TEAM ETA Use SOLIDWORKS To Design Aerodynamic Vehicle for Shell Eco-Marathon

By

Student Teams work all year long to prepare for grueling competitions. Designs are perfected over years for the ultimate machine. Long before the students take to the track, they design, analyze, and then re-design/re-test their components and vehicles.

I was fortunate to interview TEAM Eta, a Shell Eco Marathon team from Somaiya Vidyavihar University (SVU), in Mumbai, India.

Team Eta – MAHIL – 2019 Prototype Vehicle, achieved 268.7 kmpl (kilometers/liter) on petrol.

 

 

SOLIDWORKS helped get uniformity in the Aerodynamic design of the vehicle, resulting in extraordinary achievements.

 

 

The name Mahil means one who progresses! Team Eta achieved multiple first place wins in Asia – earning them 1st in Asia ranking and 12th in global rankings in Shell Eco-Marathon.

We are fortunate that Team Eta shared their designs with the SOLIDWORKS community.  I asked Team Eta to highlight some of their achievements.

1) ROLLING FRICTION BASED SHAFT DRIVE – Using Extensive modelling features, the drivetrain team successfully designed a rolling friction based driveshaft system, which is more energy efficient than conventional sliding friction based gear train.

 

 

2)  CONTINUOUS VARIABLE CHAIN TRANSMISSION:  SOLIDWORKS tools and a variety of features helped us bring out creativity and innovative ideas on the design platform efficiently. SOLIDWORKS makes our work easier with ease in creation of such complex objects in a short time periods.

4)NACA DUCT AEROFOIL:  Implementing  ideas in SOLIDWORKS has always created great outcomes in designing. The NACA Duct is one of such design outcomes with many simulation tests in SOLIDWORKS Simulation.

 

 

5)TWO SPEED GEAR TRAIN:  The motion analysis tool in SOLIDWORKS,  used for the motion study of the depicted gear train, produces a smooth and realistic output with simple and effortless editing

 

 

6) DOG ENGAGER MECHANISM: Visualization, analysis and simulation of simple to complex systems is made easier and better with SOLIDWORKS. The system illustrated above for such outcome is a Dog engager mechanism

My interview would not be complete without asking Team Eta more about their team.

Marie: Tell me something about your team, where are you from, how many members, school name, and your advisor.

Team Eta: We are Team Eta, the official Super Mileage team of K.J. Somaiya College of Engineering, Somaiya Vidyavihar University, Mumbai India. We are a student team of 32 members who are passionate about creating a fuel-efficient prototype vehicle that covers great distances within a given amount of fuel. The guidance and inspiration that drives us, comes from our beloved Faculty Advisor Dr. Ajay Gangrade. Our team manager Mr. Yuvraj Dalvi and co-manager Mr. Aman Pandit have been the backbone of our team, guiding us through 2020-21 helping us achieve a great feat in the year 2020 and 2021. Our team name is Eta which also happens to be the greek letter to denote efficiency. Recently we won a hattrick victory in one season of Shell Eco Marathon 2021. We came 1st in Asia in 3 competitions: Pitch the Future, Virtual Tech Inspection and Road to 2050 of Shell Eco Marathon 2021 Program.

Marie: What competitions do you compete in?  Link to competition.  Is it regional, national or global?

Team Eta: We take part in the World’s Leading Energy Efficiency Competition: Shell Eco Marathon organized annually by the Shell group of companies. This STEM based international competition challenges students across the world to design, build and race highly fuel efficient vehicles on race tracks. There are a total 2 events that happen throughout the year, one is the Shell Eco-Marathon India Challenger event which is the national event and Shell Eco-Marathon Asia which is an international event. We participate in both the events. Link to competition:

Marie: How do you use SOLIDWORKS in competition?

Team Eta: The components we manufacture all year round, SOLIDWORKS, is the initial step that tests our designing skills and shapes our ideas and mechanisms into a part or an assembly which we can refurbish further and make a finished product. Being a fuel efficient team, the main idea behind being the most efficient on track, is to have the least weight, and SOLIDWORKS having a variety of facilities in its tools, makes our work easier and helps us to get a soft image of our desired components with its critical properties such as mass, inertia, etc.

Marie: What is the next step of your journey?

Team Eta: We look forward to designing lightweight and sturdy components that will help us improve more mileage and also implement some useful mechanisms for our upcoming new vehicles. We are also using SOLIDWORKS 2021-22, for designing our new vehicle body and some very useful mechanisms in the powertrain department.

Marie: Where can others go to find out more about your team?

Team Eta: We have a pretty strong social network, we have a lot of people supporting us over there! We surely want to welcome more people under our #madovermiles community, below are the links for our social networking sites,

 

Marie: Anything else you would like to tell the SOLIDWORKS community.

Team Eta: We would like to tell the SolidWorks Community that one should keep on designing until the time he/she is satisfied with the optimum output. Designing helps to keep the mind fresh with new ideas!  We want to thank SOLIDWORKS for their support in our past endeavors. We are currently using the SolidWorks 2021-22 and SolidWorks 3D Experience and it has been a great experience until now. The software is just the backbone of the team, a link between imagination and reality.

 

Thank you Team Eta for sharing with the SOLIDWORKS Community and good luck in this year’s competitions.

Be well.  Marie

Marie Planchard

Marie Planchard

Senior Director, Early Engagement, 3DEXPERIENCE Works at Dassault Systemes
Marie Planchard is an education and engineering advocate. As Senior Director of Education & Early Engagement, SOLIDWORKS, she is responsible for global development of content and social outreach for the 3DEXPERIENCE Works products across all levels of learning including educational institutions, Fab Labs, and entrepreneurship.
Marie Planchard

@marieplanchard1