Tufts Hybrid Racing

We are the Tufts Racing Team! We are responsible for building the Blue Shell, the all-electric race car representing Tufts University at Formula Electric and Formula Hybrid.

Mission

We are striving to design and build an all electric racecar to win the FSAE Formula Electric Competition this coming summer in Nebraska!

The Competition

Formula Hybrid™ is a design and engineering challenge for undergraduate and graduate college and university students. The competition is organized by Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth and carries the endorsement of the Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc. (SAE) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE).

We must design, build, and compete an open-wheel, single-seat, plug-in hybrid racecar. This car must conform to a formula which emphasizes drive train innovation and fuel efficiency in a high-performance application.

Formula Hybrid builds on the Formula SAE program and takes it to the next level. It adds a new layer of complexity and provides an additional technical challenge to student teams. Like Formula SAE events, the Hybrid competition includes an acceleration test, autocross and endurance events, as well as engineering and construction static events. Unlike Formula SAE, Formula Hybrid events put a greater emphasis on drive train innovation and fuel efficiency.

The emphasis of the Formula Hybrid Competition is on the engineering of the hybrid drive system and vehicle suspension to maximize performance in three different tests, acceleration, autocross and endurance.

The most challenging event at the competition is the Endurance event, where all the vehicles begin having fully charged their accumulators (Batteries or Capacitors) from the grid, as is the norm for a plug-in hybrid vehicle.

Key features of our car

  • Designed and built by students
  • Integrates a Yasa-750 Axial flux motor with Sevcon Gen 4 controller
  • Redesigned HV LiFePO4 battery pack optimized for motor efficiency
  • Liquid cooled power electronics and drivetr
  • Wireless data acquisition and BMS logging
  • Modularized GLV systems with system-wide wire-off detection
  • 4130 Steel tube frame designed and built by Tufts undergraduates
  • 4-corner double wishbone suspension with inboard dampers

Our goals for the future

Formula Electric 2016: Iterate, test, and perfect current car with a goal of competing in Formula Electric 2016

2-year Design Cycle: Simultaneously begin new chassis design and fabrication as the beginning of a 2-year design cycle, culminating in a return to Formula Hybrid in 2017

Organization: During the year, emphasize mentorship and education of underclassmen, communication, project management and organization

Sponsors

A big thank you to YASA Motors for providing us with the electric motor for our car.

The Tufts Racing Philosophy

This project is to complicated for any one person to understand. As such we use clear organization of ideas and responsibilities to get the car finished. We also realize that no one leads the team forever and it is important to invest in the future of the team by focusing as much effort on teaching as we do on actual work on the car.

Tufts racing is the premiere engineering project at Tufts University. We tackle the daunting task of building an electric car to compete in FSAE competitions. Tufts encouraged the team to have a greener focus when the team was founded and as such we have competed with a hybrid car, and now a fully electric one. This project represents a huge task as a car has many components that all have to work in order to have a drivable car. This includes a chassis that meets safety standards while also being light, a suspension designed completely from scratch with tight and twisty turns in mind, and most importantly an electric motor and batteries to power the car. This project is by far the most complicated project that students can work on and is a perfect introduction into the real world where working on interdisciplinary teams is standard.

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