Politecnico of Torino Student Team Uses HyperWorks to Reduce Vehicle Weight and Fuel Consumption in Shell Eco Marathon

• Robots - Autonomous Guided Vehicles (AGV)
• Sensors - Autonomous Driving Sensors

• Aerospace
• Automotive

• Logistics & Transportation
• Product Research & Development

• Smart Parking
• Vehicle Performance Monitoring

The Shell Eco-marathon (SEM) is a global competition that challenges student teams to design, build, and drive the most energy-efficient car. The team H2politO, a group of students from the Politecnico di Torino, participated in the competition with a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle and a hybrid vehicle. The team aimed to improve their vehicles by reducing frictions and masses to minimize fuel consumption. One of the most critical issues was the wheel rim design. Lighter rims lead to less rotating masses, reducing energy consumption and improving the vehicle's dynamic behavior. The challenge was to optimize the geometry of the wheel rims to determine the ideal structure and mass distribution while considering manufacturing constraints. The team needed to apply sophisticated computer-aided engineering (CAE) tools to support a simulation-driven design process and enable early decision making for further improvements of the vehicles.

The team H2politO is a group of students from the Politecnico di Torino, with diverse backgrounds and profiles from various engineering disciplines. The team is based in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department (DIMEAS) of Turin’s Politecnico, and led by Prof. Massimiliana Carello. The team’s mission is to shape a new generation of engineers who represent the educational excellence in regard to each of their competencies. The team designs and constructs low-energy consumption vehicles that could become benchmarks for their categories. The team participated in the Shell Eco-marathon Europe with a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle and a hybrid vehicle.

The H2politO team applied Altair’s HyperWorks suite to design and optimize the wheel rims. The tools enabled them to consider technical constraints such as tire design specifications and constraints related to the chosen manufacturing technology for the rims. The team used an aluminum alloy for the rims due to its lightness and other beneficial material characteristics. To optimize the rim structure, the students used OptiStruct, Altair’s FE solver and optimization tool. They defined the component’s design space, applied loads and other boundary conditions, and conducted an optimization study that simulated the real test for the rims. The resulting mass distribution provided the basis for a detailed CAD model of the rim. The team used static analyses to validate the results.

• The use of Altair’s HyperWorks suite and the included optimization tool OptiStruct allowed the team to achieve a significant weight reduction in the wheel rims, which improved the car's handling and dynamic behavior. The wheel rims were tested on the track during the Shell Eco-marathon Europe 2015 and demonstrated good behavior during all steps of the race. The development approach also allowed the team to include the constraints of the desired manufacturing technologies. The team was able to increase the performance of the vehicle by delivering an ideal mass distribution and by enabling a CAE-driven design process, which resulted in a more streamlined development process. The main benefits of using Altair‘s HyperWorks suite to develop the team‘s vehicles were a significant mass reduction with the same mechanical performance, FEA and CAD integration to reach design targets, and the ability to cover different production technology early on in the development process.

• Weight reduction of around 18% compared to last year’s wheel rim design
• Achieved 6th place in the Shell Eco-marathon Europe 2015 with a consumption of 328.8 kg/m3
• Significant mass reduction with the same mechanical performance