During the last kart outing of this year, the driver selection has come to an end. At this point, the official driver training will start. At Van der Ende Racing Inn’s kart track in Poeldijk, the drivers of the season 2009-2010 proved why they were chosen as drivers for this year. This track is the longest indoor kart track of Europe (an astonishing 1.3 kilometers), which, due to its technical nature, is a good training for the drivers. After one heat of exploration, the drivers discussed heavily about the ideal line, which they used during the second heat. In the third heat, the fastest times were set, even the fastest of that day.
From now on, the intensive driver training will officially start, which will prepare the drivers for testing the new DUT10 and drive at the events in England en Germany this year.
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Last week, two members of our team went to Airbus in Bristol (UK) to produce the rear engine & differential mount. Airbus offered this opportunity to the team as a prize for winning the Lightweight Vehicle Award at Formula Student UK 2009.
The produced part mounts the engine to the rear of the chassis and also houses the differential bearings and the chain tensioning system. Thanks to the Additive Layer Manufacturing technique, all of these functions are now fulfilled by a single part built of titanium.
The new design combines 10 parts into 1 and resulted in a weight reduction of 30%.
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Just like the progress made on the chassis, the suspension is going according to schedule as well. In order to speed up the production even more, we make use of spark eroding techniques from Ter Hoek. With spark eroding we save time compared to last year, when all geometry brackets were made by CNC milling machines.
Spark eroding is a machining technology with which materials can be milled extremely accurately by electrical discharges (sparks) between an electrode and the work piece. The great advantage of spark eroding is the complex shapes that can be made by using this technique. Therefore, it is very suitable to make geometry brackets for the DUT10.
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The production has shifted into top gear these past 2 months. The sleepless nights over the Structural Equivalency Form, a document that proves our monocoque has the same structural properties as a tubular space frame, were cause of severe stress amongst many team members. It was therefore time for a relaxing evening last Wednesday. While enjoying the infinite amount of spare-ribs at Breintje Beer, many DUTRacing stories were cited. Finally, when even the last DUTRacer was fed up with ribs, the team returned to the workplace to prepare the DUT09 for testing the next day.
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Many of our team members took the car or train to Hengelo in the eastern part of the Netherlands the past weeks. A lot of different team members have gained the experience of producing glass fibre and wooden moulds for some carbon fibre parts of our car. In cooperation with Groothuis BV. we were able to produce the third cockpit mould and the side pod moulds. Next to that also the steering, plenum, diffuser and fuel tank moulds were produced at Groothuis.
Every year the team produces many parts out of carbon fibre. These fibres fit well into our lightweight concept, but also allow for stiffer and more efficient designs. Using vacuum injection, we are able to produce all these parts in-house. The only parts we cannot produce ourselves completely are the moulds, which need to be air-tight. We are therefore very grateful to Groothuis for sharing their resources and expertise to enable the production of all these moulds.
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