01 What
The previous-year chassis (EXO4) wasn't stiff enough, causing the monocoque to act as an unintended third spring between the front and rear suspension. I took ownership of the stiffness target from first principles, learning by doing: I picked up FEA in Altair HyperMesh and delivered a validated result within a matter of months, open to feedback from the suspension department and drivers throughout.
02 How
- 01Derived the stiffness target by weighing lap-time gains against the mass penalty of a stiffer structure, informed by suspension-department and driver feedback.
- 02Mechanical balance tolerance sets the minimum torsional stiffness target.
- 03Built the monocoque FE model in Altair HyperMesh, applied the torsion load case, and extracted deflection to calculate stiffness.
03 Result
- -Raised torsional stiffness by 75%, while mass increased by only 35%.
- -Correlated the FEA prediction against the team's prior-year physical test bench data to within ~2% error.
- -Delivered within all constraints, including the frame mass target.
More Engineering Projects
CAD & Packaging
CAD Monocoque Design & Packaging
Ergonomics
Ergonomics & Driver Fitment
Tooling Design
CAD Tooling Design
Structural Simulation
FEA Aerodynamic Devices Simulation
Manufacturing / DFM
Composite Manufacturing & Drapability Simulation
Electronics and Mechatronics
Payload Retrieving Robots
Software Engineering / AI
Nutri AI: Free Health Tracking
CFD / Thermofluids
Heat Exchanger CFD Model in ANSYS