10/16-10/30

The last two weeks have been spent getting ready for the end of the semester in terms of getting together a BOM for all the parts that will be needed as well as working on the 3rd set of presentations, and the rough draft of the final report. I've been working on the presentation and trying to get that finished while working engineering drawings that will go into the final report. There are a million parts that are going into our assembly, and all of them need drawings to reference when we start to build in the Spring. 1/30

figure 1. BOM for Half-scale Bogie, Steering, and Failsafe.

figure 2. Sample Engineering Drawing for Bogie part

11/9-11/16

This week I was spent my time working on the gear housing for the steering system as well as the linkages that control the up steering arm. I am also working on cutting out the second prototype out of wood since I adjusted some of the dimension from the last prototype. The hope is that validate the dimensions we choose and the bogie will not bind on the track. I also had to completely redo the housing assembly half way through this blog and that is why I stopped writing it. I will get back to work and try to have a complete model done as soon as possible.

10/2-10/9

This week was spent working engineering drawings that are to be used next semester for manufacturing. I am also working to finalize the BOM in order to meet the November 15th deadline. I am also continuing to support the propulsion subteam with placement of components as well as suspension. I am also working with Jorge to make sure that the gear housing for the steering will work for how we need it. Overall, there is lots of work still to be done, but we are working to get all of it done. We will meet today with Bengt to discuss current design progress and work on any design suggestions that he might have.

10/26-11/2

This week I worked on finalizing the presentation by adding initial hand sketches for design work, and practicing the presentation. I also began working on FEA of the failsafe in order to determine whether or not the initial design would withstand the impact forces of the bogie falling. These impact forces can be seen in figure 1.

figure 1. impact force calculations. Once I knew the force of the impact, I used Solidworks FEA to come up with the stresses within each failsafe. This can be seen in figure 2.

Figure 2. Von Mises Stress within the Failsafe Overall, this was a productive week.

10/19-10/26

This week was spent working on the linkages for the steering mechanism and finalizing the design for the bolt on Failsafe. I also moved the universal joint from just below the main hub wheels to below the lower steering arms. My partner still has not been able to get SolidWorks to work on his part, and so both parts have fallen onto me. This is a lot work, and so I am falling a bit behind in terms of Gantt schedule. I will, however, keep working and try to stay up to schedule.The following figure is the current configuration for the Bogie with steering and failsafe.I am also haveing to work really closely with Propulsion and braking, and so I will try to keep up to schedule.

10/12-10/19

This week I helped propulsion come up with their final motor design and started working on coming up with a second version of the lower steering arm. There were interference problems with the bogie and the steering arm. The Cad that was made for the arm was also very messy and changes needed to be made that the made corrupt geometry. I also started working on the funding application for the SJSU fund. I am finding it interesting trying to juggle both my officer position and position as leader of the half scale team. I have lots of design work to complete, and I am making good progress, however, my group is having lots of issues that could become problems in the future. My partners solidworks is not working leaving all the CAD work on me, and propulsion and wayside are having issues trying to find out how voltage and current specs. Next week the second round of presentations start, which brings with it lots of work. We will all need to stay on top of everything as to have enough time to finish by the end of the semester.

10/5-10/12

This week I have been working on getting the Bogie CAD changes together. I am currently working with propulsion on motor and gear placement because it will determine the room allowed for the steering arm linkages. In addition, I've redesigned the universal joint in order to be able to place it in-plane with the drive wheels, This changed the mounting points, and will mediate any levers creating the load of suspension and cabin. I've also been working on the idea of having swing arms that wheels attach to and have small dashpots to allow for damping in the horizontal direction, however, I have not been able to find a supplier for what are essential micro shock absorbers. This may be a design that would go into the full scale, but not the 1/2 scale. I have also been working on student organizations tasks, and would like to appoint two officers to help with things such as our website, and event coordination. It is also critical that wayside and propulsion meet with solar arrays this week in order to know the voltage and current that will be supplied to the bogies, right now that is a design critical specification that they have not been told.

9/28-10/5

This week we presented our first presentation on the project, which was a partial success. We did not use the correct formatting, unfortunately, and the group presentation was not as smooth as possible. For the next presentation, my group and I will work more closely together to ensure the right formatting and that everyone know what needs to be said for each slide. We also had a phone call with Bengt, the patient holder of the bogie and railway designs. We spoke with him about our initial designs and sent him design files to review. He back with lots of helpful suggestions for changes and things to consider. This weekend I also attended the first SJSU Leadership conference in 10 years. We learned of funding available for the club, and how to be an effective leader of groups. It was an awesome experience, and I feel like I got a lot out of it. A vision for growth for the club not only during my participation in it, but also for years to come is something that I would like to think about. There are a lot of opportunities for students that are not senior to get involved in Spartan Superway, and once they are seniors be able to make an even larger impact. I look at club like SAE Formula for this kind of inspiration. This is something I will get together with Neil and discuss further. As for design work done this week, I have unfortunately not made much progress. With 2 papers due, the conference, and a family funeral I have had a lot on my plate, and to my dismay senior design went to the sidelines. I will however, speak to my group, and split the workload to start getting things designed, and make some good progress.

Presentation 1 Powerpoint

9/21-9/28

This week has been spent preparing for the first round of presentations, and working on CAD models. There are a lot of parts that need to be designed with how many changes are planned. It is our attempt to procure as many off the shelf parts as possible to avoid custom machined ones, however with the size of the bogie and the compact nature of it, it is turning out to be difficult. Figure 1 shows an early picture of the bogie thus far.

Figure 1. Bogie Structure

 From the picture, it can be seen that the largest change so far is that there will be three wheel instead of two wheels at the bottom of each bogie. This is in order to keep the bogie perpendicular to the track at all time, independent of one another.

Figure 2. Cross Section of members with thread inserts

Figure 2 shows the new design for mounting the support wheels on the bogie structure. Last year they used a threaded rod that went through the length of the member, this year we will mill threaded inserts that will be welded into place and the wheels will be on should bolts that will have some kind of bushing to allow for free spinning. 

Figure 3. Initial Joint design for Bogie Connection

Figure 3 is the initial design that has been done for the joint between the bogie uprights. It uses should bolts, brackets, a center shaft insert, and middle x joint to allow for 2 DOF for traveling up and around bends. 

Figure 4. Off the Sheld Bearing Unit

Figure 5. Start of Custom Bearing Unit for Main wheel

Figure 4 and 5, are an example of issues with off the shelve purchase parts I am currently having. I would like to be able to buy a full bearing unit for the main wheel, however, The ones available are too wide, and won't allow for the wheels to be aligned with the current track config. This means I need to design a custom one that will need to be machined. Not shown in figure 5, is addition bearing retaining plate that will also act to position the wheel in the correct location.  The bearing is required because Propulsion is planning on integrating the drivetrain onto the main wheels. This is going to make fitting everything difficult, so this is currently one of the top issues in my mind. 

Lots more work needs to be done. 

This week I spent my time doing some initial hand calculations for sizing the joints that connect the two bogie uprights to one another. I created an excel spreadsheet that can be used to calculate the shear and bearing stresses that bolts and brackets would see. The excel spreadsheet can be seen in figure one.

Figure 1. Bolted Joint Calculations.

Along with this, I started hand writing out position equations for the steering mechanisms. The lower steering arm is going to be treated a four bar mechanism with a driving diad that will be connected to some kind of actuator. The upper steering arm is slightly different in its current configuration, and may require some deep redesign to optimize the linkages for a rotary input rather than the linear one used in the full scale. Tomorrow we are going to work on creating an excel document where all of the equation will be in variable form to which we can change infinitely to try to optimize the design. 

I have also been working on the bogie upright structure. The old CAD models were difficult to work with, and we have enough changes to justify develop a new design from scratch. Most of the mounting points will remain the same, however, some things will be shifted around. The current upright can be seen in figure 2.  

Figure 2. Current Development of Bogie Upright

I am so far pleased with the development of the our design. We know for a most part what we need to do, and we are beginning work to make it happen.

9/7/2016 - 9/14/2016

9/7/2016-9/14/2016

A large part of this week was spent reviewing previous reports from the summer 2016 group, and trying to come up with clear design specifications. From the reports completed prior, it doesn't seem like there are clear requires for components such as time for steering to switch or weight values for cabin and suspension. These are important values because they dictate the strength requirements for the members. This Wednesday will be used to come up with clear design requirements. From there, the work load will be split between us to complete the goal.

In addition, to reviewing the old design, I had to complete some tasks as president of Superway. I completed the recognition application as well as looking into funding for the project. I wanted to get a polo shirt design together in order to have something for people to wear to events such as maker fair.

Design work that was complete this week was a discussion of how to model the steering system in order to come up with the equations that will define the input speed requirements for our actuators. The discussion of what kind of actuators also took place. Currently, the debate is between a linear actuator and a high-torque servo.  There are advantages and disadvantages to both, but the defining variable that will more than likely determine it will be the speed requirements for steering changes. Linear actuators are in general slower with the faster ones have a much large volumetric footprint. This could be a problem for us. The solution could reside in a servo motor to actuate the movement. We are also currently planning to have two actuators running with one a slave to other to actuate the upper and lower steering mechanisms. The distance between the two is too great and would a require a complex linkage system that would have long members that would either need a lot of mass to be structurally sound or be quite thin and may buckle.

Another design decision that has been made is to create a three wheel system for the lower rail. Currently, there are two wheels lying in a vertical plane with each other. This allows for rotation to occur about the rail which is causing binding in the upper guide wheels. The three wheel system would counteract this rotation and in conjunction to a 2 DOF of freedom jointed bar between the two bogies, would allow both bogies to be perpendicular to the rail, but independently of each other. This is an additional solution to the current binding issue.

We also plan on adding springs to the guide wheels at the top in order to take up some of the manufacturing tolerances that are currently a problem and creating some rotation perpendicular to the rails. It would also produce some give in the curved corners.

A redesign for the steering system is currently in talks as well. The lower steering arm was dropper down relative to the rail in the previous design, without being modified. The previous teams solution was to place the wheels of the steering arm on long rods in order to put them in the right position. A redesign of the arm could extend them and have a cut out for the lower wheels and place the wheels in the right position without the long rod. All the wheels should be on bearings or at least shoulder bolts that have shoulders with the right length for the wheels to rotate freely. The current design doesn't allow for some of the wheels to rotate freely.

Past success and Failures

While being a Student at SJSU I have been able to be part of many interesting and educational engineering projects such as an automatic bicycle derailleur, PID controlled Ping Pong ball levitator, SAE mini Baja vehicle, and CNC plywood furniture. My success is in most contributed to having competent teammates,  and giving enough time to finish the project. Failures have been mostly due to  rushing results and making mistakes.

The Ping pong ball levitator was one project that was ,unfortunately, a failure. My group did not work well together and waited far too long to begin the project. The due date came up fast, and a group member made make a silly mistake the ultimately burnt out the fans that were used to control the levitation and put the project way behind. We did not meet regularly enough to ensure that sufficient progress was taking place, and was far too late when we took the time to assess.

In order to be successful on this project, I am planning on starting early, and working consistently. I also believe it is important to have group members meet weekly in order to go over progress, and shift member attention and energy around accordingly. Small problems can ultimately overtake a project and be its downfall. My goal is to prevent this from happening

Another issue I experienced in previous projects were not having enough heads for the workload. There were just too few students working on the project in order to do all the tasks that it required. This stressed out the few members that were working on it, and eventually fewer and fewer were consistently working on the project. By the end of the semester, there were only one or two that were working on it.

I am looking forward to this project, because of the organization that is going into it. There are enough competent individuals part of this group that good things can be done. As long as we work hard, and throw ourselves into this project it can't be predicted what we can do. I am looking forward to being part of this project, and seeing cool things be made.