The Formula Student Team Global Formula Racing from Oregon State University implemented an air suspension system in their 2017 combustion powered vehicle, mainly to save weight. This thesis covers the performance evaluation of such system by comparison to conventional coil over shocks. Utilizing two different Formula Student style courses, three...
The competitiveness level of Formula Student is consistently increasing. Teams must allocate resources to develop new innovative designs to gain a competitive edge. Managing team resources effectively is critical to a team’s success. Reducing the resources required to manufacture specific components can be used to allocate resources to other beneficial...
This work develops the loads, boundary conditions, and model construction techniques used to create a high-level vehicle analysis model. The loads are derived from the overall performance parameters of the vehicle, which include 3 axis accelerations and aerodynamic forces from Computational Fluid Dynamics outputs. The boundary condition of the analysis...
Designing a carbon fiber chassis for the Global Formula Race car has historically proven to be both time intensive and difficult. The goal of this thesis is to improve the design process for testing Global Formula Racing team's composite chassis sandwich panels. Consideration was taken regarding Formula SAE rules, and...
OSU’s Global Formula Racing (GFR) team creates two carbon fiber chassis each year, one for combustion engine powered the other electric. These two vehicles compete in SAE sanctioned competitions teams and in order to enter they both have to provide design and testing information to prove the vehicle is safe...
This thesis covers the use of a quarter car model to select damping rates for aFormula Student (FS) car, focusing on minimizing vertical tire force variation to improvegrip. A 2 degree of freedom (DOF) quarter car model is cycled over the road frequenciesof interest and the results compared with the...
The reliability and survivability of a wave energy converter (WEC) is highly dependent on the variability and non-linearity of the ocean itself. Ocean variability occurs on many time scales. Climate variability occurs decade-to-decade, and year-to-year in the number and intensity of winter storms. Seasonal variation of wave height and period...
Formula Student challenges collegiate teams around the world to compete against one another in global racing competitions. Global Formula Racing (GFR) is a collaboration between Oregon State University and German at Duale Hochshule Baden- Wurttemberg Ravensburg students to build a racecar. The task assigned was to create a pedal assembly...
The purpose of this project is to examine the effect of the slot gap spacing on a multi element rear
wing. A three element rear wing is used in order to produce maximum downforce at the relatively
low speed of Formula SAE competitions. These high lift configurations serve to increase...
Hydraulic power take-off (PTO) systems have been implemented in several wave energy converter (WEC) designs in recent years. Two popular hydraulic PTO configurations coupled to a point absorber hydrodynamic model are simulated in waves representative of an energetic sea state likely to be found in deep waters off the coast...
A student-built lap time simulation coupled with the scoring model of the Formula Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Series has revealed the major importance of downforce on overall points. As a result, the Global Formula Racing (GFR) team has recently focused much effort towards the development of an aerodynamics package...
In this dissertation, a group of vehicle dynamics simulation tools is developed with two primary goals: to accurately represent vehicle behavior and to provide insight that improves the understanding of vehicle performance. Three tools are developed that focus on tire modeling, vehicle modeling and lap time simulation.
Tire modeling is...
This thesis investigates the applicability of the finite element method to model wave energy converter (WEC) hydroelasticity using LS-DYNA. The proposed methodology uses the Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian formulation to model Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) between the WEC and the fluid elements. This formulation allows for time-domain modeling of higher order effects such...
Future engineers need to be competitive in today's expanding global industries. They must have capabilities beyond standard engineering practice. In an attempt to develop students capable of working in a globally distributed design and manufacturing environment, Oregon State University (OSU) and Duale Hochschule Baden-Württemberg Ravensburg (DHBW) have developed a senior...
Wave energy conversion is still in its infancy, and in order for it to become a commercially viable technology, developers, investors and utilities need to estimate a Wave Energy Converter's (WEC's) performance for the wave climate of a potential installation site. With the goal of estimating a design's power output...
Aerodynamic improvements in automotive racing can have a significant effect
on vehicle performance. Recent developments in Formula SAE (Society of
Automotive Engineers) have included the design and implementation of aerodynamic
devices such as inverted wings and undertrays to improve performance. In this work
the literature of undertray technology is presented...
Customer requirements and engineering specifications will influence the direction of the design in any product, so it is crucial to make the requirements as stable as possible so quality designs can be produced on time within a budget. It would be optimal for requirements and specifications to remain constant but...
Ocean Wave Energy Converters (WECs) operating on the water surface are subject to storms and other extreme events. In particular, high and steep waves, especially breaking waves, are likely the most dangerous to WECs. A method for quantifying the breaking severity of waves is presented and applied to wave data...
The world is currently using an unsustainable system of meeting its transportation
needs with oil. This system is taking a toll on the world environment and on global politics.
The physical availability of oil is the system’s most immediate problem and will most likely
bring about a transition away from...