Structural Design of a Rear Wing of a Formula Student Racing Car

In this work will be presented the structural design of a multi-element rear wing for a Formula Student racing car for the 2024 season. The starting point is the analysis of the 2021 Rear Wing, its previous version of the assembly, in which failure of the mainplane occurred. Being identified its cause, the target for the new wing were established. The 2024 rear wing design is based on a more robust structure against the pitching moment, reduced manufacturing cost it with respect to previous years, smaller requirement of resources for the production, re-utilization of the already available materials and components in the team, simplification of its overall design. Particular attention was paid on supports design, being the main structural element that could be optimized. Characterization of the used carbon fibre composite material was performed to evaluate material properties for the design of the structure, analysed through finite element analysis on Hypermesh with Optistruct as solver. An experimental test in static conditions was designed to validate the numerical model used in Hypermesh and its realization is left as suggestion for future development. A solid Wing is obtained with a cheaper production method with a slightly higher weight compared to its previous version but with a structure that must resist to greater aerodynamics loads than its preceding release.