David-Bunker-SpartanSuperway

This week I began focusing my work on the junction, the real goal of our project this year. Figure 1 below shows the track positioning for a 8m radius turn. This next week is going to be focused on modifying the existing truss structure to fit a curved section of track as well as a modified segment to make sure the junction is structurally sound.   Figure 1: Overall position for track components at the junction. This week we also came upon another issue with one of the files from last year. The models for the support columns (shown in figure 2) for the entire guide have overlapping bodies in them, one of these interferences is highlighted in highlighted in figure 3 below. This was discovered when Evelia attempted to do some load analysis on the structure that the Full Scale Solar team requested, but was unable to be completed because of this. To fix this we are going to modify, or recreate, the model in the next couple days to get the necessary information to the solar team as so

My work this week was focused on focused on finalizing the new track design using rectangular box section, and modifying the existing mounting components for Futran's track design to work with the new one.  Because we are in the United States, we are realistically only going to be able to source in English dimensions. In order to keep the track dimensions as close as possible this will require us to 2" x 8" box section, as well as 2" x 4" box section tubing to get an overall shape of 8" x 8", which makes the new track dimensions slightly wider horizontally, and slightly shorter vertically. This also makes the gap between tracks slightly smaller, about 112 mm, instead of the 122 mm with the Futran design.  With this part of the track design finished the next two weeks will be focused on designing the truss modifications to fully implement the junction.   Figure 1: New track cross section with modified mounting.   Figure 2: Old Futran track c

This week was focused on developing the new track cross-section into a working design. While Evelia worked on the third rail design, I worked on the new track design, as well as modifications to the truss.  With the new track cross-section we need to modify the existing mounting system on the support truss as we will need to support the new track from inside the cross section, instead of one of the corners of the plus shaped design from Futran/Milotec. From viewing Evelia's work, I realized that we must also modify the current truss structure to proceed with our planned direction for the curved sections. As the current truss structure is a straight design, the straight braces on the top and bottom of the track, shown in figure 1 below, must also be curved so they do not interfere with the curved track design. Figure 1: Conceptual Curved Track with braces requiring bending circled.