An open wheeled open cockpit racing-car with Maruti 800 BS III MPFI engine was designed and built for the SUPRA SAE INDIA 2011 student competition by ARAI academy students. The car won the best engineering design award and second in CAE category. The key focus was to build a car with superior safety and comfort. This work discusses in detail about the design, analysis and validation of the primary structure of the car which includes chassis and impact attenuator. This paper will serve as a reference to the future students who are participating in supra competition.
A review of supra sae rules relating to chassis is used to develop realistic parameters. Based on the weight distribution calculations and the hard points the chassis is designed, modelled using cad tool and simulated for longitudinal acceleration, lateral acceleration, braking condition, braking with one circuit failure, bending stiffness and Torsional stiffness using finite element analysis. The chassis is then fabricated and validated in actual condition using data acquisition tools.
The impact attenuator protects the driver during frontal crash and it was mounted on the front bulkhead of the car. It was made of aluminium honeycomb structure and designed such that during crash, the average deceleration of the vehicle does not exceed 20g. It is then fabricated and tested using drop test method.