Week 9 Progress (11/2/16)

This week is much slower, since we pretty much have the bulk of our presentation finished, yet we will be presenting November 2nd. We will be meeting with Ron, Dr. Furman, and Eric on Monday to get further guidance and help on our calculations.

Claude will be finishing taping up our rapid prototype, which should be ready to present soon.
[insert picture of rapid prototype]

We are also coordinating a meeting with Vander-Bend this upcoming week with one of the 1/12th scale teams. We will ask any questions we might have for when we construct our full-sized prototype.

Week 8 Progress (10/26/16)

This week, we have mainly been preparing for our presentation. Here is the breakdown so far for the presentation who-will-do-what:

Theoretical/Analysis

• Kathlyn - thermal analysis, expansion joint gap, properties of strong steel
• Kevin - loading for column and beam
• Isaac - ANSYS analysis for loads?

Project Schedule and Deliverables

• Winter

For Project/Problem Status and Initial Designs/Comparisons of Alternatives, we will all work on this, though Winter and Claude will input more information.

Finally, thanks to Dr. Furman's instructions to the IT guys, the laser cutter on campus finally works. We were able to cut out our rapid prototype (thanks to all of Claude's work) and we will hopefully assemble it before the presentation, which might be tomorrow.

Pieces of our rapid prototype, not yet assembled

Furthermore, since we've lost some sense of direction due to all of the unknown variables, we are working on changing the scope of our group. From full-scale, hopefully we will be able to just focus on columns, beams, and footings, analyzing materials and joining processes. We are focusing more on the structural aspect of Spartan Superway at this point, so our models will probably need to be closer to 1/12 scale to be reasonable for our group. We plan on using MDF for our end-of-semester prototype, and high-strength steel for next semester.

Week 7 Progress (10/19/16)

We progressed by meeting with Ron Swenson and Dr. Furman to discuss how our contact in Africa has progressed on their rapid transit system. We watched their presentation to gain more perspective on how the railways are designed and supported. For example, originally we thought we would be attaching beams to the support columns by implementing a clamp system. However, now we need to research if we could design interlocking tabs instead.

To make the system ride more efficiently, we played around with the idea of two railways going one direction. One would be the main transport line, which would constantly move and stop at stations to pick up more people. The other line would be where idle cars sit until they're called upon at the next station.

This week we will be researching the following:

Claude - progression on acquiring laser cutter software for rapid prototype [Epilogue Helix]

Winter - measuring widths of streets and sidewalks across San Jose

Kathlyn - researching properties of steel for expansion joins (from pamplet)

Kevin - research on something else?

Isaac - MIA

Week 6 Progress (10/12/16)

This week, we gave our presentation on the progress we've made so far regarding the full scale test track improvements and plans.. Here is the link to it, along with our comments:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1in1OkRoP68i6vTJtyP6Aq-7OXTKatwIKRJhSLFXtZcs/edit?usp=sharing

Regarding new research, we developed our rapid prototype that we will construct as soon as we have access to the ME lab in the engineering building. We will be laser-cutting an interlocking column out of construction paper to inspect how it will fit together. The design resembles somewhat of a Solomon's knot, interlocking in several places for support. However, we are unable to share the prototype sketch due to confidentiality conflicts.



For next week, we will gather more information regarding cables used in bridges, as well as expansion joints. At some point, we will need to measure the existing full scale track to gather dimensions.

Week 5 Progress (10/5/16)

This week, we began plans for rapid prototyping. Although our current design is still in progress, it would still be beneficial to have an actual physical model to facilitate the visualization of the guideway system and do some preliminary torsional testing. Because we don't have all the details regarding [our contact]'s design, Eric advised us to use the school's laser CNC machine to cut a model out of cardstock or cardboard as a means to better understand it.  We plan to follow his advice and construct and test a section of [our contact]'s guideway support, and perhaps a variation of columns as well.

Our team's current design

In addition, we also prepared for this week's upcoming presentation. During preparation, we began to focus in on the many aspects of this project demands and were consequently able to specifically delegate each member with separate responsibilities. The current responsibilities are as follows:

Claude - Design: Solidworks Deliverables
Isaac - Research/Calculations: Suspension/Footings
Kevin - Materials: Types of Materials/Ordering Materials
Winter - Testing: Torsional/Vibrations
Kathlyn - Research/Calculations: Thermal Expansion/Columns

Finally, we will further refine our presentation in time for class on Wednesday. We will also be getting more information from Ron on the South African system when he returns this week.