WHEEL CENTRE DESIGN
Reiteration and mass reduction of unsprung suspension mass
Solo Project - Sep 2020 to Dec 2020 | Vehicle Dynamics | FEA | Data Analysis
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Summary
My first step into the world of chassis design.
This was my first project as a suspension engineer for the University of Toronto Formula Racing Team. My goal was to radically change the design of the existing wheel centre and reduce its overall mass without compromising the strength or stiffness of the part. The wheel centre is a structural component of the suspension assembly that connects the wheel hub to the rim. Once completed, I installed it on our car and tested its strength. Since 2020, we've been using it on our car in every competition!
Design Objectives
Reduce weight by 10%
Maintain Stiffness
Easy-to-install
Test Procedure
And this is how it starts...
Test Objective
Quantify the torsional and chamber stiffness of the original wheel centre using the maximum tensile stress and part deformation data found through ANSYS simulations for the following load cases:
Braking + Cornering
Pure Braking
Pure Cornering
Torsional Stiffness
The wheel centre's tendency to resist torsion
Camber Stiffness
The wheel centre's tendency to resist camber bending.
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Iterations
Cut back that mass.
Prototypes
I needed to start somewhere and iterated on the original design of our old wheel centres.
Original Design
Heavy
Clunky
Difficult to install
Mass = 0.78 pounds
Final Design
Mass = 0.54 pounds
Highlights
It works!
Designed 10+ iterations of the new wheel centre to reduce the overall mass by 31% (0.78 pounds to 0.54 pounds)
Failure criteria for all realistic loading cases fulfill the design requirement for a factor of safety of 1.75
Torsional stiffness increased by 27% in comparison to previous iterations
Created professional engineering drawings to receive manufacturing quotes