DUTracing team

NewsletterDecember

2012

FSG (Kroeger)

Content

- Intro- Team Weekend- Race Car Aerodynamics- Concept Review- Interview With DUT Engineer- Sponsor Day

FSG (Scheuplein)

Dear Reader,

Allow me to introduce to you this second newsletter of the DUT Racing Team 2012-2013. Last month, we emphasized the team building phase. In this months newsletter, we will give a sneak preview of our concept phase. The previous weeks, we have been focussing on the idea behind the car, the concept.

Asking questions such as: What are the fundamental ideas that our year will stand for? In the previous Formula Student competitions there were a lot of cars with wings. Do wings really improve the perfomance of the car? This is one of the conceptual themes which kept us going the last month. This theme will be the main subject in this newsletter.

Enjoy reading!

Kind regards,

Marius KnolTeam Manager 2012-2013

Paul Brussee

Intro

During the weekend of the 9th until 11th of November the yearly team weekend took place. This year's location was just across the Belgium border at holiday residence “de Warre” in Neeroeteren. Friday evening, after the traditional dinner of French fries from snack bar 't Oekie, we left towards our destination. After arrival, we enjoyed ourselves with all kinds of board games and a few lovely tasting beers.

After a delicious brunch, we went paintballing in the nearby woods at Bootcamp paintball

Maaseik. With a group of almost 40 people this became an epic fight, where proper tactics and efficient communication were essential for victory. When the group came home from this active and exhaustive activity the all-time DUT Racing favourite meal was already waiting: “Pasta Rood”.

In the evening, a dropping was organized. Transported in a horse trailer, we were dropped at the edge of the woods from where we had to find our way back home during the next couple of hours. When arriving

at the residence, hotdogs and beers were already waiting. The 2 groups experienced exciting stories which were exchanged until late at night.

The next morning, the weekend was sadly over and after a thorough clean-up we headed back to Delft where we continued with realizing our main goal: building a Formula Student race car!

Team Weekend

Formula 1 is the pinnacle of motorsports. The entire car is optimized to each single aspect and even the air around the vehicle is used to enhance the performance. From the 1970’s onwards, Formula 1 teams have used aerodynamic down-force to create higher cornering speeds. Higher cornering speeds result in much quicker lap times.

On the 22nd of November, Jeroen Klein Geltink, a former DUT Racing team member, gave a lecture about aerodynamics in Formula 1. As a front-end wind tunnel engineer of the Lotus F1 team, he is responsible for the aerodynamic design of the front part of the car.

Various tools of trade are available to perform aerodynamic research. Klein Geltink works in the windtunnel, but also CFD, simulations and track tests can be used in the design process. Each of the four methods has its own advantages and disadvantages. The use of these tools, especially track and wind tunnel testing, is controlled by regulations. A track test may sound as the most attractive option, but a real life environment is subjected to constant changes in wind and the emotions of the driver, who never makes things easier.

All in all, from a Formula 1 perspective the lecture was very interesting. However, for a DUT Racing vehicle, it is less applicable.

The design of a Formula 1 car is, from an aerodynamics perspective, comparable to the Space Shuttle. The aerodynamics of the Space Shuttle is often jokingly called the Flying Brick. That is of course not very good, that is why we, as DUT Racing, are going to do better than that!

Aerodynamics Lecture

DUT Racing team alumnus, Jeroen Klein Geltink, now working at the Lotus F1 Team, gave a lecture about racecar aerodynamics. We attended this lecture and here is the story.

VSV (Leonardo da Vinci)

In the evening of November the 15th, the whole team and a lot of alumni, good for a total of over 80 people, gathered in lecture room F of the faculty of Civil Engineering at the TU Delft. It was time for the concept review. At the concept review, DUT Racing Alumni, who have been involved with the development of earlier cars, assess this year’s concepts for specific parts of the car. This evening is held to prevent mistakes made in previous DUT Racing years.

To be able to evaluate the concepts of the specific parts of the car, one has to know

the ideas behind the car itself, namely the Top-Level Concept. Therefore, Chief Engineer Reinier Alberda presented the Top-level Concept at the beginning of the evening. Every car starts with a series of fundamental ideas in combination with the most recent Formula Student competition rules, all of this to achieve the best result at the next competition.

It would be rather difficult to have a meeting with over 80 people at the same time. Hence, after Renier’s presentation it was time to split up in smaller

groups and let the engineers present their concept to the dedicated alumni. It is always very insightful to see the new ideas and possibilities that team members have come up with, also to find out that some mistakes are made almost every year. Some frequently asked questions by alumni: “On which parts will your part have a big influence?” or, “Why does this concept fit the Top-level concept best?”. These questions always work pretty well and give the team members a new dimension of thinking, which makes them into better engineers.

Concept Review

One of the reasons that our team might be considered as one of the world’s top players is because we organise evenings like the “Concept Review”.

An interview with Merijn van Holsteijn, a 2nd year Aerospace Engineering student and 1st year team member of the Powertrain department.

How did you end up at DUT Racing?It was during a CATIA lecture that some team members of DUT Racing gave a small presentation about the project. This presentation sparked my interest and I got a tour through the D:DREAM hall. After that I signed up to become a member.

Did the team meet your expectations?My expectations came out pretty good, girls are really scarce within the team (I still don’t know why) But the team is really awesome, everybody is really motivated and willing to help each other, even former team members do so, although you’ll have to do most of the work yourself. But whenever you’re stuck you can get the support you need.

What do you do within the DUT Racing team?My original task was to design the splitbox; the connecting part between the High Voltage (i.e. everything connected to the accumulator) and Low Voltage (i.e. the dashboard display, ECU and other low voltage electronics) system of the car. Since that part is almost finished, my buddy Bas and I are also making an energy meter. If that wasn’t enough we will also design the wiring harness, a part that was not finished in time last year, so it will be a challenge to finish it before the deadline.

How does this fit into your field of study: Aerospace Engineering? Lightweight design is a top priority at DUT Racing, just as it is in Aerospace Engineering. Also, designing parts and products in CATIA and working in a group is something we do a lot in my field of study.

Is it a valuable addition to your study?It definitely is. It’s like working for a company, something you won’t learn from just studying.

What is most unique about DUT Racing?Especially the enthusiasm of all the team members is quite unique. That such a big group of students is working towards the same goal, designing and building a brand new racecar. Where do you see yourself in 20 years, and how will your experience with DUT Racing help you with that?Well, that is hard to say, I haven’t decided whether I want to start my own company, or work within a company. I haven’t even decided in which industry. I hope this year with DUT Racing will make that decision easier.

Since we started of introducing our team members in last month’s newsletter, we would like to expand this idea into a full-scale interview. Do you also wonder what motivates people to join DUT Racing?

Interview with DUT engineer

Core Team seminar

To be able to come to a good design for the DUT13, a lot of meetings have already been held. However, the core team thinks that these meetings could be more efficient. For this reason MANS was contacted for a course in efficient meetings.

On November the 27th, the core team followed this one day course. In a meeting room of the D:DREAM hall they treated, in one day, not only how to make meetings more effective, but they also got to know each other better as a core team as well. By performing a couple of personality tests, they got to

know from each other how they function in a team and how they can motivate the whole team better.

The subject of the second part of the day was how to make meetings more efficient. By agreeing on the subjects and outcome of the meeting beforehand the duration of the meetings can be shortened. It is expected that the core team can reduce their meeting time with about 2 hours a week now.

We would like to thank MANS for this course. The first positive results are already noticeable!

Core Team seminarFriday the 23rd of November was the last official day for the DUT12 team: the Sponsor Day. Like the name already implies, a day to thank all the sponsors for their support during the DUT Racing team 2011-2012.

The sponsor day was a morning programme starting at 09:00AM. The programme kicked off with some reserved time for the sponsors to have a chat with the DUT12 core team. Some questions that came up were: “How was the year, and what are your future plans?” or, “What happens now with the car?”. During the activities the car was nicely displayed in the middle of the workshop, where most of the day took place.

After a welcome, all the sponsors got a tour through the D:DREAM hall, where not only our team resides, but also many other cool projects of the TU Delft. During this tour our sponsors got to see our office, “het Hok”, where the new team was working hard on the DUT13.

The next part of the programme was a presentation about one year of DUT Racing displayed in 145 pictures. The enthusiasm of the former Team Manager, Max Wink, hopefully ignited the sponsors to continue supporting the team this year.

Afterwards, it was obviously time for a demonstration of the DUT12! To be honest, it is rather difficult to give an exciting show with a four-wheel-driven car. Adding all the intelligent control systems of the DUT12, one can say it is very hard to deliberately drift with the car. To make it more exciting, we demonstrated a new feature on the DUT12: the donut button! Everyone was very impressed.

The closing lunch after the demonstration had a nice atmosphere and altogether, we can say it was a very successful sponsor day.

Sponsor Day

Sponsors

advanced engineeringlightweight

- Faculty of Aerospace Engineering

- Faculty of Applied Sciences

- Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering

- Faculty of Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering

- Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management

- Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics & Computer Science

Sponsors

Specialists in fibre reinforced composites

What’s next?

December 19th we will present our design of the DUT13,

and if you cannot attend our presentation you will read about

it in our next Newsletter!

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