Car Body Surface Design

This goal of this project was to develop surfacing skills in the computer aided design software CATIA, by modeling a physical toy car. This project was intended to be the final deliverable as part of the manufacturing engineering MFGE 362 course, CAD Using Surfaces.

Point cloud data of a toy model car was used to generate an initial mesh, which was used during the planning phase. Care was taken to plan out each surfacing operation and plan the management of geometrical sets during collaborative editing using a master skeleton file. After the surfacing operations had been completed, the surfaces were analyzed for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree connectivity. An airfoil was designed and evaluated for downforce performance and implemented into the model of the car body. A solid body model was created, consisting of two mold halves used for manufacturing the airfoil. The final presentation for the project is given below.

My role in the project was to generate the front fender of the car using surfacing techniques. The document below displays the distribution of work among team members, wherein my outlined contributions are shown on the second page.

Later in the project, an airfoil was design, evaluated for its performance using simulations and metrics of drag and downforce, and finally implemented into the model. Each group member developed their own airfoil design, which were all later compared with the best one selected. The document below displays the various airfoils generated, and the one selected.

Collaborators

Hadrian Barrett

Christopher Baumgartner

Alec Newton