STEADY PROGRESS: STEERING AND BRAKE SYSTEM

The summer vacation was a time for a lot of preparation and activity for the titans as we head to the busy fall semester. As you know already, the SEMA event is from 6^th to 9^th February which means we would have to ship the car out to the Philippines by the beginning of December. Keeping that in mind, the car would be ready by the end of November. All this planning would take real hard work to implement, and all of us will be working together to achieve this goal.

  In today’s blog I would be giving you some small insights into the Steering and Brake department’s decisions and plans.

Firstly, The Steering System,

A little bit of education then as to what forms a part of the Steering System.

The Steering Wheel: The most important component. Now, as per SEMA rules, the drivers hand should never be removed from the Steering. And that means the throttle the brake levers and the shifter will be on the Steering wheel. Something similar to the paddle shifts on a Lamborghini.

                                      

Steering wheel with paddle shifts (Sample image)

The Steering Column: A device intended primarily for connecting the steering wheel to the steering mechanism.

Other parts include the Tie Rod and the Tires and we are not going deeper into that.

       The Mechanism for the Steering system that we have chosen is the Bell Crank Mechanism. What is Bell Crank Mechanism? Well basically it involves having two arms bend at 90 deg resembling a capital L. These arms can and may vary in length but mostly have the same lengths. Apart from this we would also be following Ackerman geometry as this was successfully tested in the previous year’s car.

                           

How a normal bell crank mechanism works

Now, the Brakes:

    After lots of discussion, the department has decided to provide mechanical calliper brakes of a mountain bike at the front and more powerful hydraulic brakes at the rear as more weights would act on the rear wheel and thus would need more power. And sticking to the rules of SEMA we have decided to provide brake levers for activation as this would ease the efforts of the driver.

That was from the Steering and Brakes department. Now, all this looks easy on paper but requires superior knowledge, hard work and capital to implement. There’s more to come from the other departments as well.