Detail. Wing mounting as installed on the car.
Synthesized "ratcheted slots" for incremental adjustment of height and pitch of the front wing. Front wing mounting structure highlighted on the CAD.
MIT FSAE
Fall 2017 & Spring 2018
Fall 2017 & Spring 2018
Wing Mounting
Over previous years, the wing mounting systems were engineered to achieve optimal force distribution, but the usability was neglected. Along with the usual structural support for the wings, I aimed to make the wing mounting system into a platform where the aero team could improve the lift and drag properties of the overall car experimentally with repeatable, incremental position adjustment.
This is the first year the wing mounting design is kept the same because the time saved during competition was a valuable trade off, and the aero team is able to carry their engineering forward by exploring full car aerodynamics with the new wing mounting design.
Bracket on the rear wing. Height of wing is changed by sliding the rod end vertically and the distance of wing to chassis by sliding it along the slot.
I restructured the mounting bar geometry to decouple the important directions of wing adjustment so each of them could be changed independently and ensured repeatability of position changes via ratcheted slots that only move in ⅛ inch increments. This design enabled the aero team to gain control over drag and downforce, the two big parameters of vehicle aerodynamics, even though the new bar geometry resulted in a less optimal force distribution.
Fall 2018 & Spring 2019
Water Cooling
Battery & Cooling Teams: Cold plate design for the battery & motor controllers
As the battery cooling lead, I took on introducing a liquid cooling system to our battery. This large scope project required a very flexible understanding of the design process. I had to rely on my skill to seek information from many sources and synthesize these to create an adept solution.
I committed to making use of the diverse environment of mechanical, electrical, manufacturing and packaging engineers to grow our once independent designs together. By collaborating closely with the packaging lead to place principles of heat transfer in the core of our battery architecture, we achieved unparalleled energy density and thermal regulation in Formula SAE.
Simulated water flow in possible cold plates in SW CFD
Test module design by Ethan Perrin. The cooling channels are shown in green.
Constructed a test bench to verify simulation results and designs. When a radiator or cold plate is inserted between the quick disconnects, water circulates in the bench. Pressure gauges and thermocouples are inserted to the inlet and outlet of the testing block to measure the two properties across the cold plate.
Here I interfaced with a lot of people with different specialties to find the correct sensors, tube fittings and all the other components I used to build the test setups.
Measuring temperature and pressure drop across a radiator on the test bench.
Example cold plates. Two sides screw in together and seal with o-rings. They connect to the cooling loop via quick disconnects.
With the learnings from the battery cold plate design, constructed cold plated for the front motor controllers. Cold plates, highlighted in blue, sit under the motor controllers.
Even though I gained a lot of domain knowledge with this project, my biggest takeaway is the importance of staying curious. Continuously looking for better information and learning how to communicate with people of different backgrounds enabled me to take on this project I could not have worked on within the limits of my initial knowledge.