Momentum - March 2021 - 13

Student Generation
Historically, the UMD Racing team has always
designed, fabricated, and tested our own impact
attenuator. However, after considering the
potential cost and time savings involved, the
frame group elected to use the standard impact
attenuator instead.
Meanwhile, a new suspension system was
designed to accommodate the new frame. Here
the student engineers opted for a simpler
arrangement than we had used in the past,
utilizing a double-wishbone setup for both the
front and rear of the vehicle. At a high level, this
served two critical functions: first,
accommodating the skill level of our new
suspension team and second, reducing assembly
complexity significantly. The latter had been a
significant sticking point of our previous multilink suspension in the rear, especially in terms of
its complex interface with the full-body diffuser.
Vehicle aerodynamics saw some major
changes. Relatively early in the vehicle design
period, the decision was made to switch from
sprung to unsprung components. While this
would reduce the maximum amount of
downforce that we could generate in principle by
not having the diffuser hug the pavement and
the wings operating quasi-independently of the
vehicle roll, the advantages were also significant.
A large amount of manufacturing, mounting, and
kinematic design complexity was reduced by
being able to secure the aerodynamic elements
directly to the frame.

MANUFACTURING
With most of the vehicle subsystem designs
completed by the end of the Fall 2019 semester,
the UMD Racing team was looking forward to
the testing and competitions to come in the
following summer. Upon returning to the
University in January, we set to manufacturing
with much enthusiasm. After about a month in
the weld shop, our frame was complete. During
the same time, the electrical group fabricated a
dyno harness for our new engine, and the
powertrain group manufactured test versions of
all the engine peripherals. The powertrain group
then began dyno testing and mapping of the
new engine, validating it against the GT-Power
model developed during the design phase.
Meanwhile the electrical group transitioned to
fabricating the full car wiring harness. At the
same time, the suspension team began
manufacturing their linkages for control arms.
Also, the molds were built for our wing elements,
diffuser, and side pods, after which the carbonfiber layups commenced.

MOMENTUM

The UMD Racing team, just a few weeks before the campus closed.

SHUTDOWN
Then COVID-19 happened. To be fair, it had been going on elsewhere for
months already. But it hit home for us in early March, when the University
closed campus shortly after the students returned from spring break. All the
engineering competition teams were shut down in the process. In those first
few hectic weeks, we were left uncertain of what to do next. Our racecar was
well on its way to completion, but that didn't matter much when we couldn't
go in to work on the assembly, much less visit the machine shop to fabricate
new parts. Furthermore, all of the team members were dealing with the
unexpected transition of all of their coursework to a virtual format for the
final six weeks of the semester. When the plans from SAE were finally
released to hold a virtual-only competition later in the summer, we made the
hard choice to pull registration, as the complete loss of access to our vehicle
left us without information that would have been necessary to compete.

LOOKING TOWARD THE FUTURE
After a summer spent in uncertainty about the team's future, those of us who
are still enrolled in the University are looking forward to the 2021 competition
season ahead of us. Not that it is much less uncertain. Unfortunately, we still
have no idea when the University will allow us to return in some capacity to
commence with working on our vehicle, which we now plan to carry over into
the new season. Nevertheless, a new semester brings with it new students
interested in Formula SAE, and we look forward to introducing them to our
work. Whatever the future may hold, we are proud to be the UMD Racing
team; struggling, but still going strong. n
Michael Ustes, a graduate student of mechanical engineering at the University of
Michigan-Dearborn, wrote this article for MOMENTUM. He is captain of the school's
Formula SAE racing team (UMD Racing) for the 2021 competition season.

March 2021 13

Momentum - March 2021

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