#provelab

[thinkflip]

PROVE Lab launches crowdfunding to complete World’s Fastest Solar-Powered Car

Visit provelab.com/give to find out how you can support Cal Poly’s effort to set a new land speed record for a solar-powered vehicle! FLIP has been a sponsor and testing partner for PROVE since the start. 

[thinkflip]

PROVE Lab have started manufacturing their solar-powered land speed record car - here’s a look back at the simulation that went into creating the shape for one of the lowest-drag vehicles ever. FLIP was the design and testing partner for this part of the program, for wind tunnel and CFD work.

[aero307-rileyhilliker-blog]

Lab Hack Project Progress

Th After sitting down with our client for this project, which was one of our TA’s and the PROVE Lab AERO team co-lead Riess Haslam, we learned exactly how our project needed to proceed. Riess showed us the full PROVE Lab test matrix for the carbon fiber wind tunnel model and I have to say I was blown away by the size, organization and attention to detail that the matrix contained. The test matrix is an OFAT matrix otherwise known as “one factor at a time”. There are several factors that are being changed one at a time in the testing such as the dynamic pressure, angle of attack and sideslip angle. The test matrix contained areas for data collection of force and pressure measurements as well as section for IR thermography. Due to complexity and time constraints we decided not to proceed with PIV testing since the post processing is fat too time consuming. 

Our team was responsible for collecting data for the zero angle of attack and zero sideslip at the three different dynamic pressures as well as the maximum sideslip angle of 8 degrees. 

The final deliverables and main goals of this project which were decided by Riess and our group are:

Present the collected data to PROVE Lab to help validate their parametric CFD data

Learn how to install and uninstall the carbon fiber wind tunnel model in the Cal Poly Low Speed Wind Tunnel

Use the LabView and the scanivalve to run data acquisition programs to collect force and pressure data on the model

Perform IR thermography testing on the upper canopy to visualize flow separation

Probably the biggest challenge and essentially a learning curve for our group was learning how to install and uninstall the model. It was a several step process that consumed a lot of time, and in the Cal Poly wind tunnel time is everything. Below are a bunch of different pictures during the install and change of sideslip angle procedures.

Removing all the bits of tape from the pod cover so we can unscrew it.

The linear drive and the force balance assembly along with the 64 pressure ports hooked up to the model.

One of the main problems that we ran into was going from zero sideslip to max sideslip of 8 degrees. To do this we had to unmounted the pod as seen in the pictures above. The diagram below shows a SolidWorks assembly drawn by Riess and the PROVE team that shows the force balance configuration that connects to the wind tunnel model.

In order to rotate the pitch/yaw wedge to 8 degrees sideslip we had to remove it and machine off all 4 of the corners so that it could be rotated without running into the wood edges that surrounded the mounting plate. This took up a considerable amount of time which in the end caused us to not get as much testing data as we anticipated. One of the biggest takeaways that I had from this frustrating experience is how important it is to design for manufacturability. Sometimes the greatest of ideas are just to complicated to manufacture or be changed or fixed once they have been made. One of my goals as a member of the PROVE Lab team is to come up with an idea to allow for a more seamless transition of installing, changing angles and uninstalling of the wind tunnel model. 

My next next will talk more about the testing procedures that were performed by our group on the PROVE model and I will analyze some of the data that I got.