DUT RacingFormula Student Team Delft

February

Newsletter

Formula Student Team DelftNewsletter February 2014

dear reader,

Let us update you on our progress this past month, this update will be given on the next two pages. Thereafter an in depth progress update on the monocoque production will be given. Lastly we would like to highlight one of our sponsors, FLIR Systems, and the things they enable us to do. Enjoy reading this month’s newsletter!

Regards,

The DUT14 team

Formula Student Team DelftNewsletter February 2014

Team Update

After finishing the designs and making some exams, the production phase started. It started officially with the production kick-off. At this kick-off our Team Manager, Tim de Morée, and Technical Manager, Olaf Teichert, evaluated the past semester and gave an outlook on what the production phase will look like. After the presentation the team had an enjoyable evening with some nice cold beers.

The week after, the whole team went to Kart Centre Roosendaal for the second kart-outing. The competition was fierce because this outing also counted for driver selection. Everyone who put in good times was invited for an interview and they will start physical training next week.

On Thursday the 6th, a delegation of our team went to Eindhoven to check up on the progress of University Racing Eindhoven at their design presentation. They had a pretty neat design which will make competition even closer in the summer. Congratulations guys!

Formula Student Team DelftNewsletter February 2014

Our DUT Racing fleet also got a new addition that day. Thanks to Volkswagen AG, Wittebrug and PON’s Automobielhandel we were able to arrange new transportation for the team in terms of a brand new Volkswagen Transporter Double Cab. This will make the logistics for the upcoming semester a lot more pleasant.

Designing a Formula Student car from scratch is one thing, but driving it is another. To give some of our team members the feeling of what a DUT race car feels like we organised the DUT13 driving day. The day was held at the new indoor testing location in Breda to test the facilities. After a briefing, driver egress and track walk it was time to buckle up and feel the rush!

The coming month we will attend several events. Next weekend (February 22nd and 23rd) the car will be present at the Speed & Action event in the Event Hall of Gorinchem. If you like racing and race cars join us there! From March 11th to March the 14th there will be two fairs we attend at the same time. The DUT11 will be present with our material sponsor ODS BV at the ESEF 2014 and the DUT13 will be present with Jeveka BV at the Technishow 2014. If you are present at these events, do not hesitate to join us at our partners’ stands.

Formula Student Team DelftNewsletter February 2014

Monocoque Production: A Timeline

About one month ago, the team received a set of milled MDF positive molds. These molds were produced at MMT in Twente, on the east side of the country. MMT is a model workshop, with huge facilities which were also able to produce our molds. Weighing in at over 100 kg, the molds were a challenge to move, but reached our workshop safely! The next thing to do would be to coat the molds to ensure the negative mold would come off nicely.

The coating was placed by a business in Leiden, called ABS Den Elzen group. What they actually do is car repair: whatever the damage is, they can fix it. This means they also have facilities to repaint a car, and that is where our molds come in. We got the special Sikkens coating from Akzo Nobel, which we then passed on to Den Elzen, who placed the coating on our molds. The result of using this coating was a beautiful mirror finish. Now that the molds are in and prepared, it is time to put the carbon on there, and produce the negative molds!

Carbon is dangerous stuff. Though carbon is really soft and flexible to the touch, the small fibers are damaging and irritating to everything: skin, lungs, computers, etc. That is why the chassis engineers you can see in the picture are all geared up. We are using TenCate fibers to produce the negative molds of the monocoque.

Formula Student Team DelftNewsletter February 2014

Once the carbon is in place, it is time to apply the resin through vacuum infusion. Vacuum infusion basically “pulls” the resin through the carbon by using a vacuum. A tooling resin with a long pot life and low viscosity was used to ensure a successful injection of the mold.

To boost the mechanical properties, the mold was pre-cured in an oven at the TU Delft Aerospace Engineering faculty. This cure was at medium-temperature, just enough to set the resin just right. The advantage that the pre-cure provides, is that now the mold is more resistant for being demolded, reducing chances of any damage being caused while we are demolding.

To conclude the first phase of the monocoque production, the negative mold is pulled from the MDF plugs. It is a pretty intensive task, requiring gloves to protect the hands: carbon can be very sharp! With soft hammers and wedges, the carbon mold is delodged from its MDF plug. After demolding, the mold received another high temperature post cure, to achieve the best mechanical properties, as well as a resistance to the high temperatures seen during the curing of the monocoque.

Formula Student Team DelftNewsletter February 2014

The final step in producing the molds was to repair a few small faults in the surface with epoxy putty. After these small repairs were made, the entire mold was coated with a mold sealer to seal the porous surface, followed by a coat of release agent.

In parallel to all this, the production of the monocoque itself is being prepared. The designs of all inserts in the chassis were finalized, and templates to cut the

fibers on a CNC cutting machine were created. After finishing the molds, these precut fibers can be laid in the mold. That is all for now, we willl be sure to keep you updated on the progress of the monocoque in the next newsletter. Stay tuned through our Facebook, Twitter or Google+ to always have the latest news!

Formula Student Team DelftNewsletter February 2014

FLIR Systems

Thermal information is an important factor of knowledge in the design of the DUT14. What if, for example, we could detect hotspots in our accumulator cells, so we can figure out where to place our temperature sensors? Or it could be useful to moniture the temperature of our in-house designed tires, an important indicator for their performance? That is where FLIR comes in.FLIR Systems was founded in 1978, and originally focussed on only infrared imaging systems for energy audits. However, the industry grew quickly, and so did FLIR. These days, they are in the energy industry and security industry, providing temperature systems for a whole host of purposes, from extremely precise measurements to seeing at night in adverse conditions.

So how does FLIR support us? They help us in two ways: one is a camera we will be using mostly for temperature measurements on the tires of the DUT14. It will provide us with critical information on how the tires are performing under different load-cases and set-ups we will be subjecting them to. This camera will also be used for troubleshooting of all electronics. The second camera that was borrowed to us by FLIR was a top-of-the-line sensitive camera. That one, we used to perform measurements on the cells of the accumulator. How are they performing under different load cycles? Where are the critical points of the cells? What kind of cooling will we need? Those are the kinds of questions we were able to answer by creating a test setup using that camera. It is amazing to see how compact the technology is, while performing so well!

For more information: http://www.flir.com/nl/

Formula Student Team DelftNewsletter February 2014

Faculties: Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Industrial Design Applied Sciences Technology, Policy and Management Aerospace Engineering

Formula Student Team DelftNewsletter February 2014

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