Chassis: Changes have been made

These past few weeks, a lot of work has been done on the designs for the different projects within the chassis team. A lot of changes have been made, one of which is the fact that the pedal box is no longer going to be adjustable. The original idea was for the pedal box to be adjustable by using a spring and a track that the box can move on. The new idea is that the pedal box is just going to remain stationary and we will account for the need to adjust the length between driver and pedal box by adding pads behind the driver.

The current design for our non adjustable pedal box

The chassis now almost fully complete; there may be a few changes down the road, but not many. The chassis is going to be a space frame and the goal for this year is going to be for the frame to weigh less than 70 pounds. This is about 10 pounds lighter than last year.

CAD model for the current design of our chassis

Some other notable changes that have been made are the fact that we are now planning on making the steering wheel out of carbon fiber which will help reduce some weight. This project will also serve as valuable experience on the process of vacuum infusion as we will also be using this same process for the seat and body of the chassis. While changes haven’t been made to many of the other groups projects within the chassis, a lot of progress has been made throughout the design. A potential impact attenuator  has been found and all of the materials for the torsional rigidity rig have been located. The torsional rigidity rig will use an i-beam to stabilize the back of the chassis while the front is allowed to twist on a fulcrum. The design will consist of steel square tubing and steel plating in order to attach the hubs to the lever arm and i-beam to test for the rigidity. Fabrication is going to begin this week for the rig and it will be ready for use as soon as it is finished.