Week 13: Prototype CAD design

The current pick up mechanism will be attached to the slave bogie. It was noted visually that the mechanism will be best attached near the rear wheels on the strut channel. It will experience the least rotational inertia because it is being pulled by the front.

After taking all measurements of the slave bogie and the best possible location to attached the current pick up mechanism, the following design has been accomplished.

The top view on the left reflect the position how far the pick up mechanism will extend.
more analysis and calculations are coming for
the last presentation

This prototype help us visualize the some assumption that were not clear at first.

In SolidWorks one can easily mate parts but in reality we have to account for clearance, tolerances, machinability of parts, simplicity/complexity.

After analyzing with the team, some changes are in the works.

another aspect is running FEA on some components. The most weakest part is the middle section because it is about 7in in lenght and about 0.5in in thickness. this could be addressed with making the thickness slightly greater, by changing the material type to steel of reducing the overall length.

the new model may look like this for greater Safety Factor. It has greater thickness

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WEEK 6: CAD drawing submitted for fabrication

The week after presentation, helped me to address very important details regarding the current insulator and rail. Also, it helped few modification on the current pick up mechanism to pivot about a joint. I have addressed those details as shown in the figure below. Using SolidWorks, I was able to calculate the tolerance angle as the current pick up mechanism is raised for a maximum on 1 in. a 10 degree angle will be used on the top pivot point. Additionally, I have sent the final drawing to Turpo Manufacturing company for fabrication. They will be machining some on the parts on this mechanism in exchange of advertising. finally I'll be working on the unistrust channels which will hold our current rail.

Week 5 (February 6,2019):Latest current pick up mechanism and current rail design

For the past week, the team have modified the current rail and the current pick up mechanism. The figure above represent last year design. the figure above is the latest design The figure on the right is the mechanism that will make contact with the electric current rail. the legs (L-shaped) are design to fit the the width of the overall Guideway track.

Week 14: Current Contact Analysis

The carbon brushes we intended to use are the Helwig Carbon products (fig.1). They are electric current collectors. It is important to anticipate how current behaves as load is applied against it. previously we have mentioned we need 50 N contact force. However, applying unnecessary load is not ideal because it creates friction which adds additional friction for the bogie to overcome. Additionally, the brushes wear at a faster rate. working with Tynan, it was important to find how the current behaves with increasing load to find the ideal load and the performance of the current collector. the figures above represent the T shaped current rail sitting on an insulator. We tested our analysis multiples weights as shown below Mass added on top of the current rail the results shows that adding more weight does not necessarily mean more current. For the graph above, testing for 2.5 V supplied the current collected by the carbon brush starts behaving...

Daniel's Spartan Superway Project

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