Lilly George

Working with another teammate to design a custom steering rack which can be a drop-in replacement for a previously purchased rack. This will allow for easy testing and physical validation of the design. Current progress includes setting specs based on those of the purchased rack and researching the internal structure of steering racks. The goal is to make the custom steering rack lighter and include a smaller packaging area than the previously used rack, while maintaining functionality and reliability.

Laid strain gauges to collect data from a commercial lawnmower during a durability test. Calculated damage accumulated due to testing through data analysis. Correlating strain and acceleration data on lawmnmower to strains, accelerations, and damage values seen from vertical hydraulic actuation of lawnmower wheels. This will reduce testing time and allow for other lawnmowers to be taken past their limit, displaying failure modes previously unknown.

Mocked-up countermeasure to a design issue which was causing part yield when lawnmower blade plate was held in place to torque bolted connections. Modeled desired change in CAD and presented solution to design team. Validated part change through Catia FEA and through physical fatigue testing of blade plate assembly. The part change was successfully implemented before an upcoming specification fix meeting.

Planned testing of 7 different specifications of mock carbon fiber suspension members. These suspension members consisted of aluminum plugs bonded into carbon fiber twill tubes with epoxy. The goal was to use uniaxial tension loading to debond the epoxy connection between the plugs and tubes. Determined the maximum possible load which the test could require and researched ANSI standards for a loading rate to ensure safety. Designed fixture which acted as a suspension tab which the UTM could grasp. This allowed for the inclusion of rod end bearings, jam nuts, and the bolted connection used on the car within the test, making it more representative of the real car. Testing was successful; the specification of the strongest tube will most likely be used for the design of PER27's suspension members.

Developed 16 control arm tabs for 26' car. This included coping the tabs to the chassis in Siemens NX by exporting outer surfaces and filling gaps between them; this ensured that all cuts were normal to the tube surface. Created CAM to manufacture tabs using a rotary tube laser. Validated tab strengths using Ansys FEA. Designed and fabricated assembly jig for tabs to correctly sit on chassis during welding. The tabs were successfully manufactured and welded to the chassis, and are currently being used on the car.