Queen's Racing
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I’ve been a fan of Formula 1 for a while and when I heard Queen’s was running a team, I knew I wanted to join. I felt it would be a good fit for me because it combined the engineering skills I had with my passion for racing and cutting edge technology. Recently, I got the chance to walk the Grand Prix track in Monaco and it was incredible experience where I got to appreciate the complexity of these vehicles up close. I am currently a design engineer on the Powertrain Team of Queens FSAE, and I work on optimizing engine dynamics and intake geometries.
On this page I’ll talk a little about my design experience with Queen’s Racing and I’ll also go into the technical details behind a few of my projects. |
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Plenum Intake Design - 2022
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When optimizing our engine, one design challenge we needed to overcome was the use of a restrictor which is mandated by the FSAE rule book. The restrictor minimizes air flow to the engine, and we needed to create something that would decrease the restrictor’s impact, thus increasing our peak horsepower.
In this project, myself and my teammate Simon Yun worked with the software Ricardo to analyze how tweaking different areas of our intake system system affected our engine. |
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Stage 1 – Research
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Before working on the solution to this problem, we needed to figure out the benefits of using the plenum. How did it minimize the effects of the restrictor? What happened to the air flow inside the plenum? Researching these questions gave us a better understanding of the importance of our intake system and why changes needed to be made. You can check our a short summary of my research in the attached document.
Stage 2 – Choosing Parameters |
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The next stage was figuring out how Simon and I could change the plenum shape to optimize the air intake into the engine. With a tablet on hand, we brainstormed a list of ideas of how we could tweak small details of the part to maximize volumetric flow rate.
Our priority was having an even pressure gradient, and reducing flow separation improved our top horsepower. |
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Stage 3 – Testing
With our design parameters finalized, Simon and I used Ricardo Wave and Simscale CFD to do a variety of simulations that helped us figure out what changes optimized our volumetric flow rate.
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Stage 4 – Recommendations
Upon testing completion, we presented our findings to the Powertrain Team. Overall, Simon and I found that the plenum design significantly increased volumetric flow rate, reduced flow separation, and maintained an evenly distributed pressure gradient. As a result, peak horsepower increased by 30% (18 hp), which made our car faster and more powerful.
Engine Turnover Stand - 2021
For this project, we needed to create a versatile stand that could move around our 40 lb engine for inspection and tuning. The turnover stand needed to be easy to use, cost effective, and able to rotate to 6 unique angles. Each angle needed to expose different areas of the engine, and the stand required a mechanism to switch between each spot. I worked with Nicholas Ambrose for this project and were successful in meeting the design criteria within the specified timeline.
Stage 1: Research and Development
Nick and I started off by looking at the CAD of our engine and figuring out how we could optimize our stand. Where could we mount the unit? How many connections would we need? The next piece of research involved the methods of manufacturing and what materials we could use.
Stage 2: Preliminary CAD
With a thorough understanding of the principles behind our design criteria, we set out to design the stand in SOLIDWORKS. Our first iteration is provided below.
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Stage 3: Design Revisions
Working with the Captain of Powertrain, we made some revisions to the design based on feedback. We needed to optimize the design to a smaller engine, and incorporate two points of contact. Our final CAD drawing is below.
Stage 4: Modelling and Construction (ongoing)
With our CAD finalized, we set out to model the machine using 3D printing, and then build a full size turnover-stand. We are still in the process of building the actual thing, I will provide updated pictures when they are available!
