FSAE
COMPOSITE
ANTI-INTRUSION PLATE

Background

Formula SAE is an intercollegiate student engineering competition where teams design and build a formula-style race car. This vehicle is built to a set of rules provided by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) that prescribe certain restrictions on components regarding driver safety. For any motorsport competition, vehicle and driver safety is an important design consideration. In Formula SAE, rules are prescribed for driver protection against frontal and side impacts as well as rollover. The front impact structure protects the driver through a crushable impact attenuator (IA) and an anti-intrusion plate (AIP). The impact structure as a whole is meant to protect the driver's legs in the event of a failure of the braking system and impact.

Objectives

The aim of this project is to design a composite sandwich panel anti-intrusion plate to replace the aluminum plate that is currently being utilized.

Primary Objective

Design a composite sandwich panel that is both stiffer and lighter than the current aluminum plate

Secondary Objective

Eliminate the impact bar, which at 1.27 lb accounts for 26% of the impact structure mass

Performance Results

The final manufactured composite anti-intrusion plate has a thickness of 1.125 in and a weight of 5 lbs. Although the final product does not meet the primary objective of being lighter than the aluminum anti-intrusion plate, it is successful in having improved material properties, demonstrating a bending stiffness of 3633.4 kN/m and a yield strength of 32.12 kN. The skin shear strength is over 6 times greater than the minimum requirement and is able to absorb more than 2.5 times the energy that steel tubes can. Additionally, less than 1 mm of deflection was observed under quasi-static crush. In summary, our design easily passes all requirements prescribed by the FSAE competition.