Chief Engineer
I was elected Chief Engineer (CE) for the 2019 design cycle, from May 2018 through November 2018. This position is the highest technical authority on the team, and it demanded sometimes 40 hours of work per week, on top of daily work and degree coursework. This is why, out of necessity, I switched roles to the (slightly) less demanding position of DAQ Lead for the Spring of 2019, after the car had been fully designed and parts were already in production. The car I led the design of, “102”, went on to be the most successful of any in team memory. It improved on the 2018 car with almost every metric, going on to take top 20 (of ~100) finishes at competitions, and a record-breaking 8th/98 place at Midnight Mayhem.
Core skill areas/tools in this role:
Developing, reviewing and planning implementation of designs across an entire off-road vehicle
CAD part design, assembly management
Modeling with hand calculations, custom MATLAB scripts, FEA (Solidworks Simulation, ANSYS)
Creating validation plans, testing procedures
Ensuring manufacturability, sourcing components, developing servicing routines
Leading (technically oriented) meetings, presenting to faculty
Creating CAE tools
Researching engineering literature
Designing and implementing documentation templates and strategies
Tracking timeline, cost, work delegations
As CE I was mainly tasked with:
Conducting design reviews: I developed the first multiphase design review documentation system the team has used in order to do this. A robust checklist system tailored for each subsystem and the level of design ‘progress’ it was administered at, helped us to catch numerous flaws and feasibility issues. Beyond just improving documentation, this process got the team, and especially myself, questioning the derivation of hand-me-down assumptions, load cases and design conventions. Provisions were made for load-case/FEA study and CAD quality assessments, manufacturability, serviceability, DFMEA, rules compliance…
Developing models: I developed and updated load cases based on hand calculations and back-calculating from part failures with FEA. A key tool I laid the framework for was a system in MATLAB for modelling suspension kinematic profiles (camber, Ackermann, castor…) as a function of suspension point locations. This complex solver and visualizer worked to compliment other simulations being done in ADAMS. Creating tools like this, and conducting immense amounts of research into the literature led to the earliest chassis completion in known memory. Beyond deriving models, my investigations led me to learn or refine FE techniques, such as utilising non-linear modelling of plastic deformation in the spindle-uprights for minimising damage borne of certain failure modes.
Managing designs at a systems level: Ensuring integration between designs developed across subsystems saw me implement large Solidworks assemblies for manufacturability analysis, complex multibody dynamics testing in ADAMS and ANSYS and integration quality assessment. I spent hundreds of hours on Solidworks as CE.
Consultation with other leads: An enormous chunk of my time was spent having deep discussions about innovation, implementation, validation, manufacturability and just generally leveraging technical intuition to guide designs.
Spearheading innovation: When I became CE it was clear I wouldn’t have much to go off of since documentation was scant and performance was poor. I was the driving force behind the development and adoption of:
Simplistic and robust tubular A-arm and trailing arm suspension systems.
The single billet machined spindle upright, which permitted large weight savings and optimal geometries (larger spindles, zero bumpsteer).
A completely redesigned gearbox case and shaft arrangement optimized for 'monocoque' load distribution and minimal stress risers on shafts.
A highly adjustable, low weight pedal box system.
A totally overhauled brake circuit with all new hardware.
Carbon fibre molded seat, Kevlar composite body paneling.
This of course, doesn’t name innovations permitting improvement to parameters like ride height, fatigue life, vibration reduction, serviceability, manufacturability, cost…
Please take a look through the gallery below for a few images of the car that resulted!