Welcome

Duke University Motorsports is a student group that designs and builds open wheel, single seat race cars to compete in the Formula SAE competition sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers. The team consists of Duke students from both Pratt and Trinity, in all classes. The purpose of the team is to provide students with a way to gain practical design and manufacturing experience in a fun and challenging setting.

Sunday, June 2, 2013

Design Progress


 Design is moving along at lightning pace right now, with the whole team contributing now.  With lapsim analysis we've been able to figure out what to focus on for this year - the main goals are (in order) to 1) improve grip, 2) improve aero, and 3) reduce mass.  We might be shooting for a narrower width as well due to the nature of the Michigan course, but not sure if a narrower track is worth the reduction in aero area.

A lot of goals 1 and 3 will be accomplished via the 10" Hoosier LC0's (we think - tire data analysis is currently ongoing to verify).  Also, we're looking for significant reduction in CG via driver positioning and packaging optimization.  Weight reduction is looking for a lot of creative design, better analysis to enable less over-design, better CAD accounting for mass, and better manufacturing methods.  CFD analysis has just started today to optimize the aero package for this car, so there's lots of work to do still on that front.

Some teaser shots of what the car might look like next year:



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