Welcome to the University of Massachusetts Supermileage Vehicle Competition Homepage, a project by the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Both the students and the advisors are very excited about the 2004 Competition. This years team will be working hard to create the most fuel efficient engine and aerodynamic body possible in order to bring home first place.
GO UMASS!
Pictured above, from left to right are: Pieter Van Lieu, Jon
Bernashe, George Howe, Prof. Schmidt, Mike McGrath, and John Kliem, and in the
car is Kalyn Knopf
Not shown are: Prof. Hyers, Mike Blundell, Raphiel Tranchese, Chris Leidel,
Kyle Tierney, Paul Jensen, Paul Pettinicchio, Adam Trenkle, and Keven Timpel.
News/Progress:
5-15-04 - Crunch time is here. The shell and engine are attached and the car has been successfully driven on a couple of occasions. The windshield ended up being a bigger problem than we thought and we actually ended up using a past year's. Most of the major systems are done. We have a few small things to take care of like the tail light, the firewall and painting. The engine team is tweaking everything using the dyno. The Umass Alum Magazine has decided to do a story on the car so it basically needs to be all set by the 25th of May. Things are looking good and on schedule. -Chris
3-1-04 - Well the great month of March has begun and here in Western Mass. there is still a little snow on the ground as we all wait to get covered again with that last late season storm. In other non weather related news the SAE conference went quite well. Although those Uconn kids never showed up the Hartford folks did although they were a bit late. The Umass hoops team dropped a 25 point beating to #2 ranked St. Joe's that night and the traffic held them up. At any rate the presentations went well as did at talk given on the value of career networking by a VP at Thermospas Inc. Fiberglassing has started and the soon as the new connecting rod is finished we should have a working engine. The wheels were attached to the chassis this week as well and work on the firewall and steering is coming along. Till next time - Chris
2-23-04 - Things have been moving along well for the SMV crew. The fund raising team capped off a great campaign with a $5000 dollar donation coming from TI Sensors and Controls. A big thanks to all our sponsors thus far! The shell continues to progress. The mold was smoothed out and tested in the wind tunnel for any flow separation then tweaked accordingly. The engine team has finished the engine sleeve and it fits nicely. The timing design has been finalized and parts are on order while the custom crank should be finished shortly. Everything is looking pretty good as the engine will soon be running and the shell fiberglassing will soon be started.
1-30-04 - After the new year during the Umass January break, the SMV team got down to business. The engine team is almost ready to put a working engine together after figuring out how to attach the head and machining the sleeve. The body team has made progress as well. The Pro-E model was finalized and cross sections were printed. These sections were then cut into foam slabs that were joined together. Currently the body team is working on the smoothing out the foam to create a working mold over which fiberglass can be laid.
12-1-03 - The shell has been modeled in Pro-E and is awaiting some final tweaking. When that is finished a fluent simulation will be performed to determine the coefficient of drag. Aluminum for the frame has been order and cut to length. Within the next few days the welding should be complete. Also, recently the wheels were built and look great thanks to donations from Oakley Cycles. We have begun to plan the steering and started to work on the shell fabrication. The engine team is moving all well as well. They have almost all their necessary parts ordered and will soon make a decision on the crank shaft.
11-1-03 - Pro E shell modeling is in its final stages. Pics of the 3D solid model can be seen on the "Our Car" section. Mold fabrication techniques are being discussed. Long term schedule has been posted in the "Out Car" section as well.
10-19-03 - The body team has completed a wooden mockup of the frame to help with the fabrication process. ProEngineer modeling of the shell has begun.
10/12/03 - This frame been modeled and dimensioned using ProEngineer and can be seen in the "Our Car" section. Work on the shell has begun with a number of designs being evaluated. Also, some test fiber glassing has been performed to get a feel for the process.
10/7/03 - A new frame design was decided on that will use two small supports instead of the single backbone support of last years car.
10/3/03 - As of now, the opening of the homepage, the team has already been hard at work. We have divided ourselves into a body/frame sub-team and an engine sub-team. The body team has begun to tear down last years car and has made some critical decisions about driver orientation and location of the front wheels. The engine team has also started to pull apart the engine and work with the dynamometer.