Week 14 Update

For this week I focused on gathering up all the materials that were going to be needed to start the building of the track. With the help of Patrick and his SUV, we were able to transport all of the wood needed as well as the third rail. We are very grateful for his help! Below are images of the materials as well as the components we have been able to make.

Week 13 Update

For this week, we focused on getting all the materials that would be needed to help us start building the track. We went to pick up some of the parts from Master Metal on Wednesday (5/1). We still need to pick up some wood in order to start building the track. All the screws and bolts needed were ordered and we were able to also find extra ones in the court house building. As of this week, we have finally started building. We have lost a lot of valuable building time due to the move this semester and we are very behind schedule. As of this moment, we predict that we won't be able to finish in time before the final presentation on May 10th.

Week 12 Update

For this week, David and I were able to secure the manufacturing of the third rail. Since this is now being crossed off our list, we also needed to ensure that we had the rest of the materials. Since we still need more wood in order to properly build the track, we are hoping to go to Home Depot this coming Thursday (4/25). This will be the plan for the week. Although we are not going to Maker Faire, we still wanted to ensure that something would be done. Our plan is to build what we can.

Week 11 Update

For this week David and I were finally able to finalize the move of the track! Below I attached some images that we were able to capture during the move.

I also focused my attention on getting a new third rail design. After some discussion with the bogie team, we decided to make a new third rail design that would resemble a pipe in order to lower the cost and make manufacturing more likely. Below is the new design I was able to come up with. The pipe had a diameter of 2.25". Meanwhile, David focused his attention on talking to manufacturers in order to get some quotes as well as find the feasibility of manufacturing.

Week 10 Update

For this week, I focused my attention of the moving of the tracks for full and half scale. With the help of enough people, we were able to move half. However, we were not able to get the track inside the building and we had to leave the parts outside. We are hoping that there is no more rain in order to prevent further rusting. We also had to present this week.

For the next week I will be focusing on designing a new third rail as we are running out of time.

Week 8 Update

For this week, I focused my attention on moving the track so that David and I can start building something. However, because it was raining and the truck with the bed was not available, we were not able to move the track. We are deciding to move the track some other day.
There is not much to update on since our design is finished and we just need to build our track now. We are also looking for manufacturers to get the third rail finished as soon as possible. David and I plan to do so during/after spring break.

Week 7 Update

For this week, I decided to finish up the straight section of the third rail. David had pointed out that I needed to include this section to ensure that the bogie could safely pass over the gap presented at our junction. The straight third rail is the last addition to the third rail that I plan to be making. Below is the design. We will be getting a 2x2 bar

For the rest of the week, I focused my attention on finding out where and when we can start building our guideway. We know that we have some extra metal scraps lying around for the supports, but we still need the third rail made. We will be talking with other teams in order to find a manufacturer ASAP.

Week 6 Update

For this week, I focused my attention on adding any updates that were needed to our presentation. We didn't get to present last week, so we were able to add a little more work. I updated the images of the third rail and made sure that our assembly was properly working. After our presentation, we will be talking to other teams about their progress and what we can do to help them. We will also be looking into a manufacturer to be able to bend our third rail in the near future.
I will not be attaching any images to this week's blog as I have done nothing other than research and updates for my team this week.

Week 5 Update

For this week, I focused my attention on getting all the images necessary for the team presentation as well as mounting the third rail onto our track. Although I am having a bit of trouble centering my third rail design, I did at least want to test the height by mounting the bogie with what we have. I also wanted to have the concept of the third rail ready before the first presentation of the semester. Below is the design we will be presenting.

Weeks 1-4 Update

For these past three weeks, I have focused my attention to updating our design. Our ideas will still be implemented into the newer track, but our old design has been scrapped. We added a new track to an older design provided to us by Dan and we have also updated our third rail to fit into this new design.
I was tasked with updating the third rail as well as coming up with an idea for supporting our junction. Below are the two designs I have contributed. We will continue to move forward as long as we get approval. We are hoping to build this track as soon as we get space to do so as well as supplies.
 Image: Third rail design 

 Image 2: New possible design for junction support

Week 14 Update

For this week, I decided to focus my attention on starting the project report. I wanted to ensure that we had an outline of what we wanted to say. So far, we have advanced greatly in our project report and I am happy that I will have enough time to start on the FEA. Although finals are approaching, I am hoping to get FEA done for the project report. Since we were not able to finalize the FEA before the third presentation, we want to ensure that we finish this semester strong and at least provide most of the FEA needed. However, we are ready to work to on this over winter break if needed in order to focus our attention on manufacturing for the Spring semester.

Week 13 Update

For this week, I focused my attention on the presentation. Since we had Thanksgiving break, I wanted to have everything done as soon as possible so that we would have material for the blog. I finished up the column assembly over the break as I had to redesign it based on Futran's specifications. Below is the image of the rebuilt column assembly.


However, I ran into some issues trying to simulate the assembly on Solidworks, which lead me to falling behind even more on the analysis. For our presentation we lacked some substance due to do this, but I am hoping to finish all of the designs before the semester is over. My teammate and I want to ensure that we finish as much as possible before we have to submit the final report.

Week 12 Update

For this week I focused on re-assembling the column assembly. We had just recently finished up re-designing the column so we wanted to get the assembly done as soon as possible. However, I came about an issue; all of the other parts needed to be reassembled as well. For the next week I am hoping to finish the re-designs in order to get that information on the third presentation. We have been a little behind on this portion of our senior project, but we are also finding that everything is coming together nicely. Below is the assembly that I will be redesigning.

Week 11 Update

For this week, my job was to focus on updating the third rail design so that the supports will be of correct length. Nik from the Interface Bogie Team updated us on how tall the bogie switching wheels would be standing. The original supports for the third rail were 10" long and with the new information they are now roughly 1.5". The third rail also had to be slightly re-designed to ensure that our analysis was optimized.
I am planning to continue with analysis and design for the rest of this week and the next. We want to have as much material as possible for the third presentation. We also want to continue working towards finalizing our design so that there is little to no change from here on out.
One of the only problems I faced this week was created the segmented track, for some reason we could not a get an 8-m radius of curvature. We did however create the concept on CAD to present the idea to other teams.

Week 9 Update

For this week I focused on sharpening up our presentation and trying to get some FEA to the Solar Panel Team. I found myself having several issues with the columns provided by Futran when I attempted to perform FEA. I am currently working with David to rebuild these so we can continue on with our analysis and get some information out to the Solar Panel Team.

For the next week, I am hoping to help out with CAD drawings and FEA on these so that we can continue to build material to present to the rest of the teams. We are currently focusing our attention on designing the junction and possibly implementing a different method of curvature. We are looking into welding straight sections to resemble a curve and then using a thin metal sheet to attach to the inside of the curve to smooth it out. This would be opposed to bending the tubing needed for the railing.

I am currently on schedule but am running a little late on the FEA for the column. This is just due to the bad CADs, so once that is fixed I can get that done too.

Week 8 Update

For this week I focused my attention on the second presentation we will be giving on 10/24 (Wed). This presentation was finalized after i performed some FEA on the four different kind of third rail designs. In the end, my partner and I decided to go with the hollow diamond shape; this shape is just a 2x2" square sheet metal beam that will be rotated 45 degrees to get the diamond shape (figure 1). The FEA that was conducted is pictured in figures 2,3 and 4.

 Figure 1 (left): Design for third rail 

 Figure 2 (left): FOS=16 for the hollow diamond-shaped rail
 Figure 3 (left): Highest displacement is 1.31mm 
 
Figure 4 (above): the Von Mises stresses are presented with the highest being around 2.32e7 Pa

Week 7 Update

For this week, I focused on curving our track and implementing the third rail to get a conceptual design. This design was needed to add to our presentation next week, so I spent a lot of time trying to perfect that curve. Our design is not the best, but we wanted to at least have a representation for the presentation and also to show to other groups so they can have an idea of our design.

I also focused on the third rail system and am hoping to start some FEA on this so that we have more to talk about during the presentation. I am still familiarizing myself with ANSYS and SolidWorks FEA, so I am hoping to have that done before the weekend so that I am right on track for Presentation #2. As of now, we are going to be implementing the triangular third rail and that provides a flat surface for the supports to be welded onto (figure 1). We want our third rail to withstand flexing and the force that the bogie will be exerting onto it. I believe that using the triangular shaped third rail will help with these because the supports will be welded onto a flat surface versus being welded onto a triangular shape (figure 2).

  Figure 1 (left): The top of this rail is triangular

Figure 2 (left): The third rail design we will be

                                                                                                                 implementing. The supports are also shown 

Week 6 Update

For this week, I focused on possible designs for the third rail. I was trying to create an assembly to show what the third rail would look like implemented into Futran's design. Below, are two different examples for the third rail design (triangular or diamond-shaped). We are still debating if the rail should be solid or hollow as shown in images. If the rail is solid, we would be welding on the supports and if it is hollow, we would be bolting on the supports. Our decision for whether to go with solid or hollow will be made after we conduct some analysis. Also, the arrows in the images show where the bogie comes in contact with the rail. 
I am still working on the assembly with the third rail implemented, and will hopefully have that done for the second presentation. We are hoping to also do some analysis on the third rail so that we can decide on what shape and if it should be solid or hollow.

 Image 1 (left): Diamond-shaped solid cross section

 Image 2 (left): Triangular-shaped hollow cross section

Week 5 Update

 For this week, we decided to focus on getting our dimensions for the different parts of the Guideway. We wanted to make sure that everyone on the Bogie teams could design accordingly. We were not able to get the files for each individual part of the track, but we were able to get some overall dimensions that other teams would need.
The next step is going to be implementing some designs. Our goal is to have the third-rail designed by next week so that we can start some analysis.

Week 4 Update

This week, our focus was on the presentation. We wanted to ensure that the rest of our team would understand what that scope of our project is. David and I took some time to come together to work on it and make sure that we were on the same page. 

For this upcoming week, I am hoping to continue the design and start drafting for the final report. We are now in the early stages of design and we want to be able to document as much as possible in order to build our report. I am also going to look into possible funding for the Guideway, since our budget seems to be the highest. We are also hoping to get some dimensions so that the other teams (bogie, wayside and solar) can have something to design around. However, we are sure that some things will not change, like the gap between tracks. Still, we are hoping to implement a third rail system on the turning portion of the track; this will only affect height of the track.