Off Road Buggy - A College Project

[rvndraju]

hello everyone

i am new to this thread and as i've already mentioned about my BE final year project in the introduction forum where in me and my team members are designing and fabricating a OFF ROAD BUGGY ( SAE baja kind). 350z (senior member i guess) guided me to post thread about my project in this section .

about our vehicle

it is powered by a Greaves GL400 diesel engine it's a 400cc engine generating 8.5 horses at 3600rpm and 16.67 N-m torque. Engine is coupled to a 4 speed manual transmission with reverse. (this is the engine which is used in famous small commercial vehicle like piaggio APE & mahindra alfa)


The wheel base of the vehicle will be around 1800mm and tack width of 1120mm. It will have all wheel independent suspension with Double A-arm front suspension and Trailing arm in the rear.

The chassis is fabricated using combination of square (30*30*2mm) and round cold rolled mild steel tubes

All the fabrication work is carried out on our college work shop .

This diesel engine was brought from a famous scrap yard in bangalore , it is called as "shivajinagar gujuri". Dealers hear pick up good working parts from busted vehicles or wrecked cars and trucks and sell them for very less price. name any they will have it, right from tyres & rims, shocks to ABS & ECU modules.

We took a working engine with tranny,self-start motor, fuel tank, drive shafts & exhaust for around INR 8500/-

After we brought it we started cleaning & repairing it for worn out components like feed pump, clutch plates etc.

A lot of cleaning had to be done coz the condition of the engine was worst.









right after cleaning the engine in my terrace it was looking very tidy and lot of parts had to be replaced like

-feed pump
-clutch plates
-new fuel filter
-lathe work
-oil filter
-fuel lines
-gaskets
-had to replace a couple of bearings in the tranny
-change of engine oil and trans oil etc

a local diesel engine mechanic helped us do the job & we were able to get the engine back to normal working condition

we spent some INR 2500/- for the service, where 1600 for spares and 900 as labour charge

 

[sandip24]

Re: OFF ROAD BUGGY: College Project

This is interesting. Waiting for more updates.
Welcome to TAI family. Hope you will enjoy your stay here.

 

[bhvm]

Re: OFF ROAD BUGGY: College Project

I'm hooked. please keep the updates rolling!

 

[smooth rider]

Re: OFF ROAD BUGGY: College Project

nice project mate. keep it coming.

 

[rvndraju]

Re: OFF ROAD BUGGY: College Project

Sorry everyone my internet was down from morning .

here are few pictures during engine testing. Our engine was tested in the collage "ENERGY CONVERSION LAB" on a "rope brake dynamometer test rig" which was custom made by us to suite our engine . Different blends of biodiesel like B100, B70, B50, B20 & petroleum diesel were used and brake-thermal eff, specific fuel consumption & brake power were calculated.

 

[rvndraju]

Finally after the engine testing and stuffs we brought tubes for fabrication of the chassis. We thought of using Chrom-Moly steel tubes but when we enquired about it we found that those where priced too high and it was out of our budget so our second option was to go for a cheaper priced material. Finally purchased the below tubes from a steel dealer near our collage. A helper tied up all tubes in his specially designed bi-cycle and brought it to our collage pushing it which is roughly around 1.5 km from the shop & He charged us INR 100/- for transportation & unloading

-Four (30*30*2mm) square tubes of 20 feet each
-Four (dia 30*2mm) round tubes of 20 feet each

All tubes are of Cold Rolled Mild steel and paid INR 4500/- for all 8 tubes

The yield strength of these tubes is little less than Chrome-Moly but it does not matter for our project coz we don't do too much OFF ROADING like SAE BAJA .

 

[TSIVipul]

@Rvndraju:
It sounds addictive. I have been to BAJA and the thing you are working on is definitely going to be fun.
So what design you have got and any analysis you did?

 

[rvndraju]

Different views of our final chassis which we designed in Solid Edge ST5 CAD software.

yes TSIvipul i have done analysis of my chassis using Hypermesh & NASTRAN, one of our faculty who is from IISc helped us . I will be putting pictures about those during the final stages.

 

[rvndraju]

My team 1st started fabricating the front end i.e suspension arm mounts and then started of with the chassis base.

TIG & MIG welding m/c's where not available in our collage so we decided to go for Metal Arc welding which was available.

Our collage did not have a cutting m/c but it had a power hacksaw which was not suitable for cutting hollow tubes. So we borrowed a POWER PLANET cutting m/c for 15 days from my close friend who was a building contractor, actually it helped us a lot . without which we should have rented a m/c which would cost us Rs. 500 /day and a security deposit of Rs. 2000 which would hit us badly on our budget

 

[TSIVipul]

Electric arc welding will be more than enough for the work. In fact we also have done the same in various projects of ours and right now we are working on a two seater electric sports car. Here are a couple of snaps of our chassis:




We have used creo for the designing and are going to use custom built suspension at rear with anti roll bar installed at the rear. Best part is that we are using a 1:4 fixed ratio chain drive for our vehicle.
What suspension set up you have decided to use and I think you could have saved some weight on the chassis by using slightly less metal.
One recommendation I have is that you should consult SAE BAJA rulebook at least once, it has a couple of good things to do with the chassis design.

 

[rvndraju]

hey vipul your project seems pretty interesting all the very best. we had also thought of a hybrid car project by combining bio-diesel and electricity but later scrapped the idea dude to lack of funds and started of with this.

About the suspension, front end is a unequal length double A-arm with camber control & rear end is a simple trailing arm. We are using most custom modified OEM parts (again because lack of funds )

Yes i have gone through the SAE BAJA rule book a couple of times and we are trying to follow certain rules

 

[TSIVipul]

Our chassis is incomplete right now, though in the analysis it has proved to be more than required and is satisfying our targets quite well. Only some base members are to be added, especially at the rear where we will mount the motor and 8 batteries.

I think you can try the HHO thing, these kits are available in market and can be used for increasing the FE. Just get an alternator and a battery, charge the battery and power the HHO kit.
How much is your budget for the project BTW?

 

[rvndraju]

Our chassis is incomplete right now, though in the analysis it has proved to be more than required and is satisfying our targets quite well. Only some base members are to be added, especially at the rear where we will mount the motor and 8 batteries.

I think you can try the HHO thing, these kits are available in market and can be used for increasing the FE. Just get an alternator and a battery, charge the battery and power the HHO kit.
How much is your budget for the project BTW?

Our project budjet is around 45k. We are a team of four members so 11k each. This itself is a huge money on our head. hope so we complete it below 45k.
And more over nobody is doing project in our collage spending such huge amount and collage is also not ready to sponsor fund. So we are left with no other option but to cut cost where ever possible and not to waste money on other add on's :( :( ...

BTW how much is your project budget?. And what do u study ?

 

[TSIVipul]

Our project budjet is around 45k. We are a team of four members so 11k each. This itself is a huge money on our head. hope so we complete it below 45k.

That is definitely a tight budget and I am really doubtful if you will be able to get it all done right in this budget.

And more over nobody is doing project in our collage spending such huge amount and collage is also not ready to sponsor fund. So we are left with no other option but to cut cost where ever possible and not to waste money on other add on's :( :( ...

Same story here too, all other groups are buying their projects for 4-5k from market but we are making ours and ours is also amongst the the most expensive one till date.

BTW how much is your project budget?. what do u study ?

Our project budget is around 1.6 lac with a flexibility to stretch upto 2 lac. I am a final year EEE student.

 

[rvndraju]

Our project budget is around 1.6 lac with a flexibility to stretch upto 2 lac. I am a final year EEE student.

OMG that is a huge amount. I appreciate it though, Your interest towards it and spending so much for your BE project hope it comes out very good mate :) :)

Same story here too, all other groups are buying their projects for 4-5k from market but we are making ours and ours is also amongst the the most expensive one till date.

same here in our collage, our's would be the costliest project till date and the best one also .