Development of a weight-optimized wheel assembly for a Formula Student car
Publicerad
Typ
Examensarbete på kandidatnivå
Bachelor Thesis
Bachelor Thesis
Program
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
Formula Student is a global competition where university teams design, build, and race
their own Formula-style race cars. The competition evaluates the design and performance
of the cars through both static and dynamic events. The use of electric hub
motors in the Chalmers Formula Students’ car allows for greater handling but at the
cost of an increase in unsprung mass. To extract the maximum performance, it is beneficial
to minimize this mass, and in an attempt to do so, competing teams have started
integrating parts of the wheel assembly. This paper investigates the possibility of combining
parts in Chalmers Formula Students’ wheel assembly as well as other methods
to save weight. To achieve this, topology optimization, finite element analysis, and
computational fluid dynamics softwares are used to evaluate and compare generated
concepts. The results show that it is beneficial to combine parts of the wheel assembly,
especially from a weight-saving perspective. The overall weight reduction per wheel
assembly is 26%, which corresponds to a decrease of 5.3 kg for the entire car.
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
Chalmers Formula Student, CFS, wheel assembly, upright, topology optimization, gearbox, cooling jacket, brake caliper