Week 7

Week 7 Update 

This week, we decided to continue our design work for the curved section of the track. Our presentation will be next week, so we are trying to meet that deadline. We want to finish most of our design by then so that we can continue to move on to analysis and finalizing our design. For next semester, we want to focus on getting all manufacturing done, so having the design finalized soon is crucial to this. As of right now, we have the design of the third rail finished. We are going to be going with a triangular design as this would be more effective than having a diamond shape (figure 1). We are hoping to have some FEA done by the end of this week (10/19/18) in order to prove that our triangular third rail is our best choice. The purpose of the third rail is implemented in order to assist the bogie with turning. The supports shown in figure 1 are most likely going to be welded on. 

Figure 1: The design of the third rail we will be implementing into our design 

Moreover, our next move is to start designing the junction in order to run some analysis on that as well and add it to our design. Once we have the third rail, curved section and junction, we can start finalizing our design. Since we are already halfway through this semester, we want to start finalizing our designs in order to stay on track for next semester. The junction track is shown below in figure 2.

Figure 2: The design of the junction we have done so far  

Also, in figure 3 we show how the curved track plus the third rail should resemble. Again, we are still borrowing the Futran track specs and adapting them for our use. The curved section was the reason behind us switching our track design from the cross cross-section to the 8x8 cross section. Futran's original track was going to be too difficult to manufacture, especially the curved section so we decided to change the design. However, the rest of the track will remain very similar to Futran specs, as can be noted in figure 3 below.

Figure 3: Curved track plus the third rail concept design  

For next week, we are going to be focusing on analysis and getting our presentation finished. We want to be able to present new information, so analysis is very crucial for this. We will be working on familiarizing ourselves with ANSYS in order to proceed with analysis. 

Reminder: If we are able to get enough funding for our track, we are going to be making the junction portion of the track out of steel. The straight portion made out of wood that was left behind by previous teams will remain and be used. We are working to make these tracks (wooden and steel) compatible enough to have the bogie drive on it. We definitely want the third rail system to be made out of steel though, as the summer team did not have successful results with their wooden rail.