Formula Student Car

Introduction

Formula student is an international student engineering competition that takes place in the UK every year. In this international automotive competition, students are required to come up with designs, build and test cars, and compete in a Formula-style race car. In essence, it is an initiative by the Society of Automotive Engineers aimed at providing students with an environment that is well-rounded to induct them for the automotive industry (Graham, Johnson and Rees, 2018). Presently, Formula student is run by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers and the competition is governed with the same rule as Formula SAE including additional regulations. There are rules, processes and procedures in designing a Formula Student car to completion. First, the participants must have a Formula Student Team with the knowledge of project management and engineering skills. Therefore, designing a good car depends on the people. In a typical year, design should take 4 to 5 months, assembling 1 to 2 months and testing 4 to 6 months. The general goals of any team in the competition is based on culture, team size, experience, available tools, budget and leadership and organizations skills.

In the Design phase, participants should consider the following areas: the rules, requirements and tracks of the formula student competition, previous cars and major problems and mistakes experienced in past competitions. The testing phase should be an exercise aimed at determining the reliability of the car, training of the driver to understand the car, performance optimisation, validation and understanding of the car. It is at this phase that one can analysis the performance and failure of the car and make appropriate changes and repairs (Schuster, Davol and Mello, 2006). For progressive learning experience, the Formula Student competition is categorised into different classes. Class 1 consist of 100-120 teams and is considered to be the main event where teams build their own cars which are inspected and judged before they can be allowed on the track. Class 2 is more of a concept class where teams are judged on design, cost and business presentation. It is primarily designed to cater for teams that are only interested or have a project and plan for a class 1 car. Class 1A catered for teams that did not have to wholly redesign the care but were only required to reduce the amount of carbon emission.

Background

In 2013, the ETH Zurich, an electric vehicle, won the FSAE against combustions cars. It was the first time in the history of the competition that an electric vehicle had beaten cars powered by combustion engines. This happened barely three years after a separate class for electric vehicles was introduced. As an educational engineering competition, Formula Student car has come a long way in its quest to develop enterprising and innovative young engineers. Since its inception 1981, FSAE has been able to invoke an interest in young people in engineering thus bringing more young engineers in the competition (Wakabayashi et al, 2006). In the motorsport industry, the competition is a one of its kind degree level programme that enables students to apply knowledge gathered in class into the field. It is aimed at transitioning students from academics to the workplace by a competition that is now considered to be of an industry standards for engineering graduates in the motorsport industry. Additionally, the competition is meant to enhance business planning and project management skills of the participants by requiring them to be in teams and work on a given set of rules and budget.

Every year at least 10 university teams take part in the annual competitions where they follow set procedures in designing Formula Student race car in just 9 months. Although Formula SAE has restrictions on the design, the teams are still granted the freedom to be innovative and creative with their designs. After all the effort place in design, building and testing of the car, the teams will be judged on six areas including engineering design, business presentation, technical inspection and cost and sustainability analysis in static events category. For the dynamic events category, the teams are judged on the skidpad, 75m acceleration, 22km endurance and 1 km autocross (Schuster, Davol and Mello, 2006). In both categories, the judges award points for each event and they provide a criteria for measuring things like financial planning and attributes of the car.

History

Formula Student began in 1980 as a student branch of University of Texas. The founding members were Ron Mathews Mike Best, John Tellkamp and Robert Edwards who joined asphalt racing in the SAE’s Mini Indy competition (Case, 1996). Thereafter, the four motorsport enthusiasts decided to start a new asphalt racing known as Formula SAE with new rules. The teams participating in the competition were allowed to select any 4-stroke engine. In 1981, the first Formula SAE involved four participants including University of Tulsa, Stevens Institute, University of Texas and University of Cincinnati. The teams competed in acceleration, fuel economy, manoeuvrability and endurance for the dynamic events. In 1982, the University of Texas hosted the event again in its second year and this marked the introduction of another category of competition that allowed cars powered by Briggs and Stratton engines to compete. For the very first time, Formula SAE was hosted out of Texas by Lawrence Institute of Technology and it was also the first time that prize money was given for the winners. In 1991, there was a big milestone in Formula SAE when General Motors exposed the participating students to top corporate support during the event. It is also in this year that wings were used on Formula SAE cars. The following year Ford hosted the event and in its facilities in Dearborn and then Chrysler in 1993.

Notably Formula Student was introduced as a new competition in 1998 in the UK. In this brand new competition organised by IMeche, different vehicles participated including those from the University of Birmingham, University of Hertfordshire, and University of Leeds University of Akron and among others. By 2010, Formula SAE had grown so much internationally that introduced additional international competitions like Formula Student Japan, Formula Student Austria and Formula Student Germany (Baldovin et al., 2019. In 2018 Formula Student marked its 20th anniversary since its introduction in 1998 as part of the Formula SAE Official Series.

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Bibliography

Baldovin, K., DiBacco, J., Jones, A., Joo, H., Kuan, B. and Tanja, M., 2019. Formula SAE: senior design project.

Case, D.E., 1996. Formula SAE-Competition History 1981-1996 (No. 962509). SAE Technical Paper.

Graham, R., Johnson, S. and Rees, J., 2018. Formula SAE.

Schuster, P., Davol, A. and Mello, J., 2006. Student competitions-The benefits and challenges.

Wakabayashi, K., Kodama, T., Honda, Y. and Ueda, T., 2006. Project Based Learning Education and Development Research through Production of Formula SAE Car. Transactions of the Kokushikan University, Faculty of Engineering, (39), pp.95-105.