The Interior team is a part of five sub-groups of urban concept Vehicle. These sub-groups include Chassis and Suspension, Interior and Fairing, Drive train and Motor control, Steering and Braking system, and Electrical Engineering team. Together the Urban Concept Vehicle team will work to build a fuel efficient vehicle which will represent the skills and knowledge of the students from engineering department. This Vehicle will also be used as a showcase at NAU and participate for Shell-Eco Marathon Competition which is held annually in Houston, Texas as well as in Asia and Europe.

Team SPAT, will be making a truss type chassis frame with thin wall aluminum tubing. For the front suspension we will be using an A-arm style suspension. While for the back we will be using a trailing arm/linkage style suspension.

Needs for this project include:
1. A light weight, rigid frame.
2. Light weight suspension capable of preforming on many road conditions.
3. Ability to easily be integrated with other systems of the Urban car.
4. Comply with Shell Eco-marathon’s competition regulations.

Proposal:
The project purpose was to provide an appropriate frame and functioning front and rear suspension for the overall Urban Concept Electric Vehicle. The SOTA research, design, analysis, fabrication, and testing were all conducted by the team. The requirements for strength, functionality, and integration were defined by the rules of the Shell Eco- Marathon fuel efficiency competition and the needs of a credible urban concept vehicle.

The goal was to create an optimized frame and suspension system that could be integrated into a complete vehicle design, while adhering to competition guidelines.

A critical component of any vehicle is the drivetrain. The drivetrain is what transfers power from the motor to the wheels. For our vehicle, Motor Excellence has donated two of their new all electric hub motors to our project. Our team will be responsible for implementing these motors along with the wheel selection, motor and battery selection, motor design modification, and design of any transmission. Even though the drivetrain powers the vehicle it is only a small part of the entire project, so our group will need to work closely with the other groups in order to integrate our system with the other groups to get a finished and polished final product.

The team needed to design and build the braking and steering systems for a small urban vehicle. This vehicle had to qualify for the Shell Ecomarathon.
Modern steering systems are designed using Ackerman steering geometry, which ensures that the wheels have an optimal angle around a curve. This reduces wheel slip and skid, and greatly affects the vehicle performance. Additionally the angle of the kingpin axis, or the axis about which the wheels rotate, can be adjusted to determine how the vehicle will perform around curves.
Hydraulic braking systems have 4 important factors. The first is the master cylinder, which provides hydraulic pressure and is usually directly connected to the brake pedal. The second is the hose assembly, which must not have any leaks of any kind, and must be able to withstand the pressure in the system. The third is the slave cylinder, in our case a disc brake caliper, which actually uses the hydraulic pressure to stop the wheel. The final component is the hydraulic fluid, which carries the pressure in the system.

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