The Formula Hybrid team is a completely student run team, and relies on the sponsorship of generous companies to raise the money needed to build the car and make it to competition. So far our generous sponsors for this year are:
At the Platinum Level: Applied Medical and Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD)
At the Gold Level: Schlumberger
At the Silver Level: K&N
At the Bronze Level: Driven Raceway
Before winter break we had decided and planned a new and ambitious build schedule that would allow us to get the car ready to run earlier than ever giving us more time to test! To complete this goal many students gave up their first weeks of winter break to disassemble the car. Now that its completely disassembled, the hard work begins. We'll be cleaning all our parts and assessing what needs replacing, and also learning from last year to redesign and replaces certain parts, such as our shifter). We'll also be ordering our electrical components soon! How exciting. First day back and we're ready to get going to meet our March 4th deadline!
This year FH3 has decided to push ourselves to complete the car faster than ever! We've set an ambitious deadline of MARCH 4TH to have the car running (at least on gas) so that we may begin testing. Such an early deadline has never been set in UC Davis Formula Hybrid history! To meet this deadline we've created a fast paced and demanding build schedule. Take a look at it by hovering over FH3 and selecting it in the drop down menu.
Today the team went to Driven Raceway to do a series of three races to determine our drivers! It was a great way for the team to bond and have a great time together outside the shop. We selected chassis team lead Eric Joya to be one of the drivers. He held a steady first place over the course of all his laps at the track. Also Kyle Gayman, a sophomore with driving experience, had the top time at the track for the week! We're excited to say that Eric will be driving at competition and Kyle has agreed to help coach the drivers we select!
Once again many thanks to Driven Raceway for allowing us to use their track and cars to conduct our driver selections!
The Chassis Team this year is headed up by Brett Stephens.
We've decided to reuse the Chassis that was fabricated last year (for FH2), but are in the process of some research and testing to make some modifications for FH3. We are working on composing a spreadsheet which documents different weight transfers (during braking, turning, etc.) and performing some basic calculations on in order to see what road forces result during these events. This data will be used for the new front upright design. To make these analysis, some programs are also being tested and looked at to suit our purposes. And lastly, new A- arms are being designed and will be fabricated soon. The Chassis Team has been able to accomplish a lot in the past few months!
The Controls group to date has been busy redesigning the electrical components and architecture of the FH3. Most importantly a bit of systems engineering led us to decide upon a pre-transmission parallel hybrid model for the competition, the same as previous years. The pre-transmission system allows us to maximize efficiency and power output (well beyond the limitations of the tires to grip) without suffering under low or high speed situations. There is a downside to a pre-transmission system, namely that it must undergo shifting, during which no power can be applied for acceleration or regenerative braking.
Additionally it was determined to us an AC motor system, which allows us to maintain a high efficiency with a higher motor rpm range, more power output, and easy regenerative braking implementation.
A controller manufacturer was selected for their robust and affordable controllers. The AC Motor manufacturer was also selected, due to having an appropriately sized and efficient AC motor within our voltage range.
Right now the battery pack target voltage has been determined to work most advantageously with our controller and motor, however a specific battery has not been chosen, two companies are currently being examined as sources for our batteries.
This week's meeting revolved largely around creating CAD models for our components, as well as gearing up to create the entire vehicle wiring diagram over the next two weeks. We expect to be able to start programming our controllers before the end of the quarter, and early in January to begin assembling our wiring harness.
Programming has been a particular area of research, since the motor controller requires a proprietary interface, and our advisory controller system appears to be programmed via Matlab, however the manufacturer and internet both do not provide a great many details on the process. We are currently awaiting quotes for the advisory controller options, though due to information drawn from industry through members of the team, we have decided upon the advisory controller manufacturer as well.
Most of the vehicle sensors will be reused from last year, however several new sensors and components are being applied in order to create a more accurate set of condition information for the advisory system, allowing us to push the vehicle to the grip limits of the tires at nearly all times.
We have also sent out a recruitment request to EE and CSE here at UC Davis and received a good response from students of all years. It looks like we're going to have a good end result well before competition!
-Sean C. Fountain
Controls/Electrical Lead
The quest for a winning FH3 began over the summer with dedicated engineers ready to create the best car yet!
Our summer design engineers are as follows.
Electrical System: Matt Keigal, Davis Buscho, Waqas Saeed, Kevin Kampen, Peter Shen, and Diego Garcia
Gas System: Matt Keigal, Peter Shen, and Mark Bennet
Suspension: Jacob Morton and Edward Lara
Differential and Chassis: Roger Mach, James Hawkinson, and Alejandro Hernandez
Big thanks to the engineers that worked over the summer to design FH3.
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