parts and check results with old parts

Suspension:

• Do buckling calcs on push rods and control arms

• Ensure that force values on each suspension component is accurate

• Finish CAD based on sims

Steering:

• Understand loading and boundary conditions

• Fix CAD and sim

Aerodynamics

We (will) have a finalized shell, and break will just be making edits. We could send out the shell now and be done, any edits we make now are for optimization

Composites

Mold prep testing - Foam and prep materials are ordered so when they arrive I’m gonna test application and processing methods. Goal is to have a clear methodology by end of break so that we are ready for when molds arrive

Resin infusion - Initial resin infusion tests, set up; flow distance, just figuring out process. Hopefully we’ll be able to use it for flat panels/small components (maybe if we wanna remake daybreak canopy? idk yet tho)

HV Distribution enclosure manufacturing - Up to when Ajay can come to Austin, we’re gonna figure something out

Composite frame - Manufacture test pieces for aluminum honeycomb and Nomex; test process of application for secondary bonding, finalize shear test fixture (hopefully manufacture that too but that's not something i can do)

Start learning simming of composites through Ansys mechanical → personal goal for winter break is to have a 4 ply composite face sheet simmed, will add core if I have time

Acetone vapor smoothing - Figure it out, may have to remake enclosure for smoothing bc current emech one has leakage issues

Composite Pushrods - Buckling calcs, starting with metal so that we can understand how buckling works, and then trying to figure out how buckling for composite tubes works, ansys sim maybe (i found combustions doc on how to do these so we could try doing that)

Misc - Re-sand and refinish the metal sheet; sand another one too just bc we need the work surface for future (Assuming its not too cold to wet sand loll)

I think im forgetting something else but honestly cant remember rn

Sim tweak validate, sim tweak validate, etc.

• We need to get an iteration close to full passing for PDR

Experiment with composite structural simming

Complete Daybreak pedal box

Have all Next Gen ergo parts exist in CAD (i.e. have a 1st iteration essentially finished)

Start PDR slides

HV Distribution enclosure manufacturing - honestly up to advait if he has time and wants to do it

DB dashboard, mppts, mounting for moco.

DB Batt pcbs

panel waterjet completed

Daybreak Progress

• Cesar and Gerard will be grinding out the dynamics redesign over break

uh

Questions people have

Want to get a list of everything that goes outside of frame so we know what to avoid when aeroshelling

What do you need from me this week?

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