Designing of a Rear Suspension for a Race Car

Greg Wheatley; Brent Lane; Rendage Sachini Sandeepa Chandrasiri

doi:10.4271/2020-01-5088

This paper was commissioned for the design and analysis of an entire rear suspension system befitting a Formula Society of Automotive Engineers (FSAE) vehicle. The paper includes a literature review to gain a full understanding of the workings and design decisions applied to the rear suspension in the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) competition. After completing the design development process, a final analysis of the designed system was done to ensure the minimum two years-of-life requirement is met.

It was found that due to constraints, a major design change was necessary that involves mounting the A-arms further forward on the chassis body than previous generation vehicles. This design increased the stresses present in the system compared to previous designs. As such, careful consideration had been given to the analysis aspect of the paper.

Full fatigue analysis performed individually on each component proved that the lower A-arm was the most critical component, with a predicted failure at 1466 laps. However, with the given lifespan of two years, this design procured a conservative Factor of Safety of above two years.

Notable mention should be given to the complete development of an FSAE uniaxial force determination code that was produced by Team Recoil. This code greatly improved the confidence in component forces and thus allowed less conservative design choices in several other aspects.

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Designing of a Rear Suspension for a Race Car 2020-01-5088

SAE MOBILUS