Formula SAE is a collegiate design series run by Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), which challenges students to design, build and compete with an open wheel style car across various events. The competition pitches various teams across different static events focusing on the teams engineering design decisions, cost planning, marketing strategies and vehicle inspections. The teams also have to compete under various dynamic events like acceleration, skid-pad, autocross and the endurance run where even the fuel economy is checked.
University of Texas – Arlington (UTA) Racing FSAE team was founded in 1976 and has been consistently competing at various competitions across the United States, as well as the United Kingdom, Japan and Australia. UTA racing has been using Altair Engineering’s tools to validate and improve designs of various components of their racecar. In this case it’s the pedal box the team developed for their 2019 car.
The team used SimLab for preprocessing, Optistruct for solving and Altair HyperView™ for post processing of the result. Using SimLab, the team was able to reduce the setup time for the assembly simulation by more than half and helped them iterate multiple designs in a short amount of time.
Team History and Structure
For more than 37 years, the team has built more than 30 cars while securing podium finishes in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Japan. The current car, F-19 features a 4130 chromoly steel spaceframe and suspension components, carbon fiber rims and aero package along with un-sprung aero, combustion powertrain and data acquisition systems.
The F-19 team was divided in to nine subsystems (aerodynamics, chassis, suspension, drivetrain, engine, ergonomics, composites, data acquisition and electrical) which were led by a chief engineer who was responsible for systems integration and major design goals. All the team members including the chief engineer were led our team captain and worked closely with our team manager (finance and marketing director) and our faculty advisor Dr. Robert Woods.
UTA Racing is affiliated to the Mechanical and Aerospace (MAE) department of The University of Texas at Arlington. For more information about the team, please visit: www.utaracing.com