Meeting Minutes

Wednesday October 14, 2009                                                           

• Today was the first time that we met with Dr. Swanbom and Dr. Tims as a whole group.  We discussed some of their general expectations for our project.  We are expected to design carbon fiber wheels for the Urban Car.  We are also to develop a fabrication process that can easily be replicated by the Eco-car team.  We are going to select a wheel and tire which we will purchase and use to guide our wheel dimensions.  We will strive to produce a finished product by the Shell Eco-marathon on March 26-28.  At the end of this meeting, we set out to decide on the wheels that we are to buy, have some concepts modeled in Solid Works and begin research the mechanical properties of carbon fiber.  We will hold weekly meetings with Dr. Swanbom at 1:00 PM on Fridays.

Friday October 30, 2009                                                                  

• During our meeting with Dr. Swanbom we determined that 1:00 PM on Fridays would not be optimal for all group members, so we decided to change our weekly meeting time with Dr. Swanbom to 4:30 PM on Thursdays.  A discussion about different ways to "true" the wheel with different mold possibilities and hub placement also took place.  The meeting with Dr. Swanbom was fairly short.  We had a team meeting later to discuss the evaluations given to each other on our TLA assignment.  Each of us took a turn to talk about the evaluation we gave to each member and how we felt that member was performing in the group so far.  After everyone took his turn, we then discussed some group action plans to try to get the design project moving a little faster and more efficiently.  Some action plans included holding each other accountable for having an action item prepared for the following meeting and trying to get some tentative deadlines set up.

Tuesday November 3, 2009                                                              

• This meeting consisted of just our group, no faculty members. During the previous meeting, we each agreed to read the chapter on wheels and tires in the book named "The World's Most Fuel Efficient Vehicle". First we discussed our interpretation, misunderstandings, and questions each one of us had regarding the chapter. We then discussed the relevance the book's design had regarding our design. Once we finished discussing the relevance, we made a list of action items we need to accomplish before the next meeting and assigned each group member with a specific task. We will be meeting with Dr. Swanbom on Thursday at 4:30 P.M. then as a group afterwards. The approximate time of this meeting was an hour and a half.

 Monday November 16, 2009                                                              

• In order to work on our proposal presenation and report two meetings were conducted -one on November 15 and the other on November 16. On november 15th we discussed about criteria , gant chart ,decision matrix ,budget estimation and various tentative concepts for our design of the carbon fiber wheel. The four hours long meeting was concluded with the complete designs of gant chart,decision matrix and five intitial concepts of our design. On November 16 we worked on budget estimation , proposal presentation and proposal report. It took three hours to come up with complete presenation and report for project proposal.

Tuesday December 8, 2009                                                                

• We discussed some of the questions that we will need to ask our friends at Composite Acoustics when we visit them next week.  We have been studying a textbook on composite  materials, but their experience and advice is invaluable.  We are still in need of a sure way to predict the behavior of the carbon fiber in compression.  We have found a suitable tire, but have yet to find a wheel to fit the tire.

Thursday December 10, 2009                                                             

• Today we made some progress on the loads that we can expect the wheels to see during the race.  Using a speed of 40 mph, we calculated the stopping torque that would yield a reasonable stopping distance.  We will be using a slightly overestimated value to be on the safe side.

Monday December 17, 2009                                                                

• A visit to Composite Acoustics,a carbon fibre guitar company,  was conducted  to get some suggestations regarding the use of carbon fibre in  the manufacturing of the carbon fibre wheels. The interaction with the chief engineer, Mr. Ellis , was really informative .He suggested important ideas about the carbon fiber layout  and gave helpful comments into our ideas. We also got an opportunity to take a tour of the guitar manufacturing plant, and the tour was really helpful as some of the steps of the guitar manufacturing process are required in our project .