Steering Wheel

Project
Formula Student Team “greenBEAR”

Year
2024

Used Software
Fusion 360
nTopology nTop
Blender

Used Hardware
Prusa Mk4 & XL
Formlabs Fuse 1
Artec Eva
AGILISTA-3000

Task

The task was to design a new steering wheel for our racecar for the Formula Student Season 24 in Europe.

Research

The initial research included gathering solutions for steering wheels from other teams, Formula 1 teams, and simulators.
The most crucial research consisted of studying the competition rulebook to get a scope of what is allowed.
Following aspects decided the first form:

  • The rulebook forbids the use of concaves on the outer shape

  • ergonomic resting positions for the thumbs

Moodboard

First shape for the upcoming molds

Ergonomic Study

To get a functional foundation for the form finding process, a clay mold of every driver's grip was taken and 3D-scanned.
All common features were merged, and a clean form could be modeled of it.
Takeaways:

  • All of the drivers shared similar gripping zones

  • Most differences were in the thumb zone

  • The steering column has to be shorter

Fitted clay mold in the season 23 racecar

3D-scanned clay mold

Prototyping

FDM-printed prototypes were used to evaluate the ergonomics with the drivers.
It took ten iterations and a few finite element method (FEM) simulations to finalize the form.

Fitted 3D-print in the season 23 racecar

Finite Element Method (FEM) Simulation in Fusion 360

Iterations

The iterations were made based on the feedback from the drivers about the prototypes.

Optimization

To save weight, a lattice structure was used in gripping areas where fewer forces apply. This was realized initially with Autodesk Fusion 360 and later on with Ntop. Also, the grips were hollowed out to save even more weight.

Manufacturing

The steering wheel that was used was powder printed out of polyamide (Nylon). An unused prototype was printed out of acrylic with an inkjet method.

Polyamide version

Acrylic version

Evaluation

Unfortunately, the steering wheel broke during a review of the Formula Student Netherlands event. The takeaway was that we should have done a physical stress test and shouldn’t rely solely on simulation data. As for now, a steering wheel of our predecessor team is used. The development will continue in the next season and will go more hand in hand with the engineers of the team to ensure the physical strength needed.