Design of Student Formula Race Car Chassis

SUPRA SAEINDIA is an annual national level competition organized by the Society of Automotive Engineers India. From all over India, the selected Under Graduate & Post Graduate Engineering Student teams are asked to design, model, fabricate and compete with a small open-wheel, open cockpit type race car. The major challenge posed is to design and fabricate a light weight car without compromising the safety of the driver. The car has to be rigidly fabricated at minimal expense. This paper is an introduction to the design process of a steel tube space frame chassis for use in SUPRA SAEINDIA based on the experience of the team UFO RACERS. The design is based on the anthropological data of the specified human (95th percentile male) allowing fast ingress and egress from the car. The basic theories and methodologies for designing these systems are also presented so that new teams will have a baseline for their first SUPRA SAEINDIA race car design. SOLIDWORKS 2014 CAD software is utilized for the design of the chassis because of its exceptionally powerful capability in the field of design and analysis of engineering products. The one-stop package of comprehensive FEA and all-round design capability make it an ideal tool for the race team to be used to develop components of the race car and thus the chassis. The entire design process is based on SUPRA SAEINDIA 2015 rule book and knowledge of designing and manufacturing learned so far.