The students met with Chris Summers, Principal Engineer, Graham Eardley, Principal Engineer and Ben Barakat, Design Engineer to have their composite design questions answered, in order for them to finalise their racing car designs for the up-coming IMechE Formula Student.
We caught up with Chris from the team to find out more about how we were able to help the students with this specific element of their racing car design.
Hi Chris. Tell us a little bit more about the composites design team?
Our composite design team is one of the most capable teams in the UK. Having worked for years with our industry partners on programs such as C-Series, A350, AW189 and Tempest, we can bring decades of cutting-edge experience in all areas of the composite design process. We have expertise from generating new material allowables, structural design and optimisation, tooling design and manufacturing support.
How did the team get involved in helping the students?
Graham and myself are both big motorsport fans, heading each year to Spa for the F1 or Le Mans for the 24-hour race. When we heard that Morson Projects were involved with supporting Salford Racing Team we jumped at the chance to help out. Getting Ben involved was important to us too, as he is one of the best composite design and manufacture engineers in the country.
What did you go through with the students?
The team from Salford Racing were very impressive, they came with a complete digital mock-up of their car and designs for the components that they were looking to make from carbon fibre composites. We went through a whole range of topics including guidance on some of their structural analysis methods and design for manufacture processes. Probably most importantly for the team, we took a deep dive into the manufacturing and tooling they would be creating themselves to manufacture the parts.
How will what you are showing the students help them?
We really want to see Salford Racing getting the car to the track and the worst situation for the team would be investing time and money into a design which would not be manufactured.
By helping the team to understand manufacturing processes that are available to them, we will enable them to make better, more reliable design choices that have a greater chance of success.
In many ways the ‘Formula Student’ project presents the teams with problems that mirror all our aerospace and defence programs on a day-to-day basis.
Find out more about our involvement with Salford’s Racing team here >
