Week 13

Week 13 Update

This week's focus was on completing our models for the semester, and preparing for our third presentation. David continued his focus on the junction and trying to get that finished before the third presentation. Evelia worried about the column assembly that needed to be rebuilt after Futran's files failed to give us proper simulations. However, we fell behind on analysis due to some collisions and interference within our assemblies. We were not able to deliver as much as we would have liked to on the presentation, but we are happy that most of our designs are being finalized.

In the presentation we mentioned that our design for the third rail and track system is now finalized. the junction is pretty close to completion. As we mentioned during our presentation, our goal for the end of the semester is to have all analysis finalized to support our design so that we can focus our attention on redefining and optimizing our own designs the following semester.  Below is the presentation we put together. 

Week 12

Week 12 Update

For this week, we continued our design of the junction as well as the column assembly. David was in charge of the continuation of the junction and Evelia took on the task of creating a new column assembly now that the column was rebuilt. 

Evelia found that none of the files provided by previous semesters were working. This meant that we didn't just have to rebuild the column, we also had to do all parts of the column assembly. Evelia plans to have this done before the next presentation in order to provide some FEA to the solar team. Below is an image of the column assembly that we will be redesigning.

A few questions we wanted to address:

• What are the overall dimensions of your track going to be? 
• For just the junction section it looks like it's going to be ~2.7 m tall, ~3 m long, and it looks like 5.5-6 m wide at the end of the split, but this won't be fully known until the model is finished.
• How far will the curved section of your track be? 
• We plan to just do the 3 meter section of junction, so if we are able to make it compatible with the current wooden track it will be able to go straight for ~6 meters, or straight for ~3, and then turn for another 3.
• Will your track design mimic the layout of the old metal full scale track that is in the back of the shop?
• We don't think so, we are mimicking the wooden track with hopes to make it out of metal instead of wood.
• I am still curious on how your team plans on supporting the Y-section of your track? 
• The design is still in the works, but it is either going to be supported from the column cross-beam that is supporting the track at the start of the junction, or have its own support column from below.

Week 11

Week 11 Update 

For this week, we decided to continue on with our design of the junction as well as providing the full column assembly so that FEA could be performed. We want to be able to finalize our designs as soon as possible to focus on working with the analysis to provide to other teams (such as the Solar team). We are still on track to presenting soon, and are hoping to have many of our designs finalized with little to no changes made. Below is our new track assembly and the new dimensions.

For this week, Evelia focused her attention on updating the third rail and redoing the analysis to check if there were any changes. The reason for the update was due to the Interface Bogie Team's newest design. Their switching wheels on the bogie are standing at about 20.7" (525 mm) above the track. Our original supports were 10" and now they are about 3.88" (90.52-mm). The FEA for the new design can be seen below. We will continue working on the third rail and junction as well as getting the FEA done for the column soon. 

New FOS is 15

Maximum displacement is 0.066" (1.685-mm)

Von Misses Stress Analysis

Week 10

Week 10 Update

For this week, we decided to focus on several things. First we focused our attention on:

• Rebuilding/Re-designing the vertical columns found in column assembly

The column assembly that was provided to us seemed to run into issues whenever we tried to perform FEA. So, we decided that our best option was rebuilding it. We went through two revisions before we were able to properly construct the column again. Below is the image of our new column as well as the new assembly. We will be running FEA as soon as possible in order to provide the Solar Team some information about how much our columns can withstand.

Full Column Assembly (Right) and column component (left)

Second order of business was:

• Creating a segmented track 

We were given the idea by Ethan and Dr. Furman to create a segmented track instead of bending it. The reasoning behind this was manufacturing costs. It might be too difficult and expensive to bend the track and the components that go along with it. So, we have decided to create a segmented track. We have two different designs for this, as can be seen below. Once we have a set design, we will do some FEA to compare the designs.















Figure (left): Segmented track & curved sheet 

 Figure (right): Design #1 for segmented track

Figure (left): 5 segment track design w/ curved sheet 

Lastly,

• Continuing our design of the junction 

The junction is a work in progress and David has done a great job in showing our newest design. Below is what we have so far. Work is still in progress to modify the truss structure to accommodate the additional width from the track.

Preliminary junction assembly.

ALSO, we have decided to use a 2x6" tube rather than the 2x8" in order to give the bogie teams more space as well as minimize material use.