Graduation project
June 2001, I finished my graduation project at MOTON Suspension Technology, The Netherlands.
The purpopse of this assignment is to redesign the parts of a set of shockabsorbers, which are part of the unsprung mass of a car, in order to make them as light as possible. The goal is to obtain a reduction in the total mass of 25 to 30%.
The most important precondition is that the dampingcharacteristics of the new shocks have to stay the same as the old ones. For the front, this can be solved by integrating the originally external gas-oil tank in the body of the shock. Also the massive 22 mm pistonrod is replaced by a hollow one. The piston which is orginally made of steel, will now be made out of a durable type of aluminium.
The measurements of the rearshock make an integration of the external gas-oil tank in the body of the shock impossible. The concept of the hollow pistonrod will however be applicated.
Furthermore, a detailed study was done on the shape and the construction of the rearshocks' mountingfork. In order to obtain an ideal design with an optimized stressdistribution, a finite element analysis software package was used. As the final stage of the analysis the shocks are assembled and thoroughly tested.
On the 13th of October I won the "Paul Donnerspijs" contest with this graduation project. For more info please surf to www.vik.be
On January 11th 2002 I became second at the EGEMIN-contest with this graduation project.
