Engineering Case Study: Failure of a Component on a Chaparral Race Car

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ME417 Design of Machine Elements Engineering Case Study: Failure of a component on a Chaparral Race Car March 2, 2012 Introduction: The objective of this project is to analyze the failure of a race car component. The analysis will consist of identifying probable causes of failure, and presenting proposals for possible design changes. How each design proposal will address the conditions resulting in failure will be discussed, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each design. The project will be approached from the perspective of an engineering team responsible for the recommended design change to prepare the race car for competition. Ultimately one design change will be recommended as the best overall solution to address the component failure. Problem Statement: The component failure that will be analyzed is from a Chaparral race car. Designed for Grand Prix style races, the car utilizes a wing that is mounted to the rear axle of the car. The angle of the wing is adjusted by the driver with a foot pedal. This allows the driver to increase the down force on the rear wheels while turning to increase traction. Additionally the wing is used to increase drag during braking. The wing is stabilized in the lateral direction with a link arm utilizing spherical rod ends at each end. While cornering the link arm failed, causing a tire to blow out. Stress Analysis An important factor to determine is how much stress the stabilizing link needs to withstand. It was stated that the stabilizing link was designed to withstand 1G of lateral force. In order to have a lateral force of one G on the Bridgehampton race track, we calculated the car’s maximum speed in turn 11 to be 71 feet per second. This was done by estimating the radius of the turn from a map of the track to be 340.7 feet. This seems to be a reasonable value of speed in a hairpin turn. The

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