April 2009
PTC, The Product Development Company has announced that ‘Sophia Racing,’ the Sophia University Japan formula SAE racing team, has standardized on Pro/Engineer for the design of all its formula racing vehicles.
Sophia Racing began using Pro/Engineer in 2005 and quickly achieved prominence, becoming the first team in the history of the Formula SAE Competition of Japan to win three championships in a row, in 2006, 2007, and 2008. Its success continued with a third place victory at the world championship competition in 2008, a first for a team from Asia.
Formula SAE is a racing vehicle design competition for automotive technology students hosted by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). Its events have been held around the world since the first one took place in the U.S. in 1981. The Formula SAE competitions are judged on dynamic and static criteria, requiring a very advanced level of overall vehicle quality. The dynamic criteria include an evaluation of the vehicle's movement and turning capacities.
The static criteria, on the other hand, include a per-vehicle production cost analysis of the various costs that go into production process, an evaluation of the innovation in the vehicle's overall design, and, finally, a judging on presentation of the development of the vehicle. One of the required elements in the competition is to demonstrate the ability to produce four vehicles a day, spending no more than $25,000 per vehicle.
Sophia Racing has demonstrated its prominent technical capabilities in developing top-class racing vehicles using Pro/Engineer for all the processes needed for the vehicle development, from the sketching of clay models to detailed and mold design, to the manufacture of the power train, chassis and aero-dynamic components.
Using a "back-to-the-basics" principle, Sophia has made full use of Pro/Engineer's strengths to address challenges in lowering the vehicle's center of gravity and enhancing its engine power, as well as for conducting stress and aerodynamic analyses.
In order to improve the aerodynamics and to lower the center of gravity of its vehicle, the team was able to easily modify the model parametrically and perform stress analyses on the model using Pro/Engineer Mechanica. The challenge of maintaining the stiffness in the chassis design was overcome through the use of this Pro/Engineer simulation module to perform FEM analyses for all parts as well as fatigue analyses where necessary.
The surfacing and reflection analysis capabilities of Pro/Engineer were also fully leveraged for the cowling design.
"At the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology, we use Pro/Engineer in a required course for sophomores and above in order to develop engineering resources through practical engineering education ," says Takashi Suzuki, Supervisor of Sophia Racing and Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology, Sophia University.
"Pro/Engineer is the best tool for us because of its rich functionality and the ease-of-use for students who are learning best-practices product development. The top-down design approach increased the efficiency of our work, and has become one of the key strengths of Sophia Racing's machine development."
"The recent victory of Sophia Racing demonstrates the talent of the students as well as their ability to leverage the powerful capabilities of Pro/Engineer to develop award winning racing vehicles," says Michael Campbell, SVP, Product Management, PTC.
"We're pleased that Sophia Racing was able to achieve this victory with a car designed and developed with Pro/Engineer and congratulate the students on their success."
Pro/Engineer was introduced to Sophia University through Rikei Corporation, a PTC platinum partner and authorized reseller.
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