Almost Done

A few things left to have a complete rolling chassis. The front of the chassis is almost complete. For the front end we have to have the suspension, steering rack and column mounted which would be completed this morning. Another thing that is currently in progress is the pedal assembly which has already been powder coated and assembled, it only needs to be installed. The only things left after today is the rear triangulation for the mounting of the engine, after that only mounting the engine would be left.

Almost There

The steering column and steering wheel have been mounted. The next thing in our agenda is to mount on the steering rack. Before mounting it, we have to delete the power steering from the rack, this would be done today. Also we would be working on building the pick up points for the suspension.

Mounted Steering column

 

Depowering Steering Rack

Engine on blocks and more welding

This week, we've done most of the cutting and notching. With regards to any bending, since the design was modified, most bends have been done and the load of work have been reduced quite a lot. The work for this week consist putting of the bike's engine on blocks and weld the pipes that have been prepared.

Final Frame Concept

After laying out all of our components and taking into consideration DOT size regulations we came up with our final concept.

Welding, Cutting, and Bending

The main hoop, the part of the trike's chassis which is consider to be the most crucial, has been welded. Small changes to the rest of the frame have been considered(but not finalized) to lessen the amount of time welding, cutting and bending as well as notching.

Frame Update

Based on the pieces of the main hoop constructed with the imprecise bender in the machine shop, the middle and front modules of the frame were modeled to match the preexisting dimensions. This will allow us to know exactly how long to cut each pipe and how to apply the fish mouth end treatment to prepare the main body of the frame for tack welding and mock-up.

Tools and Equipment Woes

The bending has been more or less resolved, pipe cutting has been done, however; when it came to mouth-fishing the end of the pipes for welding, the tools and equipment were not in working condition and some were missing, but that has been fixed. We bought what needed and now were getting the pipes ready for welding. The main tool that we needed, was the hole saw, and after checking out a few hardware stores we finally found the one we need in the shop that is compatible to the drill that Joe will let us borrow as is part of his personal tools.

Last week, the team was finally able to adjust to the hydraulic bender condition. the team was finally able to bend the main hoop of the trike by under bending, measuring the angle, and bending again until the right angle was approximately the angle wanted. Once the first bar was bended the second one was easier and faster. Along the decision to add an U bar was made, in order to reduce stress in the main hoop. For this week, the team is to weld the main hoop entirely after re-measuring and notching the ends of the bars.

CAD Model Problems

 

Work has been done on the CAD model for the frame over the past couple of weeks, however it was recently discovered that the process by which the CAD models were being created was incorrect for satisfactory FEA analysis later on. We were using simple normal plane extrusions for each of the tubes when really we should have been using the "Weldments" section of SolidWorks. This allows us to make a 3D sketch of the frame and then turn them into welded pipes with just a click. The problem is that SolidWorks by default does not have the tube profile of the size of steel tubing we will be using so we have to create our own, which cannot be done on the school computers. Because of this, we are working on getting personal versions of SolidWorks in order to make the dimensions of our frame fully customizable. More updates to come soon.

Delivery and Bending :(

last week the metal for the bike was finally delivered. Joe helped us out getting the metal to the shop after it was delivered to the delivery yard. The delivery was 14, 20 ft steel pipes with a total weight of approximately 500 lbs. This week the team started bending pipes for the main hoop of the frame. However; a small but significant problem was encountered. The bender in the shop, when the it was first tested for springback, we could not get a consistent angle and after a few more trials a discrepancy of ten degrees was found but still inconsistent bendings. Also because of the predicted waste of material, 14 pipes seem a lot but there really not as a few of them would just become scrap metal if they cannot be salvageable after bad bendings. We decided it was best to just use a manual bender instead of the hydraulic one in the shop.

This week, we cleaned up the front suspension from the Mazda Miata as well as the rear wheel to be used in conjunction with the adapter we designed last week and brought them into the shop. We now have most of the required components for the basis of our frame all in one place and fabrication can begin soon.

We are scheduled to pick up the 1-3/4" round steel bars with Nigel's trailer sometime this week; it is difficult to transport them because we obtaining them in their uncut 20ft long form in order to have plenty of length to bend with and allow for potential mistakes in the build process along the way.

Meanwhile, Kamran and Scott will be working on and finalizing the frame design CAD model which is to be completed and stress tested before fabrication can begin. This is a pivotal week for our team, where if all goes well the individual pieces of the trike will start to come together to resemble a functioning vehicle.

Rear Wheel Adaptor

We also modeled the rear wheel adaptor required to mount a new wheel on the motorcycle. Material struggles have delayed fabrication, but that should be resolved soon now that we have prices. CAD models of the frame are still being worked on, but should be completed by the time materials are acquired.

     This last week we have run into some material supply problems that have really held us back, however this has now been resolved and we should be able to pick up our metal this week! Thanks to Summit Steel, inc. in Huntington Beach! Now we can look forward to fabricating the jig and moving on to the frame.

On Thursday, the team started to disassemble the donor motorcycle. The pictures can be seen on this post. The mounting points on the engine were determine and any reusable parts were assessed such as, electrical, wheels, etc. It was determined that a rear wheel adapter would be needed in order to use a different rear wheel other than the one of the donor bike. Also since the engine is going to be moving around and engine brace would be needed to hold the engine in place when its moved. For this week, the team is to model a rear wheel adapter and also the engine brace.

 

 

Reality Strikes (Revised PDS and Gant)

Well after a school filled summer the project was hit with major setbacks. The funding for the project pretty much evaporated so the official project needed to be updated. The project is now to produce a rolling chassis only. Pretty much what you'd expect to receive if you purchased a kit car from a vendor. Another setback that occurred was the school does not have the equipment to bend the tubing we had in mind. After looking in to the cost of dies for the schools bender i decided to purchase a bender. That way the project does not have to stop or slow down once the semester is over. A big thanks to our sponsor Castro Motorsport for providing the funding. We will be working together to also design a roll cage for their new LS7 powered BMW e46 M3 race car.

Chassis Critical Dimensions

The dimensions for the front control arms were obtained and we will work on the front suspension module based on these dimensions. The upper control arm may need to be made from scratch due to the shock we are considering using which will be a Suzuki GSXR rear shock. We should have a cad rendering soon.

Parts List

The yellow highlights indicate critical components and the blue indicate optional components.

Team meeting 4/15/13

On Monday 4/15/13, the team met and looked at some pictures of the motorcycle that was bought over spring break and we also took a look at the project proposal template that was given by professor Hamel during lab hours. We went over the previous labs and also went over the list of documents that we would like to include in our project proposal that where already completed previously as lab assignments such as the PDS, morphological tables, etc. We also delegated assignments to each member that must be completed within a timeline. These assignments are portions of the report that would also be included in the report to be turn in at the end of this semester.

This weekend, the team would meet up at some point and take pictures of the components already acquired and they would be uploaded no later than wednesday 4/24/13.

Updated PDS

Over the last week, we have updated our PDS chart with more accurate metrics/requirements for our objectives and constraints. We realized the concrete values we had inputed into the PDS previously were not necessarily absolute requirements, but moreso goal values for what we would like our ideal final product to achieve. In addition to the updated metrics, we also added numerous new required functions for the reverse trike. Most are general functions of most forms of automobiles, but the addition of these functions more than doubled the size of our PDS. The PDS is as always a living document and further additional entries may be added in the future if we realize some crucial functionality is missing from our design.

We are also in the process of finalizing the front suspension components of the trike and our goal for the upcoming week (spring break) is to obtain them for mock-up. We have planned a group trip to the junkyard in order to see what we can get at a discount in order to reduce the final total price. The matter of what kinds of materials we can obtain in a timely and cost-efficient manner may end up being one of the major deciding factors for certain design choices we make for the final product such as suspension and type of metal used for the frame.

Below is the updated PDS chart with the adjusted metrics and added required functions:

Donor

Based on our requirements and strict budget we were able to find a power plant that meet our constraints and most of our objectives. We will be using a 95 BMW K1100 motorcycle for the engine, rear suspension, and electronics. A 98+ model would have been ideal since they have a reverse gear but that was out of the budget. They are similar in design so upgrading in the future is a likely possibility.

Market Research

One of the things we needed to do was establish what was already on the market to make sure we were not reproducing someone else's existing work. A google patent search pulled up a lot of information regarding tilting suspension  components or designs to bolt on new front suspension components to existing motorcycle chassis. Although there were a couple of designs that were similar in concept. One was for a motorcycle back half bolted to a formula chassis.Patent number: D449018

Polaris has a design that is more closely related to our designs style but it has very distinct functional, layout, and mechanical characteristics that separate it from our design. patents/US20120241237 They have a design which calls for a GM ecotec motor to be mounted  in the front section of the car and have a drive shaft to a differential which spins a cam and belt system. The design also calls for lots of stamped steel parts including the engine mounting/subframe assembly. Our vehicle will only share the exterior styling and the side by side two passenger arrangement. Our design will have a BMW motorcycle derived mid engine layout and will be shaft driven only. The engine mounting will be directly to the chassis with out the use of a subframe. We also plan on using as many parts bin items that are readily available in most salvage yards such as suspension components, seating, and electronics. 

There are several concepts on the internet that share a common design. They are all chain driven and use hand made suspension components. The reverse trike idea is pretty popular in Europe where most of the concepts and kits are available. The readily available kits however use parts and hardware that is not available in the United States. That is why we are going to use components from vehicles with global sales like the Mazda Miata and BMW K series. 

Concept Evaluation

                                   Engine                       Suspension

PDS

The following are the project design specifications for our vehicle (subject to change):

Objective

Our group project is to design a personal transportation vessel that can cost effectively transport at least two people comfortably, efficiently, reliably, and can travel long distance. The personal aspect rules out large vessels such as large airplanes, boats, trains, and rocket ships. The cost and efficiency requirements rules out items like jet skis, hot air balloons, hover crafts, and jet packs. The obvious option would be to make some sort of hyper mileage, alternative power source car. But thinking outside the box we decided to have it do more than just transport us. We wanted it to be cheap to produce and maintain, carpool lane compliant, as well as being cheap and green to operate. We decided to bypass expensive solutions like hydrogen fuel cells, electric, hybrid, or natural gas kits and recycle a readily available propulsion system and design a motorcycle powered reverse trike. These were the things we need to keep in mind while trying to develop a solution plan to create our final design.

Meeting 2/15/2013

 Our black box...

Our team

Introduction

As part of California State University Long Beach's mechanical engineering program and MAE 471/472 class, we get the opportunity to work in groups to design and build something new. The entirety of th project will be fro January 2013 to December 2013. We are given the luxury of choosing our own ideas in any field as long as we are not copying someones design or trying to build something not realistic within in our skill, financial, or universe's limit. Our group decided that we wanted to get the most out of our education and campus resources by building something we would not be able to do on our own. This blog will cover our journey and hopefully our prosperous careers. Our group consist of 5 engineering students includind Nigel Geisler project manager, Adrian Silva accountant, Scott Snider secretary, Alfredo Guiterrez project coordinator, and Kamran Adlparvar parts analyst. We are group # 5 and our team name is "The Third Wheel".