Formula SAE
Formula SAE is a student design competition organized by SAE International (SAE, previously known as the Society of Automotive Engineers). The competition was started in 1978 and was originally called SAE Mini Indy.
Contents
Concept
The concept behind Formula SAE is that a fictional manufacturing company has contracted a student design team to develop a small Formula-style race car. The prototype race car is to be evaluated for its potential as a production item. The target marketing group for the race car is the non-professional weekend autocross racer. Each student team designs, builds and tests a prototype based on a series of rules, whose purpose is both ensuring on-track safety (the cars are driven by the students themselves) and promoting clever problem solving.
The prototype race car is judged in a number of different events. The points schedule for most Formula SAE events is:[1]
| Design Event | 150 |
| Cost & Manufacturing Analysis Event | 100 |
| Presentation Event | 75 |
| Acceleration Event | 75 |
| Skidpad Event | 50 |
| Autocross Event | 150 |
| Fuel Economy Event | 100 |
| Endurance Event | 300 |
| Total Points Possible | 1,000 |
In addition to these events, various sponsors of the competition provide awards for superior design accomplishments. For example, best use of E-85 ethanol fuel, innovative use of electronics, recyclability, crash worthiness, analytical approach to design, and overall dynamic performance are some of the awards available. At the beginning of the competition, the vehicle is checked for rule compliance during the Technical Inspection. Its braking ability, rollover stability and noise levels are checked before the vehicle is allowed to compete in the dynamic events (Skidpad, Autocross, Acceleration, and Endurance).
Formula SAE encompasses all aspects of a business including research, design, manufacturing, testing, developing, marketing, management, and fund raising.
Big companies, such as General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler, can have staff interact with more than 1000 student engineers. Working in teams of anywhere between two and 30, these students have proven themselves to be capable of producing a functioning prototype vehicle.[2]
The volunteers for the design judging include some the racing industry's most prominent engineers and consultants including the late Carroll Smith, Bill Mitchell, Doug Milliken, Claude Rouelle, Jack Auld, John LePlante, Ron Tauranac, and Bryan Kubala.
Today, the competition has expanded and includes a number of spinoff events. Formula Student is a similar SAE-sanctioned event in the UK, as well as Formula SAE Australasia (Formula SAE-A) taking place in Australia. A Formula SAE West event takes place in California but will be replaced by SAE Lincoln in Nebraska for 2012. The Verein Deutscher Ingenieure (VDI) holds the Formula Student Germany competition at Hockenheimring.
In 2007, an offshoot called Formula Hybrid was inaugurated. It is similar to Formula SAE, except all cars must have gasoline-electric hybrid power plants. The competition takes place at the New Hampshire International Speedway. [1]
Summary of Rules
Student Competition
Formula SAE has relatively few performance restrictions. The team must be made up entirely of active college students (including drivers) which places obvious restrictions on available work hours, skill sets, experience, and presents unique challenges that professional race teams do not face with a paid, skilled staff. This restriction means that the rest of the regulations can be much less restrictive than most professional series.
Students are allowed to receive advice and criticism from professional engineers or faculty, but all of the car design must be done by the students themselves. Students are also solely responsible for fundraising, though most successful teams are based on curricular programs and have university-sponsored budgets. Additionally, the points system is organized so that multiple strategies can lead to success. This leads to a great variety among cars, which is a rarity in the world of motorsports.
Engine
The engine must be a four-stroke, Otto-cycle piston engine with a displacement no greater than 610cc. An air restrictor of circular cross-section must be fitted downstream of the throttle and upstream of any compressor, no greater than 20mm for gasoline engines or 19mm for ethanol-fueled engines. The restrictor keeps power levels below 100 hp in the vast majority of FSAE cars. Most commonly, production four-cylinder 600cc sport bike motors are used due to their availability and displacement, however there are many teams that use smaller V-twin and single-cylinder engines, mainly due to their weight-saving and packaging benefits. Though it is permitted, very rarely do teams build an engine from scratch, such as Western Washington University's 554cc V8 entry in 2001 and University of Auckland's V twin.
Suspension
The suspension is unrestricted save for safety regulations. Most teams opt for four-wheel independent suspension, almost universally double-wishbone. Active suspension is legal.
Aerodynamics
There are few regulations or requirements on aerodynamics. Most teams do not build aerodynamic packages as the speeds involved in FSAE competition rarely exceed 60 mph (97 km/h), and design judging tends to frown upon aerodynamic parts that do not have definite test data, usually in the form of wind tunnel testing or at least computational fluid dynamics analysis. Therefore, most cars that do utilize aerodynamic downforce tend to develop their entire car around the aerodynamic package, including massive wings and undertrays. The benefit of a well-developed aerodynamic package is evident; depending on how fast the course is, the slowest aero-package cars sometimes run several seconds per lap faster than any of the non-aero cars. But, on windy days, at the drag strip, or especially in the fuel economy event, aero cars can suffer significantly.
Weight
There is no weight restriction. The weight of the average competitive Formula SAE car is usually less than 500 lb (230 kg) in race trim. However, the lack of weight regulation combined with the somewhat fixed power ceiling encourages teams to adopt innovative weight-saving strategies, such as the use of composite materials, elaborate and expensive machining projects, and rapid prototyping. In 2009 the fuel economy portion of the endurance event was assigned 100 of the 400 endurance points, up from 50. This rules change has marked a trend in engine downsizing in an attempt to save weight and increase fuel economy. Several top-running teams have switched from high-powered four-cylinder cars to smaller, one- or two-cylinder engines which, though they usually make much less power, allow weight savings of 75 lb (34 kg) or more, and also provide much better fuel economy. If a lightweight single-cylinder car can keep a reasonable pace in the endurance race, it can often make up the points lost in overall time to the heavier, high-powered cars by an exceptional fuel economy score.
- Example: At the 2009 Formula SAE West endurance event, third-place finishers Rochester Institute of Technology completed the endurance course in 22 minutes, 45 seconds with their four-cylinder car, while fourth-place finishers Oregon State University finished in 22 minutes, 47 seconds with their single-cylinder car; this gave RIT 290.6 of 300 points for the race portion of the event and OSU 289.2 points. However, OSU used the least fuel of any car (.671 US gal (2.54 L), or 20.3 mpg-US (0.116 L/km) over the entire endurance race) and received the full 100 points for fuel economy, while RIT used 1.163 US gal (4.40 L) (11.75 mpg-US (0.2002 L/km)) and was thus only awarded 23.9 of the available points. RIT went on to win the overall competition by only 8.9 points over OSU, having scored slightly better in all of the other dynamic events.[3]
Safety
The majority of the regulations pertain to safety. Cars must have two steel roll hoops of designated thickness and alloy, regardless of the composition of the rest of the chassis. There must be an impact attenuator in the nose, and impact testing data on this attenuator must be submitted prior to competing. Cars must also have two hydraulic brake circuits, full five-point racing harnesses, and must meet geometric templates for driver location in the cockpit for all drivers competing. Tilt-tests ensure that no fluids will spill from the car under heavy cornering, and there must be no line-of-sight between the driver and fuel, coolant, or oil lines.
History
In 1979 the only SAE Mini-Indy was held at the University of Houston. Conceived by Dr. Kurt M. Marshek, the competition was inspired by a how-to article that appeared in Popular Mechanics magazine, for a small, "Indy-style" vehicle made out of wood, and powered by a five-horsepower Briggs and Stratton engine. Using the Mini Baja competitions as a guide, engineering students had to design and build small, "Indy-style" vehicles using the same stock engine used in the Popular Mechanics article. Thirteen schools entered and eleven competed, The University of Texas at El Paso won the overall competition.
Although Dr. William Shapton (who had recently left the University of Cincinnati to join Michigan Technological University) broached the idea of hosting a similar competition in 1980, no one stepped up to organize another Mini-Indy.
Three students at the University of Texas at Austin saw the potential, and with support from Dr. Ron Matthews, contacted the SAE Educational Relations Department to propose a new mini-Indy with new rules. The new rules kept restriction to a minimum, any four-stroke engine with a 25.4 mm intake restriction. Students were to design a racing car which couldn't cost over a set amount as evidenced by receipts. To reflect better the road-racing nature of the event and its increased engineering content, the Formula SAE name was adopted.
The University of Texas at Austin hosted the competition through 1984. In 1985, the competition was hosted by The University of Texas at Arlington. There, Dr. Robert Woods, with guidance from the SAE student activities committee, changed the concept of the competition from one where students built a pure racing car, to one that mirrored the SAE Mini-Baja competitions, where they were to design and build a vehicle for limited series production.
General Motors hosted the competition in 1991, Ford Motor Co. in 1992, and Chrysler Corp. in 1993. After the 1992 competition, the three formed a consortium to run Formula SAE.
At the end of the 2008 competition, the consortium ceased to exist. The event is now funded by SAE through company sponsorships and donations along with the teams' enrollment fees.
Winners
2001–present
1981–2000
| Year | Formula SAE | Formula Student (UK) | Formula SAE Australasia (Australia) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 |  Texas A&M University |
California State Polytechnic University - Pomona |
 University of New South Wales |
| 1999 | University of Akron |
Rochester Institute of Technology |
|
| 1998 | Cornell University |
University of Texas at Arlington |
|
| 1997 | Cornell University |
||
| 1996 | University of Texas at Arlington |
||
| 1995 | University of Texas at Arlington |
||
| 1994 | University of Michigan at Ann Arbor |
||
| 1993 | Cornell University |
||
| 1992 | Cornell University |
||
| 1991 | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University |
||
| 1990 | University of Texas at Arlington |
||
| 1989 | University of Texas at Arlington |
||
| 1988 | Cornell University |
||
| 1987 | University of Maryland - College Park |
||
| 1986 | University of Texas at Arlington |
||
| 1985 | University of Texas at Arlington |
||
| 1984 | University of Houston |
||
| 1983 | University of Texas at Arlington |
||
| 1982 | University of Texas at Austin |
||
| 1981 | Stevens Institute of Technology |
See also
- Formula Manipal
- Student design competition
- Baja SAE
- Basic Utility Vehicle
- SAE International
- University of Patras Formula Student Team - UoP Racing Team
- 2015 FSAE Rules
- Using fsae.com - the unofficial FSAE / FS forum
- Reasoning your way through the FSAE design process
References
- ↑ Bob Woods, 1996 Formula SAE Rules, (Warrendale, PA) : Educational Relations SAE International, p. 4.
- ↑ Dean Case, Student Talent, Racecar Engineering, Vol. 5 No. 3 (England): p. 35
- ↑ http://www.sae.org/students/fsaew2009results.pdf
External links
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