I was an Aerobody member of the UCI Solar Car Team, where I've worked on components like the aeroshell, the canopy, and the hinge egress. For our upcoming competition ASC in the Summer of 2025, some challenges tackled include fulfilling requirements and fabrication of the aero body.
The hinge is quite important for a functioning vehicle and requires many talks with multiple sub-teams like Chassis and Solar. The particular cut-out considered the solar array and the mounting points on the chassis. Furthermore, the design considered the feasibility of the rider to access the car from an internal and external latchig mechanism. I researched other teams like Illini and studied different 2 bar or 4 bar hinge latching mechanisms, as well as, the safety features. through Solidworks impact analysis and also array formating the particular cut out on the side was made.
Used SolidWorks surface creation tools to make a thin but durable plexi-glass canopy. The overall dimensions were in reference to the aerodynamic principle of 0.255 W to L ratio. The front curve in a decaying exponential while also allowing the driver full visibility from the cockpit. The back then slope down creating areas of low pression and reducing horseshoe vectors boosting efficiency and reducing power consumed by 45 watts.
Above is the shown SolidworksCFD analysis on the prototype canopy. It was tested under laminar and turbulent flows at 60 miles/hr winds and cross winds. This is because during the ASC the sustained speed of our vehicle is approximately 60 mi/hr for maximum efficiency limiting battery drain. The image to the left shows the pressure vectors as arrows. While the right image shows the velocity streamlines.
Using the industry standard of calculating the drag coefficient our results show that the overall drag coefficent is 0.034 while the drag force is 22 N. My design canopy drastically reduced the drag force from previous iteration by ~54 Newtons.
Above are some isometric views of the canopy with the hinge mechanism, as well as some experimental canopy iterations I designed for testing.
I've also contributed in the research and the design of the aero body. Since the Canopy and the aero body needed to be fitted together in a form factor that was both efficient and followed ASC regulation guidelines, many various tests were conducted on the complete aero body. Creating cut plots in Solidworks and later Ansys to test for the crossectional impact interfaces between panels and canopy led to a more optimized aero body. Lowering the aero body and raising the canopy increased the comfort of the rider and the visibility at night time.
Thanks for checking out my Solar Car Project page. Check out my experience at HyperXite, where I tackled the new sustainable form of transportation with a team of 35 bright engineers.
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Phone: [425] 305 8470