Edgerton UROP

One of the projects I got to take up was learning about how aerodynamic bodies are designed and analyzed. Most of this was working remotely and occasionally asking other team members to point me in the right direction. I ended up learning how to use surface modeling to create vehicle bodies. As well as how to create designs that exhibited the aerodynamic properties I wanted. 

Solar car design is somewhat unique when it comes to aerodynamics. It's efficiency at the expense of (nearly) everything else. This means minimizing drag. Unlike conventional vehicles where you might want at least a bit of downforce or aeronautics where you want a fair bit of lift, here you want neither as those forces increase drag and reduce efficiency. 

I went on to analyze designs I made in Ansys Fluent. It was really cool to see the data (CFD-Post also lets you make some really pretty animations) but also really informative. It showed areas where early flow separation was occurring which allowed me to go back and revise my designs. Each design facing less drag and improved aerodynamic properties. 

I ended up doing a fair bit of work on the hardware side of the electrical system. I designed and built a control panel for the car, ensuring it met competition regulations as well as our team's requirements. I also made mounts for the horns, which were a tad bit overkill. So much so that you could "take the car by its horns". I ended up designing and printing boxes for a lot of our circuit boards and parts for mounting the exterior lights. There was also some more elaborate composites work I did in order to mount the car's unexpectedly heavy AC-DC converter (used for charging from the grid) vertically.