hi guys,
I am designing a monocoque chassis for my Formula SAE project (a competition for engineering an open wheel car). After going thru some ideas, the drawings always come out to the same generic open wheel monocoque chassis.
I am hoping you guys can critique the design of the chassis. Maybe give me some ideas on how to improve certain areas. Just so you know, we’re not allowed to have any opening in the nosecone, unless a small opening for where the A-arms/wishbones goes.
It’s a semi-monocoque where the front is all carbon fibre with a steel spaceframe for the rear (you’ll see in the picture of a general semi-monocoque car would look like: courtesy of Royal Military Inst. of Tech (RMIT). The rear was suppose to be flat, but i made it rounded like in the picture just to close the shell up so it’ll look nice. But in actuality, it will be flat just like the red car in the picture.
p/s: i know i might not be at the right thread here, but since a lot of ppl spend a lot of time in the general discussion, i thought i’d just post it up here. Admin:- feel free to move my topic to whichever thread you think is suitable.
Are you using a bulkhead to pickup the spaceframe? Are you even required to use a spaceframe to mount the engine, or could you extend the chassis back with a couple pontoons? I don’t like the way that subframe is attached in that picture you posted (single shear pickups with nothing to spread the load). Are your sidepods removable? Are you doing this as two pieces and bonding them together, or are you going to try to mold it as one piece? Are you using core, or just single layer? Carbon or fiberglass?
I didn’t do FSAE because I went to college in England, but I have done a couple Indycar chassis. I know FSAE has some strange rules that tend to limit the cool stuff you can do.
there will be rear and front bulkhead and stiffeners around it, but quite honestly, these cars are light enough that you probably wont need as much stiffeners and bulkhead as indycar do. Hence the single shear pickups for the subframe.
I can extend the monocoque to be a fully monocoque chassis, but money wise and the ease of manufacturing are some of the reasons why i opted for a semi-monocoque. A lot of things change in the drivetrain, especially now that we’re going for hybrids (for the first time), i would like to go with spaceframe for the rear just in case we have to do adjustments.
it’s carbon fibre with AL core. Building it in two halves and bond it together with hysol and uni along the two halves. So far, im not sure if we can do it one piece yet … im thinking two halves are much easier (although might required more time).
Im actually looking on the design of the chassis itself. Looking for new looks and how to stand out more than just a generic open wheel race car body.
Any creative ppl outthere that can help me out? No need any sketches, just a comment or two like whether the nose would be nicer to be higher or whatnot.