Brunel Racing RS Fund

Overview 

This year, Brunel Racing is participating in 2024 FSUK competition that is run by the IMechE. The team is once again entering an electric car into the competition. This project is run by a group of undergraduate students who completed their major group project on the design budling and testing of the vehicle. The team also comprises of students from other year group who are also involved in the designing, manufacturing and assembly of the Brunel Racing car.  

The team aims to improve upon the problem areas which the team faced last year with the powertrain. This will involve the redesign of components and PCBs within the TSAC which will improve the efficiency of the unit along with the ability to test the TSAC more easily. We aim to improve our electric racing car by passing through as many scrutineering stages as possible, which includes, safety, chassis, tech and all of the electrical scrutineering as well. This would be a huge step up from the last effort as the Brunel Racing team has only passed the safety scrutineering in the FSUK competitions which we have entered. The team has undertaken large amounts of modelling and simulation of the mechanical and electrical designs to help improve the design for this year's car.  

Car Development and Testing 

The previous year’s car model was used as the base design with a redesign of many of the mechanical systems occurring this year. Improvements were made to the electrical systems however much of the groundwork was from the previous year’s vehicle. The Chassis, Suspension, Driver controls and Brake systems were all redesigned for this year. They were designed using CAD, and these designs were evaluated using FEA along with comparing to previous year’s designs. These designs were evaluated using various material selection and the optimum material was selected for the components to go on to be manufactured in. Once the design was finalised the components were either manufactured in-house by the students once the correct material arrived or it was sent off to be manufactured by a specialist company with equipment that the university does not have access to. Once the components such as the chassis was manufactured, they were tested to understand the stiffness and bending. The RS fund was used to get some of the equipment that was required to complete the chassis and suspension testing of the car. Items such as the spirit level were used in the test. A test bench for the brakes system was developed as used to test the brake along with along a test with some of the driver controls system to occur. The tachometer was used in this testing to understand the max speed that the wheel was spinning at before the brake was applied. This also allowed for a calculation of the stopping time of the system.  

The team faced some issues with the lead time of material and finding suitable companies to manufacture the components. The team lost access to their old workshop due to the raac issue which the university faced this year. All the Engineering buildings and workshops were closed until January with a temporary workshop being set up. This meant that the team had less in-house manufacturing capability. The team faced added lead time which put pressure on team members as time had been lost waiting for components to arrive. 

Much of the electronic components that the team used in the custom PCBs were sourced from RS. This is because of the wide range of available components along with the short lead time for the parts to arrive to the university.  

Team dynamics 

The team comprised of a variety of experience and knowledge in terms of Formula Student. For some, this was their first year working on the project while for others this was their fourth year. The team was led by two female Engineers who had been with the team for many years. The major aspects of the car were designed by the master's group who were working on this project as part of their major group project. Those who were new to the team also worked on smaller designed tasks later in the project duration.  

Lessons Learnt  

The team learnt the importance of planning and time management in a project and allowing time for the unexpected. Thankfully RS have next-day delivery. This is something that the team utilised plenty of times as we were able to get components quickly which allowed us to effectively rectify the issues that we faced. We also learnt the lesson of ensuring that the design decisions were presented and talked about between multiple members. This allowed ideas to be bounced around and for the optimal solution to be selected for the car.   

RS Components BOM 

The following is a list a BOM that was used with the fund and what the components were used for. 

• Dremel 150-Piece Cutting and Polishing Set: Used for various cutting and polishing of small elements that were machined in-house.
• Milwaukee M18 BOS125-0 125mm Cordless Orbital Sander: Used to sand down various manufactured components to prep them to be primed and painted.
• RS PRO 70 Piece Mild Steel Worm Drive Hose Clip Kit: Used to safely secure hose connections 
• RS PRO Tachometer Best Accuracy: Used to measure rotational speed during tests that were carried out by team members
• RS PRO Stainless Steel Circular Abrasive Brush, 50mm Diameter: Used to clean up and refine in house manufactured components.
• RS PRO Steel End Abrasive Brush, 19mm Diameter: Used to clean up and refine in-house manufactured components.
• Dremel Tungsten Carving Bit for Stainless Steel, Wood, 3.2mm Diameter, 39 mm Overall: Used to clean up and refine in-house manufactured components.
• Dremel Tungsten Carving Bit for Stainless Steel, Wood, 3.2mm Diameter, 39 mm Overall: Used to clean up and refine in-house manufactured components.
• Laserliner Magnetic, Spirit Level, User Calibrated: Used to measure any angles in any of the components manufactured.
• onsemi P6KE13CA, Bi-Directional TVS Diode, 600W, 2-Pin DO-15: Used on the custom designed PCBs.
• Samtec SSW Series Straight Through Hole Mount PCB Socket, 1-Contact, 1-Row, 2.54mm Pitch, Solder Termination: Used on the custom-designed PCBs.
• Omron PCB Mount Power Relay, 12V dc Coil, 10A Switching Current, SPST: Used on the custom-designed PCBs.
• Texas Instruments CD4077BE, Quad 2-Input XNOR Logic Gate, 14-Pin PDIP: Used on the custom-designed PCBs.
• Vishay, CNY65B DC Input Phototransistor Output Optocoupler, Through Hole, 4-Pin PDIP: Used on the custom-designed PCBs.
• Ansmann Battery Pack Charger for NiCd, NiMH Battery Pack 3 → 10 Cell with AUS, EU, UK, USA plug: To charge the low voltage batteries in the car
• Arduino UNO Mini Limited Edition: Used on the custom-designed PCBs.
• CUI Devices 120dB Through Hole Internal Magnetic Buzzer, 12V dc Min, 15V dc Max: The buzzer that is needed for the car 
• Tivoly Steel Circular Abrasive Brush, 75mm Diameter: Used to clean up and refine in house manufactured components.
• Motorbike Brake Cleaner 500 ml Aerosol: To clean the brakes of the car
• Ambersil 500 ml Aerosol Solvent Based Degreaser: To degrease components