19XT Front Upright/Steering Knuckle
Johns Hopkins University - Baja SAE Team 2022
Objective: Design and manufacture a front upright/steering knuckle for a Baja SAE off-road racing vehicle with 4WD and inboard braking.
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Knowledge and Skills:
The front upright needed to accommodate a splined CV joint for 4-wheel drive, two mounting points to connect with the suspension linkages and a mounting point for the tie-rod for steering. The entirety of the part had to be housed within the rim of the car and not interfere with any of the other components throughout the entirety of suspension travel; in addition, it needed to pass analysis of critical loading scenarios with a high design factor due to the difficult and long manufacturing process of the part. I designed the part in SolidWorks, using a 3D sketch of the suspension geometry to base my critical points off of so that they would update with little errors if the suspension geometry was changed. And developed a geometry for the upright to connect with all the critical points, house the bearing and fit within the wheel rim. Assembly level FEAs were used to iterate designs to pass the three main loading scenarios: landing a jump, front impact and cornering in a rut. Hand calculations found the initial values at the point of loading in the analysis and ANSYS helped find the points of highest loading. With the help of the analysis and a improves design direction, I was able to reduce the weight of the Front Upright by 20%, while still passing all loading scenarios and being manufacturable with only a single machined part and welded plate steel. |
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