Design Event Overview

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Design Event Overview
Design Event Overview Tony Lyscio Bill
Riley 10/20/2007
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Design Event Overview

• What this presentation is A general overview of
  the design event, format, judge expectations,
  etc.
• What it isnt a technical formula for a car to
  win design

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Design Event Overview

• Spirit of Design Event
• Competition Overview ( Design Prelims, Semis,
  Review )
• General Design Process
• Things to consider during all phases of project
  (design, build, development)
• Design trends
• Q A Session

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Spirit of the Design Event
Directly from the rules The concept of the
Design Event is to evaluate the engineering
effort that went into the design of the car and
how the engineering meets the intent of the the
market. The car that illustrates the best use of
engineering to meet the design goals and the best
understanding of the design by team members will
win the Design event.

• Key Items
• Engineering Effort
• Design Goals
• Understanding of Design by team members

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Design Event Overview - Prelims

• Prelims -start with 3-5 min. presentation giving
  vehicle overview
• Overall design philosophy
• Starting point (rules, points, tires, event
  points, history)
• General performance goals (weight, CG, power,
  etc)
• Were goals accomplished?
• Quick, broad and direct (all judges listening
  together)
• Team members pair off with judges (only 4-5 team
  members)
• Detail specifics with individual judges, show
  brief data plots
• Point out features, do not require judges to only
  observe and ask
• Judges only have 20 minutes in front of your car,
  use all of it!

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Design Event Overview Semis

• Semis - Your opportunity to dazzle the judges
• Two members with the car at a time, ready to tag
  team others in
• Know who is to cover which topics, be prepared
• More time one on one with specific judges
• Highlight system and component features
• More time for showing data, going through
  development results (know ALL of the whys)
• Aside from specifics highlight design options,
  compromises, and decisions

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Design Report Submissions

• 4 pages text, 3 pages drawings, 1 optional use
  page
• Content very similar to info for design
  preliminaries (plan, goals)
• Highlight types of analysis, testing (both
  performed and planned)
• Discuss feature components and approaches
• Uses
• Staging of teams for early design event slots
• Judges can get an early look at cars, begin
  judging process
• This is effectively your teams resume
• Needs to be ON TIME!

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Design Spec Sheet Submissions

• Complementary to Design Report, required
  submission
• Complete all areas, its OK to give a range for
  specs that will be subject to development
• Be as accurate as possible, use only realistic
  achievable values
• Uses
• Judges can catch a glimpse of vehicle synthesis
• Supports design report by adding details
• Provides cheat sheet to prepare for design event

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General Design Process

• Starting point??? -Rules, Tires, Scores, Lessons
  Learned
• On a per event basis, what are your goals, where
  is your focus?
• What reasonable performance specs will meet those
  goals?
• Break car into systems, define systems specs,
  systems into components to define component specs
• Consider big picture before performing component
  design (again, targets)
• Have complete vehicle lay-out, location, mass,
  and CG of components
• Consider every component, its placement, its
  effect on other parts / systems
• Things such as weight distribution and CG should
  be more than a spec, an accurate plan for getting
  there should exist before start of construction
• Iterate through systems integration issues, base
  compromise results on big picture

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General Design Processes
Things to Re-think Throughout all Phases of
Project (Design, Build, Development)

• Does the car look like it was designed with a
  system or component approach?
• What parts look like after thoughts? Were they?
• Is packaging tidy and look planned?
• Are items such as wiring exposed? or neatly
  routed in looms
• Are components adequately protected from
  environment (ie. are brake lines on the front or
  rear surface of A-arms?, wires crossing over hard
  sharp edges?)
• Is the car reasonable to maintain and adjust?
  (ie, do you have to remove the header to get to
  the oil filter?, are the damper knobs buried in
  the footwell?)
• Is the car on track to mass, CG and packaging
  expectations? If not, why?
• How is tuning done? Do adjustments make isolated
  changes or effect multiple settings?

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Design Trends

• Things to Consider and Some Opinions
• K.I.S.S. vs. High Tech
• Tire Data FSAE Tire Test Consortium
• Data Acquisition engineering and driver tool
• Mass vs. Stiffness - A balancing act
• Push me / Pull me or out in the wind?
• Fuel? E85, or fossil fuel
• Itty bitty parts dampers, CV joints
• Modeling and analysis vs. physical testing
• Aero- does it have place in FSAE?
• Space frames vs. composite, what is right for you?

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Design Trends

• Qualitative Design Rules To Keep in Mind
• Good design ? If it looks right it usually is
  right
• Corollary ? If it looks wrong it almost always
  is wrong
• Good load paths are your friend
• Triangles have good load paths, e.g. triangles
  (really tetrahedrons) are your friend
• The part not on the car has zero mass, no cost
  and cant fail
• The reward in performance must outweigh the
  risk and penalty of any component
• Systems Engineering ? Know it, use it
• Engines ? Spark it right, always. Its the
  biggest knob you have for engine performance.
• Mass ? Everything scales with mass, and lighter
  is better. There is no minimum weight. Make it
  light. But dont break.

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Spirit of the Design Event
Q A Good Resources http//students.sae.org/c
ompetitions/formulaseries/rules/ ? go to Design
area http//www.formulasae.org/forums/formula/disp
atch.cgi/_admin ? SAE site forums FAQ SAE
Papers ? Many reports have been written over the
years
anthony.lyscio_at_gm.com william.b.riley_at_gm.com
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Packaging Examples
Not clean, Not well thought out, and asking for
trouble!
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Packaging Examples
Well thought out, Well integrated, and Few
surprises.
This is where the Upfront work pays off!!
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Design Complexity
Both are front suspensions with dampers and a
roll bar What are the performance vs. cost,
effort, and complexity trade-offs?
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Aerodynamics
You must consider - time and expense to design
and build - development time - mass effects -
actual competition benefits (stopwatch, and
judges)
vs.
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Composites

• You must consider
• Time and expense to design and build
• Analysis capability, can you predict your
  performance?
• - Development time
• - Cost mass effects
• Actual competition benefits (stopwatch, and
  judges)
• Composites are very process sensitive, allow time
  to build it twice
• When problems are found in tech, welding on the
  space seems like a good alternative to

vs.
SAE Paper 2002-01-3300
SAE Paper 2006-01-3616