MID-YEARNEWSLETTERUNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND

TEAM LEADER UPDATE

Peter SefontSenior Team Leader

www.fsae.co.nz 1

The depth and breadth of knowledge learnt in a short semester on the team is mind blowing. It is often very easy to forget just how much we have learnt and how much we have grown as people and as engineers. Formula SAE truly captures why it’s so great to be young and have such an amazing opportunity to show the world what you are capable of. It shows us that it doesn’t come down to what grade you get on an exam; if you have passion and work hard, the only limit to what you can achieve on the team is the limit of your ambi-tion. This is what I think the goals of the year embrace.

In my few years on the team, this is the greatest that I have seen us push ourselves to the limit of our techni-cal abilities. The changeover to an electric powertrain coupled with the loss of some very experienced team members in the past couple of years has meant the intensity of the engineering challenges we face has in-creased dramatically. New technology also means new materials, new suppliers, and new relationships to build both within the university and externally. Together with a bunch of tired full time students and you get a pretty interesting outcome that requires everyone to be level headed and working towards the same goals in order to be effective.

One of those goals a bit further down the line will be a pretty awesome testbed for all of our electric vehicle campaigns to come and hopefully something to give the other com-

petitors a run for their money! After winning the business event last year but having disappointing finishes in the cost and design events, there is a renewed motivation

to do well in the static events, with preparation already underway and going well.

Eat. Sleep. Racecar. Repeat. This is what the first half of the year has been and what the rest of the year will be until December when we see the

culmination of our hard work. We can’t wait for the competition!

UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND

www.fsae.co.nz

PRODUCTION UPDATE

Additionally to the motors themselves, Control Team has been working on the ECU, the main com-puter for the car, which, following previous years, is the MoTeC M150, selected due to the team’s exist-ing familiarity with the system and due to its capa-bility to provide all the inputs and outputs required to run an electric vehicle. The electric car requires a selection of driver inputs to allow the car’s pro-gram to drive it efficiently, safely and fast. Choos-ing and testing the necessary input sensors for this task has been well underway, and already the mo-tor testbed allows for control of the motor using the throttle input to the ECU.

Now having a functional system, the job for Con-trol Team is to develop the control system that will drive the motors and allow for more complex func-tions such as regenerative breaking and torque vectoring, which can be used to get the car first running, then racing.

CONTROL

Motor control testing

“The team is currently at a very exciting point in the year, with many parts finally coming together!”

Production this year has had many ups and downs but the team has worked through the complexities of designing and manufacturing an electric car without any prior experience, with a fully functional car well on its way. Currently, we are eagerly anticipating the completion of a gearbox, and a segment for our accumula-tor. Our carbon fibre monocoque is almost ready, and with a little more hard work the team will soon see an assembled car that will be ready to face the challenges Australia sets for us this year.

For the last semester, Control Team has been working hard on preparing the tractive system for this year’s car. Work so far has focused on setting up the motor and inverter package the team purchased from AMK. As well as use of proprietary AMK software, this required the team to program its own CAN control programs to control inverter startup and provide inputs for getting the 600V motors spinning.

“having a functional system, the job for Control Team is now to develop the control system

that will drive the motors”

2

UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND

www.fsae.co.nz

DRIVELINEThe year to date for the driveline team has been a busy one, with the design and manufacture of our fully custom 1.5 stage planetary reduction gearbox coming to fruition. This is the first gearbox of its type the team has made: the gearbox is housed inside an upscaled traditional upright and has a reduction ra-tio of 11.4, which takes the high speed and relatively low torque output of our AMK motors, and gives an output that is a reasonable speed (1500rpm as op-posed to 15000rpm) and also a considerably higher torque value at each of the rear wheels. It also marks a significant milestone in the change from internal combustion to electric powered cars for the team. It was great to be able to see sponsors and support-ers of the team be able to have a good look at how the gearbox works at our annual Tech Night held on Wednesday 6th July at our workshop. All parts of the gearbox are manufactured in-house, with the final processes such as gear cutting, hardening and grinding happening at our generous sponsors; Bay of Plenty Gearcutters, Heat Treatments Ltd & E.G. Whiter toolmaker.

Ring gears being cut

Planet gears after gear cutting

Another new part to the car that the driveline team has been working on is the 3D printed water cool-ing jacket which is necessary to keep the motors cooled while running in the hot temperatures we see at competition in Melbourne. We have been working very closely with our new sponsors Fuji Xerox to make sure these innovative parts work well. The capabilities of 3D printing mean we can have a fairly complex internal structure that is able to be manufactured, it certainly has been a pleas-ure to work alongside such an amazing company and be able to see what capabilities are out there for additive manufacturing.

“Our fully custom 1.5 stage planetary reduction gearbox

coming to fruition”

3

UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND

www.fsae.co.nz

AERODYNAMICS

CHASSISWith the fibreglass chassis moulds complete, the com-posites team has begun the layup of the carbon fibre monocoque using pre-preg carbon fibre and alumin-ium honeycomb core. This year’s chassis laminate has been designed to minimise mass and maximise stiffness where required. Using knowledge from team alumni and many hours of modelling in Altair Hyperworks, we believe we can obtain a good design.

In order validate the design of the laminate for Structur-al equivalency, we have also completed materials test-ing at the university’s Centre of Advanced Composite Materials. Knowing that our computer simulated anal-ysis closely matches physical testing data gives us reas-surance that we are using correct engineering design practice!

Amongst monocoque manufacture, auxiliary composite items for a running car are also being made concurrent-ly in order to streamline the fabrication timeline. Small items such as carbon fibre clevises, pedals and headrest provide a good opportunity for new team members to hone their composite manufacturing skills.

Hard at work infusing the monocoque

The production of M016 components kicked off in May with the nose cone this year. With an MDF plug machined by Greenmount Espies, the team was able to successfully produce epoxy resin-infused fibreglass moulds. Once the moulds were complete, we were able to produce a wet laminated carbon fibre nose cone.

After the nose cone was completed, we began the process of manufacturing the wings for the M016 aero package. Ever eager for ways to improve, and optimise our manufacturing process, we are looking forward to trying out a new tooling process. With better tool-ing boards, generously provided to us by our sponsor Compotool, we hope to now be able to produce ef-fective moulds in one operation. With our design final-ised, we will soon start laminating the wings for our M016 aero package.

Aerodynamic Analysis of the M016

“This year’s chassis laminate has been designed to min-imise mass and maximise

stiffness where required “

4

UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND

www.fsae.co.nz

DRIVER TRAINING

Oli HeycoopRace Engineer

As competition looms ever closer and with the manufacture of the M016 well un-derway, it is important to prepare another important aspect of the event: our driv-ers. Competition rules for Australasia require a minimum of four drivers to split the driving between the four different dynamic events (Acceleration, Skidpad, Au-tocross and Endurance). With three of last year’s drivers having left the team, we have selected three new promising drivers to train up this year!

Robin

ROBIN

Taylor

Richard

The plan moving forward is to train in both the Go Kart and the M015 to get our new drivers acclimatised to driving on tracks and in a Formula SAE car as well. This will

ensure they are all prepared to hit the ground running when the M016 makes its track debut.

Having never raced competitively before, Robin, Taylor and Richard are doing a fantastic job. It will be exciting to see how we stack up against

the competition come December!

To assist in training our new drivers, the team recently acquired an Arrow AX9 Go Kart with a 125cc Rotax Max engine. So far, Robin, Taylor and Richard have each had four training sessions and have dramatically improved, growing their confi-dence behind the wheel greatly every session.

A great day of testing with the team and the M015

5

UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND

www.fsae.co.nz

OUR NEW SPONSORS

AMK GROUPThe AMK Group, a family-owned company based in Germany, has been one of the market and technology leaders in the electric drive technology, control technology, industrial automation engineering, and auto-motive areas for more than five decades. Their sponsorship significantly discounted the electric motor pack-age being used in this year’s car, allowing us to make the move to electric.

HI-Q ELECTRONICSHi-Q Electronics Ltd is a New Zealand owned business founded in 1982 and has become a leading component supplier to many manufacturers and industries throughout New Zealand and Australia. With more than 6000 different component lines and 5 million items in stock, Hi-Q provides high quality Plastic and Electronic Components to a wide variety of industries including Electronic, Electrical, General Engineering, Aviation, Marine and of course automotive!

COMPOTOOL

3D Printers

6

FUJI-XEROXThe electric car and motor package brings with it a unique cooling problem, with water-cooled motors re-quiring custom cooling jackets. Fuji Xerox, while obviously dealing in regular printing, copying and multi-function solutions are also able to offer 3D printing solutions! In partnership with 3D Systems, the inventor of 3D printing, Fuji Xerox are able to provide state-of-the-art machines and support representing the industry’s benchmark for production-grade manufacturing in aerospace, automotive and a variety of consumer, elec-tronic and fashion accessories.

Compotool have provided the team tooling boards which allows us to tool moulds, rather than making plus, removing an exhaustive step from composite manufacture. Compotool is sand and limestone mixed together and then pressed at 2000psi and cured at over 1000°C to form a soft calcium silicate ceramic board. Compotool presents a radical new approach to tooling. It is a material that allows you to speed up your man-ufacturing process while giving you a better quality tool. Saving you time and money.

UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND

www.fsae.co.nz

OUR NEW SPONSORS

FORD NEW ZEALAND

BP (previously British petroleum) have operated in the New Zealand market since 1946. They strongly believe in helping out the community, and have kindly sup-ported us through their community fund. BP are supplying us with fuel to use both for testing our old cars on track, as well as to keep our new Ford Transit Van on the roads of Auckland. We are grateful to have them join our many other won-derful supporters.

GILTRAP GROUP

Ford New Zealand have sponsored the team the use of a Ford Transit Cargo vehicle for the 2016 cam-paign. Access to the vehicle lifts significant pressure off team members to provide tow vehicles and a means of picking up materials and parts, and it will prove invaluable both in the testing of the 2016 car and the manufacture and build process!

BP

The Giltrap Group represent 16 of the most desirable automotive brands in over 12 dealerships across Auck-land, including Porsche, Volkswagen, Lamborghini and McLaren just to name a few! Their generous cash sup-port has allowed us to advance our driver training program to allow for consistent and reliable on track time with a 125cc Go Kart, perfect for the initial training and familiarisation of driving to the new drivers before they’re placed into an SAE car.

7

Shenzhen Melasta Battery Company Ltd. is a Chinese battery technology venture which specializes in research and develop-ment, production and marketing of rechargeable batteries and chargers for both consumer and industrial markets. Their sup-port in our battery pack cell purchasing was invaluable, with exceptional testing and quality control allowing us to have un-rivalled confidence in the consistency and compatibility of our cells.

MELASTA

UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND

www.fsae.co.nz

plastic surgeryauckland

Better vacuum systems for better composites

QUALITY SERVICE EXPERTISE

PROFESSIONAL AUTOCARE PRODUCTS

“Thank you to our sponsors for their continued support!”

8