As mentioned in the last blog the stock system was taken to Houston Mufflers and the missing couplers have been welded into place so it is ready for the validation phase to start. All the pieces for the manufacturing for the prototype have been ordered. The collectors as well as the pipe cutters have arrived. The remaining pipes are set to arrive Monday February 19, 2024. The team realized that mounting the prototype into place was necessary so that Houston Mufflers can weld the prototype accurately into place. A mount has been designed for this purpose and should be printed by Tuesday February 20, 2024 so that fabrication can begin promptly.
The tachometer with hall proximity sensor has been delivered to the FSAE shop. The team also obtained a handheld laser tachometer to validate the testing setup when gathering the revolutions per minute from the engine. Additionally, the team has obtained the data acquisition Lab Jack T7-PRO which has been lend by the Mechanical Engineering instructor Dr. Christiana Chang. As of now, the team has obtained most of the validation’s equipment which includes the scale for the weight reduction test, two decibel meters for the sound verification, the tachometers and data acquisition that were recently obtained for the engine's performance validation. The last component missing is the torque sensor, where a list of possible sensor choices will be forwarded to the Mechanical Engineering department to be selected for general use and ordered.
In this upcoming week, the team plans to start the fabrication of the exhaust primary headers by using a 3D printed mount to hold all the pipes in place. The team will not weld the components until the final chassis of the car has been fabricated from FSAE chassis sub-team, until then, the headers will be hold together using heavyduty tape and pipe clamps.
Around the first week of March, the chassis FSAE team plans to have a final chassis fabricated , hence around the same time the formula exhaust engineers plan to continue fabrication of the remaining components of the exhaust system (secondary headers, midpipe and muffler). Final welding of all the components is expected to be in the second week of march to have enough time to perform validation of the desing.
While the team waits for the fabrication of the chassis, we will work on coordinating with our machinist contact to fabricate all the flanges and couplers missing. If all tasks meet the proposed deadlines, the team will finish our 4th milestone one week later than what was proposed in the statement of work.
As the team begins manufacturing the new exhaust, there are a few things that have made the team begin taking a more preventative standpoint. For example, in an effort to ensure the quality of the newly manufactured coupler, the team checked the inner diameter of the exhaust coupler and found it to be 1.5 inches. In response to this, the team will use a pipe reducer from 1.5 to 1.625 for it to fit our design. Likewise, The team is currently looking for ways to find a viable demonstration in order to show the progress of the prototype. Currently an option is using a smoke machine in order to expose any leaks and confirm the gas flow direction. Next, the designated machinist has reported to us that there is a sudden influx of work and might take later to fabricate any flanges or couplers we may need. At the beginning of the week we will ask if we are able to meet our manufacturing deadlines, if this is not feasible we will split the work and find another machinist, potentially the UH machinist.
Lastly, in terms of manufacturing the only other obstacle that the team can foresee is the fact that the headers must be purged with an inert gas from the inside of the tube when welding. In response to this, the team will double check and confirm if the assigned welders will do so.
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