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Graduation Thesis: Suspension Design for an Electric Cargo Vehicle

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For my graduation thesis, I chose a subject which would involve work with the design of suspensions. I found that at my university with HAN Automotive Research. The project was done with a Dynteq. My project with them involved the design of a rear suspension for an electric cargo bike. This project is protected by confidentiality, therefore not all the details and images can be shared on this post. However, I would like to share my experience of designing a suspension. Cargo bikes are becoming quite popular in Europe as the streets of old cities are very small and narrow, having cargo bikes allows delivery companies to use them for use within city deliveries, as they don’t take up much space on the roads and in some countries and cities they can also make use of cycle lanes, thus reducing the van traffic congestion. Having electric bikes also allows for less pollution within the city. A typical delivery van consuming space on both the road and pavement in a narrow street ...
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Minor: Lightweight Vehicle Design

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The minor I chose in my study was the lightweight vehicle design minor, I chose this minor because of my inclination towards motorsports. Within motorsports, it is very important for the vehicle to be lightweight to perform well in competitions. The weight of the vehicle affects almost every aspect of the vehicle, the handling, the braking performance, acceleration as well as the fuel consumption. As a chassis engineer, I believe it is important to know how to design lightweight parts. During my study the subjects included lightweight constructions, composite material science, mechanics of materials and finite element analysis. We were introduced to several techniques to achieve lightweight structures. This included using topology optimisation using finite element analysis, using sandwich panels, composites as well as lightweight materials like aluminium, titanium and magnesium. Solidworks static simulation, torsion test In this minor I, along with fellow students also ...
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HAN Eco Marathon

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The HAN Eco marathon is a student event organized by the HAN University of Applied Sciences. The objective of the event is to design and produce a car that can travel the furthest distance for each gram of CO2 produced. The powertrains allowed were combustion engines and electric drivelines. The car is supposed to be designed under certain rules which exist for the safety of the drivers, spectators and the engineers making the vehicles. The teams have a limited budget of 1000 euros and all the teams are allowed one testing day at the circuit and the main event took place at the Lelystad circuit in the Netherlands. Maximizing efficiency was the objective of our team we had to have the largest distance travelled per gram of CO2 expelled. The team made the choice to use an electric driveline due to the higher efficiency of the electric motors as compared to combustion engines. The CO2 use for electric vehicles was calculated by seeing the energy consumed and then calculating ...
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Internship in Chassis Development at Skoda Auto

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My internship at Skoda Auto lasted from 1 st of September 2017 to 31 st January 2018. The sharing of this experience will be limited, and I wouldn’t be sharing details as my work at Skoda was protected by a confidentiality agreement.  I interned at the Chassis Development department of Skoda Auto in Mlada Boleslav in Czech Republic. My internship project was to work with a team to develop a chassis for a future Skoda vehicle to be sold in India. This internship experience was an excellent learning experience for me and was my first work experience in such a large company. My work at Skoda auto consisted of researching customer requirements with regards to the chassis, thereafter, I worked on competitor benchmarking and looked at methods adopted by competitors to sell vehicles to the Indian customers. For my final report I worked on chassis optimization and packaging of the vehicle,specifically on the MQB chassis platform. One of the requirements for the braking ...
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Formula Student Germany 2016

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Formula Student Germany was the event everyone at the HAN Formula Student was long waiting for. We had been designing, manufacturing, testing and preparing our car for the event that was from the 9 th of August 2016 to the 14 th . We arrived in Hockenheim and setup camp at the Hockenheimring a day earlier and collected ourselves for the big week that lay ahead.  There was a certain relief in the team that we had made it to the event after some tough days but there was also stress about our performance and about being able to showcase our passion properly. 13 passionate members of the team made it to Germany and on the morning of 14 th august we set about registering and setting up our pits and preparing for scrutineering. Scrutineering in general went well for us. Some changes were required as mentioned by the stewards but they weren ’ t major ones. However, the list wasn ’ t short so he team got to work and worked till pits closed at 12 midnight after which we had dinner...
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Work Experience with the HAN Formula Student (HFS) team

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In September 2015 I was selected in the HAN formula team which was the university team competing in Formula student races. Formula Student Germany 2016 was the HAN formula team ’ s first event for which we, as a team started preparing for in September 2015 even though the event was in August 2016. Since we were a new team preparing for our first event we naturally had to overcome lots of obstacles. We sourced a used engine from a Yamaha R6 which satisfied the 600-cc capacity rule that the engine is allowed. Similarly, we sourced a lot of components from our sponsors who were helpful and understanding. Since we are a first-year team, we did not have a great budget and the sponsors helped a lot and gave us the tools and resources to turn our ideas into reality. I joined the team as a steering engineer and we worked to research on different steering systems to choose for the car, eventually, after several choice table iterations, we decided on choosing rack and pinion steering ...
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FORMULA STYLE CAR DESIGN

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This has been an experience of lifetime, which I am sharing with all! I have been a great formula1 fan since 2009. I started following f1 after the 2009 Singaporean grand prix. Though I did not watch every race I was still quite interested in f1. I started following all the races and all the sessions of every formula 1 race since 2011. India held its first grand prix and I went to watch it. The event cemented my love for racing and formula 1. Unfortunately f1 hasn’t gained a strong foothold in India and it’s not too popular with the masses. I was always interested in formula one design and read a lot of articles initially to learn about the complexities of designing the most performance oriented vehicles on the planet. It came as a great surprise to me when I found out that there was a summer course on formula design in India. I was very excited about the course and wanted to join it, but, I found out that it was for engineering students. Later when I talked to the con...
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