Moment of truth: Engineering students present their group design project results
Months of hard work are over for the final year engineering students who have been tackling a major racing car group design project.
The team presented its results in a viva before senior academics at the University of Southampton's RJ Mitchell Wind Tunnel, where they had successfully tested their model over six days earlier in the year. The project aimed to improve the aerodynamic performance of a one third scale model of a hill climb racing car, using cutting edge parts manufactured by Williams F1 Team through a revolutionary 3D printing process. The students also designed an active suspension system, data handling tool and automated computational fluid dynamics (CFD) process tool as part of the project.
"Through the testing, we have gained a better understanding of how a car performs in yaw and steered conditions such as cornering or in a cross wind during racing," explains project manager Arslan Ahmed. "The new components we trialled improved the car's performance and we have identified further areas for future work."
The academics, including Professor Xin Zhang, Dr David Angland and Wind Tunnel Manager Dr David Marshall, are now deliberating how to mark the work, results will be announced later in the year. Arslan and the other members of the team - Arjun Biswas, Daniel Scadding, Alex Norton, Marco Giovannelli and James Collins - are now studying for their final exams before meeting up again at Graduation in July 2014.