Design and Analyze the Frame for the Global Sustainable Urban Transport (SUT) Vehicle

In this paper we describe the activities of our university undergraduate students on the 20112012 Sustainable Urban Transport (SUT) Global Project whose goal is to develop an affordable and sustainable global vehicle. This project is sponsored by the Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative Engineering Education (PACE) and General Motors (GM). The project is designed to address the need for the Next Generation of SUTs as a part of our Capstone Design Project. The competition unites schools from around the world in a team effort to accomplish this goal. Our global PACE team is comprised of teams from Inha University (South Korea), Monash University (Australia), RWTH Aachen University (Germany), Northwestern University (USA), Hongik University (South Korea), and our university (USA). Our team’s projected city of interest is Seoul, South Korea. As of 2010, Seoul’s population was 10,464,051. Our students focused on the frame analysis and material selection. The objective of our frame analysis was to optimize the critical loading situation and reduce the vehicle weight by selecting the right material for this vehicle. Hence, light weight makes the SUT more economically competitive. It was recognized that the current state of material development presented the opportunity to apply materials outside of the industry standards used today. To accomplish our objective, we designed the frame based on the selected dimensions by the global team using Unigraphics NX 7.5 provided by the PACE. We then conducted a finite element analysis (FEA) on the frame using Nastran solver embedded in the NX 7.5 software. An emphasis was placed on the resulting structural stress, strain, and displacement of each FEA. The material options established for our analyses were steel, aluminum and steel combination, and carbon fiber reinforced polymer composite (CFRP). The results of our analyses were consistent with the results of our PACE teammates. Carbon fiber reinforced polymer composite was proven to be the ideal material for the SUT. Its maximum structural displacement, stress, and strain were 590.67 mm, 6.57×10 4 MPa, and 0.828, respectively. The overall mass of the CFRP frame was 1335.73 kg, nearly 35% of the steel frame’s mass.