"Bandit" (2bandit)
09/24/2015 at 00:47 • Filed to: fsae
4
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"Bandit" (2bandit)
09/24/2015 at 00:47 • Filed to: fsae | 4
| 19 |
Hey guys (and girls) I want to extract some knowledge from you. We are making carbon fiber rims for our FSAE car this year and I along with two other teammates are leading that project. However, none of us have ever had any experience making composite wheels. Just curious if any of you have ever built a set and if so, got any tips? We have the basic idea down how to do it but any first hand experience is worth more than me reading a paper. Photograph of a beautiful carbon wheel off a Formula car.
PatBateman
> Bandit
09/24/2015 at 00:53 |
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No experience, although I'm quite interested in this topic. How much would a set of bespoke (or semi-bespoke) CF wheels cost?
DrJohannVegas
> Bandit
09/24/2015 at 00:54 |
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Design reports from teams who have done it (as well as senior design theses to that effect) are a good place to start. We never did carbon wheels because the cost/cost rules/performance/durability math never made sense for us.
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Bandit
> PatBateman
09/24/2015 at 00:56 |
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To purchase we have found they go for around $500 a corner.... which is crazy. You can buy like 50-ish yards of carbon for the price of a set. We are only going to make the shells this year out of carbon. If that goes well enough, hopefully I can convince our team to let us try carbon spokes. We already have a mould design and have a rough idea of what we need to do, I am just curious if anyone on here has done this already.
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PatBateman
> Bandit
09/24/2015 at 00:57 |
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$500 per? That's actually a lot less than I was thinking they'd be.
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Bandit
> DrJohannVegas
09/24/2015 at 00:59 |
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Yeah, I found a really decent paper from OSU on it and I’ve read the thing cover to cover several times and have found several ways to improve their design. But other than that it seems pretty empty on the internet as far as layup process and whatnot.
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DrJohannVegas
> Bandit
09/24/2015 at 01:01 |
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Shoot me an email. username at gmail.
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Bandit
> PatBateman
09/24/2015 at 01:01 |
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Keeping in mind these are 13 inch wheels. And the ones I found aren’t pure carbon, there are fiberglass layers thrown in them as well.
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Bandit
> DrJohannVegas
09/24/2015 at 01:02 |
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I’ll send you one in the morning... I should actually sleep sometime. What team were you on?
kanadanmajava1
> Bandit
09/24/2015 at 01:59 |
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I think that $500 sounds suspiciously cheap for a composite wheel (even though it wouldn’t be fully made of carbon fiber). The best aluminum wheels can get into those prices.
Is
this thesis
the paper that you had found?
71MGBGT Likes Subarus of Unusual Colors
> Bandit
09/24/2015 at 03:17 |
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Have you seen this /Drive video on the Koenigsegg process?
tromoly
> Bandit
09/24/2015 at 03:52 |
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What’s the reasoning for going carbon?
Montalvo
> Bandit
09/24/2015 at 07:11 |
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Interesting, my team have done carbon fiber chassis/A-arms as well as carbon/steel hybrid chassis but we were always so strapped for cash that doing this was pretty much out of the question. Good luck with it, you are going to need A LOT of prep work. My biggest fear would be ensuring that the shape holds throughout the whole process, are you using prepreg? That could make the process much easier.
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Montalvo
> tromoly
09/24/2015 at 07:21 |
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Probably to reduce unsprung weight as much as possible, the lighter you can make the car the better. The tracks at least at FSAE Michigan can be a bit tight so anything that helps turn in and responsiveness is well worth it.
BaconSandwich is tasty.
> Bandit
09/24/2015 at 08:58 |
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You can get carbon fiber fabric for $10/yard?! Where?? The cheapest I have seen is $20/meter on eBay.
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Bandit
> BaconSandwich is tasty.
09/24/2015 at 11:24 |
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Maybe my math was wrong. We got about 100 yards for about $4,000... well, we got it for free, but that’s the market value.
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Bandit
> kanadanmajava1
09/24/2015 at 11:25 |
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Yes
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Bandit
> 71MGBGT Likes Subarus of Unusual Colors
09/24/2015 at 11:25 |
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I have, it is cool but understandably they don’t want to give out their process.
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tromoly
> Montalvo
09/24/2015 at 17:04 |
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The easiest way to make the car lighter is to make sure the driver isn’t carrying around an extra 10-or-so pounds at competition ;)
There are many really fast cars at Michigan who run aluminum wheels, the thing I’m wondering about is if the time investment would be better spent elsewhere on the car to make it better as a whole.
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Montalvo
> tromoly
09/24/2015 at 18:30 |
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Not all weight is equal unfortunately and taking 10 lbs of unsprung weight would be like ridding yourself of 60 lbs of sprung weight. When I was competing, the team I was apart of ran cars with carbon fiber chassis including some hybrid designs. You can save a lot of weight if it is optimized correctly but doing so can cost a lot if you don’t have the right connections. By starting off with something smaller like wheels it isn’t really a bad place to start. In the worst case scenario where the carbon fails they can use a regular set of wheels instead and take what they learned to improve the next iteration.