Left back members machined

Today we cut and machined out the left side aft bracing member and left side impact member.

As you can see below however, our fishmouths our a little rough. There are some slight gaps at the junction of the members, but we believe that it is sufficient to be weldable.




In addition, we have decided to use rope as a jig, which was a technique that we learned from the prior 2005 team.

Frame members tack welded

Today we tack welded our rear roll hoop onto the bottom plane of our frame. Since the bottom of the rear roll hoop had shrunk a bit when it was being welded, some force was needed to fit the rear roll hoop onto the bottom plane.

We have also tack welded together our rear back plane and the rear engine members. Our engine members were then tacked to the back of our bottom plane.


After the engine members and the rear back plane had been tack welded, there was some concern as to whether the engine and the gearbox would be able to fit into the engine area. As a result, we took an old engine from a previous car and made a slightly oversized mockup of the gearbox to see if they would fit inside the engine area. Both fit well within the back area of the car.

Clevises finalized

Today we finalized the clevis's that we made yesterday. The edges have been smoothed out and deburred, and each clevis test fitted with a rod end and bolt to make sure that they work.

Machining and design

Today we machined three clevises out of a steel square tubing. At the moment they are still fairly rough, but this is because we have yet to measure the correct angles that they will be fishmouthed to the frame.

We have also finalized the CAD designs for the seat belt mounts, the seat belt covers, and the light bar.

Rear roll hoop welded

Today we welded the rear roll hoop together.

Unfortunately, there was some shrinkage during the welding process which resulted in a gap. Luckily, it is still possible to fit our rear roll hoop onto our bottom plane by forcing it in.

Combining motion and simulation

Today we learned to combine Solidworks Motion and Simulation to obtain results on the moving components of our car. We were also able to obtain results which showed that our trailing arm was within safe limits.

More FEA

Today we experimented more with Solidworks FEA. This time we decided to run analysis on simple parts so we could experience with FEA before moving on to more complex parts.