Wheatley, Greg (2020) On the design of racing car suspension. International Journal on Interactive Design and Manufacturing, 14 (3). pp. 1003-1013.

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Abstract

The suspension assembly of a vehicle is a vital component in its ability to function safely and effectively. This paper details the design and simulation of the James Cook University Motorsports 2nd generation vehicle for the Formula Society of Automotive Engineers competition. After in-depth research it was decided that a pull-rod suspension system would be the most effective assembly for the Gen 2 car. Contrary to the current push-rod suspension on the Gen 1 car, the pull-rods allow the centre of gravity to be lowered, which is ideal. Working closely with the rear drive train, cockpit and upright teams, a design was conceived and developed. After several redesigns a final model was able to be created. SolidWorks was the tool used to generate the components created in the design phase. This is an extremely powerful program that allows the user to not only produce a three-dimensional component but also allow future modifications to be made to the component to change its dimensions. It was decided this was a vitally important ability, as future modifications will be needed when less conservative loading cases are discovered and then applied. The SolidWorks models where then transported to a computational simulation program, ANSYS. ANSYS, like SolidWorks, was an important tool in verifying design assumptions and concepts. With this program loading cases where able to be applied to the system to understand how they would react and if they would fail under the stresses applied.

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