3/1/2017

On February 25, my team (minus Kevin) met with Eric Rosenfeld to gain some insight on his plans for the solar panels. The purpose of this meeting was to further analyze which of our current designs for the guideway support structure would be most feasible and sturdy. The details of this meeting are written in our team blog post, but ultimately, the consensus was that we can choose whatever support structure we want; the solar panel adjustment is a last-minute alteration. With the wide variety of solar panel alignment systems available in the market, we could use any design that we want.

We also worked on our Presentation 1, which will be presented on March 1. The parts of the presentation that I worked on were the "Overall schedule for the semester + updated Gantt Chart" and "Budget (Most up-to-date B.O.M)" sections. I also helped brainstorm the "Identification of dependencies or exposures" section, since our Budget heavily relates to that. Basically, we are a bit behind on actual fabrication, but this is due to our contacts not responding to our repeatedly sent emails.

2/22/17

This week consisted of communication, for me at least. Using the designs that we've already come up with, I contacted Eric Rosenfeld for advice regarding positioning of the solar panels on the top of the guideway. The following is information that I've included in the Full Scale Test Track blog, though since it is my own information, I will include it here as well.

"He says there are four basic design concepts that he's considering: a sloped design, taking the design concept of Ron Swenson's Plantronics solar canopy installation, pitched roofs, flat roof design in which commercial racking system can be used, and ground mounts. He recommends SnapnRack, which attaches via screws but has systems that make it easier to remove and maintain.

After looking over Claude's and Andries' concepts for the column and guideway design, he suggests that it could utilize the sloped design with a central support, though he thinks a four support point design may be more sturdy. He worries that not many roads have islands in the center that we can place these supports into. Hence, he hasn't solidified a solar racking design because we haven't solidified a track design. Whatever orientation we make the top of the track have, the solar panels will have to adapt to.

While developing, we will need to let Eric know the distance between supports so he can develop a better racking system. Dr. Furman says the current design concept uses beams that are 24 meters apart, though we haven't really decided on that exact value yet.

Here are some options he's given us:

• a truss system will allow us to put more of the solar module weight on the track support beams and trusses, and less on the roof of the transit

• a thin-film canopy, which can be printed at any length, but he's unsure of how it will handle San Jose weather conditions

He also answered a previous question of ours. For the weight of the modules, he was previously considering SunEdison-R360EzC-4y module with a nominal power of 360.192W, efficiency 18.42%, approximately 22kg, at approximately 0.63 center per Watt. The modules are 1976mm x 990mm x 50mm. We need approximately 19,600 modules to run 88 pods for an entire year, assuming no alterations made. [https://cngsolarengineering.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/SUNEDISON-%E2%80%93-R335-360.pdf]"

From here, we need to meet with Eric sometime in the next couple weekends to finalize the information we were seeking so that Claude can continue with his designs. Also, we were just given the rubric for Presentation 1, so I'm sure that a lot of our time in the next week will be spent on that.

2/15/17

This week, we were tasked with sketching and contributing to the overall image of our design.

  

My sketches were focused more on dimensioning, so that we had an overall idea of the scale of magnitude we should be looking at. The brace is what we need to focus on next. It will attach on the right and left edges of the column, connecting to the split point of the curved beam on top. Claude has been working on the SolidWorks model, but my computer is having some issues looking at the files so I will have to wait to view them in class on Wednesday.

2/8/16

To begin the semester, our Full Scale Test Track team met with Andries, our South African contact, before regular class met. He was able to explain some parts of the interlocking column design that we were having trouble conceptualizing. He also brought a sample section of constructed column, which was very helpful to view.

During class, we worked mainly on deciding what we would construct for the semester, to have completed by Maker Faire. We will be coming up with rough estimates of the dimensions that our basic structure will have. We'll design on SolidWorks some aesthetically pleasing structure of the Y-shaped section that connects the interlocking column to both sides of the guideway. Once we have a couple of designs, we'll send them to our contact who will have his team sketch up some blueprints using exact measurements. From there we will send that information to Vander-Bend to prototype. I'm assuming that once we get our prototype received, we will fill the column with concrete to perform some tests, if time permits.

I'm not yet sure what our individual roles will be. I will probably be maintaining the team blog still. Claude is beginning a SolidWorks model. We will gain more information during our 2/8 meeting session.

12/7/16

As we near the end of the semester, my team and I have been rushing to make sure we have everything completed in time. We presented our final presentation on Wednesday, 11/30. It seemed to encompass much of the same material that was presented in our second presentation, plus progress we've made this far. However, neither Eric nor Ron had questions for us at the end, so I hope that's a good sign.

My team and I are working on our report draft that's due on Friday, 12/2. My responsibilities for the paper will be writing the abstract, acknowledgments, introduction/project description, and conclusions/next steps. I don't think it'll be too difficult to write the paper, though I do worry that we haven't done enough work throughout the semester to make up for our lack of background as a new team.

Finally, I picked up the materials for our final prototype from Home Depot. I got 16 feet of 4x4 wood and 8 feet of 2x2 wood. We will mill the 4x4 wood to resemble our interlocking column structure, then we will show how the clamp mechanism works in assembling an arch with a mock guideway resembled by the 2x2. I also picked up quikrete instant concrete for the footings, though I'm not yet sure what mold we will be using.

UPDATE:
On Friday, I worked in the ME machine shop to cut the chamfer cuts into the wood slabs to mimic the shape of the interlocking column design. The process was long and arduous since the wood posts were 3 feet long, so we were only able to mill enough to design one arch. In addition, the wood was extremely heavy so we probably wouldn't have been able to carry two anyway.

On Monday, I went back to the shop, and with Roger (the technician) and Kevin's help, we cut out the area where the crossbeam would connect to the support beams.

On Tuesday, with Professor Akthem Al-Manaseer and CE student Rami's help, Kevin and I created the concrete footings. This process took a couple hours but it was a helpful learning experience for next semester, when we will be attempting to fill the steel columns with concrete and make more detailed footings.

11/30/16

On November 18th, we met with Scott Bryant at Vander-Bend to discuss our prototype for next semester. Here is what we learned (which is mentioned in our team blog as well):

• Our model will be laser cut, since we want a thickness of around 3 mm which is about 1/8 inch steel. Their laser cutters can cut up to 3/8 thickness, if thicker, water-cutting is utilized.
• The laser cutters accomodate up to 60x120 inches of material. This is more than the typical standard of 48x120.
• Vander-Bend doesn't handle casting painting, injection molding, etc. -type services.
• They manufacture a lot for the hospital industry, fuel cells, fruit industry, etc.
• We will make a model of what we need constructed on SolidWorks. We will construct the 3D model of it so that they can assemble as portrayed. They will need the step file and drawing.
• Our model will be cold-rolled steel, either 10-10 or 10-08. Bend radius of 1/32 inch.
• Claude will talk with Andres.
• Manufacture time will be at least 3 weeks, so we need to plan around that.

It seems that Claude is handling much of the prototype, as far as CAD modeling goes. I am working more on these blog posts, but we will focus on the Bill of Materials in the next coming days, as well as the rough draft of our Final Report. Our end-of-semester prototype will hopefully be to create a model of how the column connects to the guideway and the footings.

Furthermore, I've been in contact with Professor Al-Manaseer of the CE department to see if we could gain access to the concrete for fabricating our simple footings for now. This would hopefully imitate how the footings would react when placed into the ground for support. We aren't 100% sure yet if our model should utilize one column/footing or two, since there isn't much time left, but we will know in the next few days.

11/23/16

For this week, we finished our second rapid prototype, per Ron and Dr. Furman's request. The model was constructed out of a thicker cardstock material for strength and reinforcement, because the previous paper model was too flimsy to stay together. Regardless of this change, the model was still flimsy, unfortunately. Once we construct a model out of steel, the columns will hopefully behave much better.

This prototype portrayed how a longer column structure would be built. Ideally, the columns would be very long so that the Superway podcars would sit high above the streets and pedestrians below. However, it would be difficult to find a manufacturer who could laser cut and bend strips of steel around 30 feet long. So the purpose of this prototype was to model interlapping pieces to elongate the structure. This is visible in the two following images.

          

The second image shows how the inside of the model appears. Once filled with concrete, it would prove to be extremely solid and integrally strong.

On 11/18, we met with Vander-Bend manufacturing. I will talk about that in the next blog post instead.