An overview of the Buckeye Bullet 1

This clip was filmed shortly after the BB1 Set the International Landspeed Record for an Electric vehicle. Someone outside of the team recorded it and posted it to YouTube.

Buckeye Bullet Workshop

Some times you just need a drawing.

A 2D I made from a 3D model to be sent out for manufacture.

A simple Animation

I used Solidworks Built in Animation features to make this short movie. More to come soon.

It showed up on You Tube?

One day I was poking around YouTube, and suddenly come across a video of myself talking about the bullet that I didn't even know was taken. I think the guy I was talking to must have had a cell phone camera on his backpack or something. So good video of the bullet and also our Challenge X vehicle.

Standoff Tab

Not all the work is glorious, but even the small things like this standoff need to be made!

Driver Cell

This rendering of the carbon fiber driver safety cell turned out so well that I had to include it. On our high resolution screen it was hard to distinguish the cad model from the manufacturer's photo. We had this piece custom made at Roush industries.

Fastener in Action

Here is the fastener described below in action, holding the body to the chassis.

Fire Suppression in Car

here is a shot of the Fire system packaged in the vehicle. We are carrying 3 systems on board, the one you see here, on on the opposite side of the vehicle, and one packaged by the rear wheels to cover the Fuel Cell and Tank area of the Vehicle.

Fire Suppression

After a great deal of research, a fire suppression system was chosen for the vehicle. We will carry 9kg or about 20lbs of Halon replacement on board to quickly dispense any fire, should one arise. This system from Lifeline was small light, making it very easy to package in the vehicle.

Fastening

To fasten the carbon fiber under tray to the chassis this system was developed. It allows the silver "locating tab" to be permanently mounted to the body while the red bracket is welded to the vehicle. The under tray is raised from above and located by the pin. A threaded T handle then draws the body against the chassis. The two lock nuts allow for clamping force adjustment.

Bosch Sensor / Mount

This a one of my models of a laser ride height sensor that will go on the vehicle. I needed to model it so a mount could be designed and placed in the vehicle.

The Buckeye Bullet 2

As I have been making these posts I realize you the reader have no idea what the parts I design are used for. The majority of the automotive parts are for the Buckeye Bullet 2 Hydrogen Fuel Cell landspeed race car. See www.buckeyebullet.com for more information.

Body Panels

After wind tunnel testing the solid body was broken up into panels to be manufactured to create the final skin. As usual, all of the panel divisions, fastening devices, and access panels were modeled in CAD.

Wind Tunnel Model

To verify computational fluid dynamic studies done on the 350mph+ vehicle, a 1/3 scale wind tunnel model was constructed and tested on a rolling road wind tunnel. Yep you guessed it, the whole thing was modeled in CAD long before the CNC machines started to cut the body. This particular model was made with interchangeable nose, tail, and fin sections to test multiple body configurations quickly. All the pieces are shown below.

Motor Dyno Setup

The bullet team recently decided to test it's one of a kind electric motor on a dynomometer to see what kind of power it was capable of. Quite a few stands and couplers had to be machined and fit into this setup, all of which was modeled and tested in CAD long before manufacture.

Pedals

One of my first CAD projects ever was to model the racing pedals for the Buckeye Bullet. Here's what I came up with.

Intro

I like to think of this as ART, the Engineering way. This blog will be my "portfolio" of CAD work. Enjoy!