SC19: Monocoque Design

This document describes the design process of the CFRP monocoque of the SC19, the Formula Student vehicle completely designed by Squadra Corse Polito in season 2018/2019. With both static and dynamics events, FSAE competitions truly test the limits of student imagination and innovation, practical engineering and businesses analysis, and to some extent driving skills also. To make the design of the whole vehicle even more complex are the numerous constraints imposed by the regulation of the competitions. Among the most critical keys to success in the Formula Student competition include the ability to reduce vehicle weight: it will be explained what solutions and technical choices have been made in order to made saving weight with respect the previous vehicle, reaching a monocoque’s weight less than 20 kilos. After an oveview on the general targets set for the vehicle as a whole, the specific objectives to which the monocoque design has been oriented will be define. As said, the main aspect influencing the performance of the vehicle is its mass: optimization of laminates and new design solutions were adopetd to the monocoque to reach an overall vehicle weight reduction, enhancing its dynamics performance. This, however, must not weaken the stiffness of the frame since it is important that an high chassis rigidity provides a reliable and predictable platform for high performance handling. It will be explained how the torsional stifness of the monocoque was evaluated with a FE model and then later tested. In addition to that performance features, the car must be easily mantainable . Maintainability is a function of engineering design: it requires that components requiring frequent operations from outside can be easily accessible and also easily repaired or replaced in case of fault in a reasonable time, fundamental during a race. Finally, since the manufacturing process of the monocoque was entirely perfomed by the team, all the stages starting from the design and processing of the molds up to the lamination of the body itself and the necessary post-processing procedures to prepare it for the painting will be described.