Setting the Wheels in Motion
There have been many major advances in the WHUB’s (wheels, hubs, uprights, and brakes) department in the last few years. All these improvements have one main aim – to reduce the unsprung mass of the vehicle as much as possible. Unsprung mass contains the parts of the car that are not affected by the suspension and are instead in direct contact with the road, this includes all the components within the WHUB’s department. As is the same with total car weight, less weight is better. With lower unsprung mass the suspension can react quicker to the road giving us better handling in return.
Arguably one of biggest changes for WHUB’s this year is the move to 16-inch Hoosier tyres as opposed to the 18 inch tyres previously used. This change alone is saving 3.7 kg without sacrificing the amount of grip available.
The brake system for this season’s car has had a sizable make over. The trusty Wilwood PS1 brake calipers are finally being dropped in exchange for a new set of AP Racing brake calipers. These new calipers are half the weight and additionally allow the use of more effective carbon sintered brake pads. In collaboration with Matt Thomas, this year’s Driver’s Environment manager, the whole braking system has been redesigned around these new calipers to ensure that the brake pedal feels the most comfortable that it ever has.
Major changes in the design of the HUB’s and uprights introduced last year are being fully realised for this season. These changes include the use of much larger diameter bearings in the HUB’s which affects the stress and bending moments acting on components such as the HUB’s and uprights. This has allowed the weight of all the WHUB’s components to be reducing resulting in the lightest WHUB’s subsystem that SHU Racing has ever seen! These larger bearings have also enabled the use of trilobe joints in the HUB side of the driveshafts instead of CV joints, further reducing the overall weight.
Meet the Team
Meet the Team is an opportunity for us to give you a chance to learn a little more about the people who make up SHU Racing. This week, we welcome our WHUB’s and Logistics manager, Matthew Robinson.
Matt is the lead for the design and manufacture of all the components contained within the wheels as well as the wheels and tyres themselves. He is also our logistics manager making sure that the car and all its components arrive at Silverstone or our testing sites.
Matt joined SHU Racing due to his love for cars and motorsport. Having never had the opportunity to work on race cars before Matt wanted to get hands-on and apply the knowledge he had gained during university to an application that he enjoyed. Working with SHU Racing has taught him vital skills such as DfM (design for manufacture) which can’t be learned any other way and such he would highly recommend Formula Student to any aspiring engineer.
Name: Matthew Robinson
Age: 22
Course: MEng Mechanical Engineering
Role: WHUB’s Manager / Logistics Manager
Number of years with the Team: 4
Hobbies and Interests: Motorsports, Hillclimb, 80’s – 90’s cars, MTB, Music
Favorite Car: Nissan Skyline R32 GTR (specifically Group A-spec)
Dream Job: F1/Hillclimb Powertrain Engineer
Reasons for Joining SHU Racing: Get hands-on experience working on a car in a performance setting. Being able to apply the material being taught at university to a real-world application in a way that is otherwise not possible. Also, to learn a variety of things including design and manufacturing skills while meeting new people with similar interests.
