For the main chunk of march the team has completed assembling headers with new stainless steel pipe elbows and mandrel bends to reduce the amount of pie cuts per tube in order to minimize welding costs. After evaluating the quality of the welds provided by Houston Muffler Shop, the team has opted to use a professional welder to weld the headers to have the best possible performance from the design. The assembled primary tubes are currently in the weld shop, the team expects to have these tubes welded before Friday March 29th. In the meantime the team will begin assembling the secondary and tertiary headers altogether.
The team has also begun planning the setup for the validation process in order to have a backup plan in case the FSAE chassis is not completed in the same timeframe as the team’s validation schedule. Differential mounts and turnbuckles have been obtained necessary for the drivetrain and the team also has the engine mounted on a stand. The following step is combining both mounts together so that the force coming from the engine does not shake the drivetrain out of place and secures both systems in order to achieve accurate readings.
The team's plan for the next upcoming week is to get familiar with the data acquisition software. More specifically, how the team will access and manipulate the data outputted by the sensor, as well as the communication of the computer with the tachometer and torque sensor itself. Additionally the team has aimed to work with the software LJStreamM, provided by LabJack company, where it allows the data acquisition to read >100 scans/seconds. The team has begun testing out the inputs and outputs necessary for both tachometer and torque sensors, but is waiting on the final torque sensor option to be purchased by the Mechanical Engineering department of the University of Houston.
By the first week of April the team plans to have the primary headers welded up to the first collectors. Moreover, depending on the progress of the chassis of the car, the team will decide if the second section of the exhaust system should be welded that same week or the week after. The second section of the exhaust system (Secondary,Tertiary pipe, and Muffler) will be assembled together using aluminum tape until the chassis team confirms that the intended prototype fits as expected based on the 3D model.
One of the obstacles the team predicts is the lack of a stable chassis in the given timeframe, the team has already found mounts for the engines and differential to fulfill the team’s design validation, given that that will be the main focus for the following weeks.
Another challenge that the team is currently facing are the expenses the team has paid. Currently the team has exceeded the budget by about 150 dollars. The use of those funds are twofold. For one, the money has been used to order mandrel pipe bends which facilitate the weld labor and allow the team to stay on track, and secondly to pay the contractor that will be helding all of the pipes together. As of now the team plans to return some of the unused material to cut down on the expenses paid, and the team does not foresee any additional major investments to fulfill the completion of the design.
Lastly, as the team lacks experience in operating the software that will be used for data acquisition, it might take additional time for the team to learn how to record accurate data, if left unchecked this might cause the team to fall behind schedule. As a result, the team plans to find a way to get ahead familiarize ourselves with the software meanwhile the torque sensor that will be used to validate the design is acquired from the mechanical engineering department.
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