Wheel and assembly design and development
Our Wheel
First design of our wheel. This wheel was designed to hold two bearings, one on each side. As we were planning on two lightweight fully ceramic bearings per wheel however Timken was unable to ship them out of America as it was a problem because they are used in gyros for guided missiles by the military. This meant that we had to change our design.
Instead of using fully ceramic bearings we are using ceramic hybrids which are slightly heavier meaning we had to change our design. Because the bearings are heavier we are only using one per wheel. To make the wheels light as possible we made holes which decreased weight however. Due to this new design we were worried about strength so we asked primetals who have the facilities to 3D print carbon fibre, to make them for us as carbon fibre wheels would handle the stress from the car better than PLA. Our wheel assembly method attaches the wheel to the main body. There is no glue required to attach it to the car or the wheel as it is a push fit. Which means if any components break during a race they can be easily removed and replaced without having to replace every other component attached to it which saved time and resources because less components are needed for spares.
Wheel Caps
To make the wheels more aerodynamic we have added caps to the outside of the wheel however we did not want them to spin with the wheel because they would increase the inertia therefore the wheel would need more torque to accelerate and waste more of the energy. So there are going to be attached to the carbonfibre rods (our axels).
First design of our wheel. This wheel was designed to hold two bearings, one on each side. As we were planning on two lightweight fully ceramic bearings per wheel however Timken was unable to ship them out of America as it was a problem because they are used in gyros for guided missiles by the military. This meant that we had to change our design.
Instead of using fully ceramic bearings we are using ceramic hybrids which are slightly heavier meaning we had to change our design. Because the bearings are heavier we are only using one per wheel. To make the wheels light as possible we made holes which decreased weight however. Due to this new design we were worried about strength so we asked primetals who have the facilities to 3D print carbon fibre, to make them for us as carbon fibre wheels would handle the stress from the car better than PLA. Our wheel assembly method attaches the wheel to the main body. There is no glue required to attach it to the car or the wheel as it is a push fit. Which means if any components break during a race they can be easily removed and replaced without having to replace every other component attached to it which saved time and resources because less components are needed for spares.
Wheel Caps
To make the wheels more aerodynamic we have added caps to the outside of the wheel however we did not want them to spin with the wheel because they would increase the inertia therefore the wheel would need more torque to accelerate and waste more of the energy. So there are going to be attached to the carbonfibre rods (our axels).
