Author: Alex Bell, Leeds Formula Student Race Team

Cost control and reduction is an important element in the Formula Student Team challenge – and for motor manufacturing in general - and at Leeds a small part of this has been achieved through the development of a bespoke caliper that has been designed and manufactured in-house. For the Formula Student Team at Leeds this has proven to be the most cost effective solution for the design of the foundation brake.

The Leeds Team comprises a mix of third and fourth year undergraduate students, drawn from the Mechanical and Automotive Engineering programmes and supported, in part, through long established brake system research in the School of Mechanical Engineering.  In the most recent UK Government Research Assessment Exercise the School achieved an impressive 75% of research activity rated internationally excellent or world leading. This strong research base is supporting the exploration of novel design solutions and provides team members with valuable broad based product engineering experience from which to draw upon.

The current Leeds car, F12, utilises three fixed four pot calipers, two acting on the front wheels and one inboard rear caliper acting on the differential unit. A fixed caliper and floating disc form the heart of the foundation brake assembly. Together they minimise the likelihood of any problems linked to insufficient pad retraction in the off brake condition.   

Author: Clenn Giebenhain, DART Racing, TU Darmstadt

If you take a closer look at the development of motorsport in general over the last decade one can observe the triumphal procession of composite materials. Back in the 90’s Michael Schumachers championship winning Benetton B195 featured steel wishbones, a casted engine block and an aluminium steering wheel which can found in any better tuned streetcar.

Today carbon fibre wishbones with integrated flexijoints, metal matrix composite (MMC) engine housings, sophisticated aerodynamic devices and amazingly save carbon monocoques seem to be common in F1.

Composite materials became a state of the art technology which also changed the appearance of FSAE. Its unrestricted regulations compared to other racing categories saw the upcoming of a new breed of racecars which not only adopted F1’s technology in many fields but also made an approach to completely new areas. Recently the most hyped of them all is the carbon fibre wheel.

A short excerpt of history: 1984 saw Honda introducing the first carbon rim on their NSR500 GP machinery but the new device failed catastrophically at high speeds during first qualifying. In 1987 Lancia brought a closed carbon rim prototype on its group B monster which regrettably never raced.

Left: First ever introduced carbon disc rim for autoracing purposes by Lancia in 1987.  Right: modern FSAE carbon spoke rim from DART Racing, Darmstadt in 2008.