NEWSLETTER

www.ugracing.co.uk | Issue: #1 | Decembe 2014

Welcome
back to UGRacing!
Welcome back to a new year at UGRacing. This
year we hope to learn from both the successes
and failures of last year and build on the triumph
of our participation in Russia. This quarter will be
a learning process for all students, but particularly
for our new Class II members, who will be led by
Scott Vickers as they focus on our developmental
side for next year. This years car is already into
the building phase as we prepare for Silverstone,
as well as exciting other international
competitions.

We go into the new year with the new team

principal Andrew Reid at the helm. Andrew
gained his experience as Class II principal last
year and will help the team move on, in a new
approach to this year. Calum MacDonald is also
returning to the team after a year long work
placement at Rolls Royce and former team
principal Yavor Gegov will be working in an
advisory role as he begins his masters at
Glasgow University. This effective management
team will be overseeing, what hopefully will be
the most successful year of UGRacing yet to
come.
- Harriet Tymon-Johnson

GU68

WELCOME
Welcome to a new season and in many ways a fresh start for UGRacing! A lot has changed
since our last proper newsletter earlier this year. With new places and fresh faces (myself
included!), the start to our 2014/15 season has been dramatic to say the least.
After being unable to field a running car at the competition this year, UGRacing found its feet
again with a solid performance by our development team in their Silverstone design competition.
Out of 24 original entries, our rookie members finished in 12th place, beating teams with
budgets several times larger than our own. However the teams biggest success this summer
came in September at the inaugural Formula Student Russia competition. UGRacing won the
Class III event, bringing home the teams first ever tropies!As well as finishing overall winners, the
team also won the individual design and business competitions, and placed second in the cost
presentation.
Over the summer we have had to say goodbye to several long-term members as they graduate
or go on placement. It is always sad to lose team members, and we wish them the very best of
luck in the future wherever they end up. However this has paved the way for several members of
last years development team to step up to Class I and show what they are capable of.
Thousands of hours have already been put into the development of our 2015 challenger, and it
pleases me to say that we are roughly 6 months ahead of where we were last year. At this stage
we are looking to have the car built by the start of March 2015, a new record for the team.
Finally, on behalf of the team I would like to thank both the University and all of our sponsors for
their continued support. Their helpfulness has made this transition period smoother than I could
have imagined, and we would not be standing in such a strong position without them. I hope
you enjoy this first newsletter of what is arguably the start of a new chapter in UGRacings
history.
Andrew Reid

Team Principal

COMPUTER RENDER OF UGR-15

UPDATE
Powertrain
Work has been progressing on
stripping down and cleaning our
spare engine, we now have all the
parts that we need, so we should be
able to get this job completed fairly
soon. The ultimate goal with this is to
get the engine to a state, where it will
become the primary engine for the
car. Time permitting once this is
complete, we may look at cleaning
the other engine, but that is a project
for the new year at the earliest,
especially given the cost of parts
required.
The final alterations to the Wave
model of the exhaust have been
completed and this has enabled us

to modify the tubing for the exhaust

system and create a jig to accommodate the exhaust. This jig allows
us to easily mock up the exhaust, so
we can begin the process of tacking
and seaming the different elements
together.
A basic plenum has been designed
for this years car. The modelling
software used, for both this and the
exhaust system, is Ricardo Wave.
This enables us to get a good idea of
what the flow within the system will
be like and from the simulations we
are able to predict values, such as
torque for different rpm values and
also top horse power. All materials for

this have now arrived and we are

hoping to have the welding work
completed in January. We have been
exploring the use of manufacturing
some of the components using 3D
Printing. If this is successful, then the
scope is to design next years intake
and to be manufactured fully using
3D printing.
As part of the intake, the old throttle
bodies have been modified and are
still being employed as fuel injector
housings, along with a bespoke fuel
rail.
- Cameron MacLeod

UPDATE
Electronics
The electronics team is the most freshfaced of all sub-teams, with none of
last years team retained. In spite of
this weve all undergone a significant
learning curve, which has allowed us
to arrive at a point, prior to our winter
break-up, where our progress is well
ahead of that of last years. We have a
fully assembled prototype dash and
data logging system, which fetches an
ECU hex table over serial protocol,
interprets the data and uses it to drive
our dash display and log it to an
inserted flash drive. Coupled with
software, which we have written to
transfer from the storage device and
visualise this data, in the context of
time, it will prove crucial in the testing
and tuning of the completed car.

We have also been busy correcting

and improving the full system from last
(in the form of editing a full system
schematic) and now have a system,
which not only incorporates more
functionality, but is also futurecompatible, so the core of the system
need not be replaced every year. Our
concept is to retain the same solid
core system for a few years, but to
g r a d u a l l y a d d m o re a n d m o re
functionality to it.
All of our software is now on an online
repository, as we become a modern,
efficient and open-source-embracing
team. Our GitHub organisation can be
viewed here https://github.com/
ugracing. Take a look whenever and
keep up to date with our latest
progress!
- Thomas Dalgaty

Chassis
UGRacing worked tirelessly over the
summer months, to produce the steel
space frame chassis design for the
UGR-15. With the design completed
and the tubes sent to Duright
Engineering for laser notching before
the start of 1st semester, we were well
on course to have the chassis welded
and out of the jig before stopping for
Christmas exams. Duright Engineering

are laser tube cutting specialists and

have been partners of ours for three
years now. At the time of writing, the
chassis is due to be delivered in a few
days time and the team are very
eager to get started with the manufacturing stage of the year.
- Calum MacDonald

Unsprung Mass
The unsprung mass section has been
outsourced this year, due to our
workshop moving, giving us limited inhouse machine time. Our hubs are
currently being CNC machined by
Howco, a worldwide supplier and
processor of materials for the oil and
gas industry. We are also working with
Tannlin, who will help us machine our
uprights this year and have invited us

along to further our knowledge of

CAM software. They are the industry
leading expert in stencil production,
and system design and manufacture.
Both hubs and uprights are due to be
completed by the start of January, so
look out for those in next months
issue!
- Calum MacDonald

UPDATE
Aerodynamics
An area which UGRacing is currently
researching is aerodynamics and in
particular the aerodynamics in wings.
Research started early in this semester
with team members improving their
knowledge of race car aerodynamics,
especially in relation to Formula
Student.
Extensive work was then carried out
w i t h i n J a v a F o i l a f re e a e ro f o i l
comparison programme, to select
several aerofoils to analyse in greater
detail. The selected aerofoils were then
exported into Solidworks. From there,
a standardised test rear wing was

created, allowing fair comparisons of

the aerofoils.
The team selected Altair Hyperworks
CFD to run the simulations, to
help decide on a finalised aerofoil.
Numerous simulations were used for
each of the aerofoils, changing the
angle of attack and air speeds
used to help generate a complete
understanding of all of the aerofoils.
These simulations generated the
forces of lift and drag acting, upon the
aerofoils for all the different angles and
velocities used. Coefficients of lift and
drag were then able to be calculated

by the team, which enabled a decision

to be made, as to which aerofoil to use
for the teams specific needs.
UGR has also utilised a fourth year
electronic team design project, to work
alongside them in this research. The
electronic students were asked to
investigate the possibility of the
inclusion of a DRS type system, as
seen in Formula 1, incorporated into
the cars existing electronics, to
maximise the efficiency of the wings.
- Douglas Cowie

UPDATE

From Russia, with Love

Though the season last year ended disappointingly for T1 as
they did not run a car at Silverstone, the future already looks
brighter as UGR heads into the new year having already
secured victory. The team entered a developmental
competition in Moscow, Russia in the Class III division. The
team was represented by senior members Calum MacDonald,
Yavor Gegov and Gus Thomas and they traveled to the ADM
Raceway on the outskirts of Moscow. When asked why
UGRacing had achieved so much in Russia, Head engineer
Calum MacDonald said that it was due to the solid

Welcome to Sponsorship
This year UGR decided to draft in a sponsorship team, to
take care of the any financial sponsorship deals and target
possible new sponsors. This years team is lead by first year
business student Christopher Haslund and he is supported
by six others, who work collaboratively to be as efficient as
possible. This year we are intending to target Glasgow based
companies as well as some larger business who we hope will
see the potential in investing in formula student. The
sponsorship team has also taken over the social side of
UGRacing, as well as the communicative side through the
newsletter and planning the car launch.
- Harriet Tymon-Johnson

presentation of our design and with

good reasoning behind each design
decision. It is impossible to expect
to win, with just bland presentation.
It is crucial to show that a team
started with a design philosophy
and that this philosophy was used
continuously through out the
building of the car. This was one of
the things that UGRacing delivered
effectively to the judges and this
solid reasoning was a big
contributing factor to our win.
Furthermore, some innovative
solutions, such as a lightweight
student designed and manufactured
differential also showed the design
talent within UGR and this was
reflected in our scores. Moving
away from design, UGR also won in
the business event. Although there
were criticisms regarding lack of
originality, we pitched a solid all-round business plan, coupled
with real market research which impressed the judges. Finally,
UGR came second in the cost event which was down to the
time and effort that was put into developing the cost report.
This was backed up by the previous cost report from
Silverstone, that allowed us to give well informed answers
regarding any costing that had been done by the team.
This win in Russia paves the way for the new direction of
Formula Student at Glasgow, and we continue this year with
high expectations for similar results in summer.
- Harriet Tymon-Johnson

CONTACT US

Sponsorship Manager:
Christopher Nrgaard Haslund
sponsorship.ugracing@gmail.com
+44 7541 232383
www.ugracing.co.uk
Mechanical Engineering
James Watt South Building
University of Glasgow
University Avenue
Glasgow G12 8QQ
United Kingdom