Results of annual Mechanical Engineering Department, UHM, DESIGN COMPEITITION
The Human Powered
Vehicle (HPV) project was the winner of the 2005 ASME Francis Rhodes Montgomery
Design Competition (FRMDC) at Kuykendall Hall, University of Hawaii at Manoa
(UHM), on May 6, 2005. In second was the Mini Baja project. This annual event
is co-sponsored by the Department of Mechanical Engineering (DME), UHM, and the
Francis R. Montgomery Foundation (FRM).
Since 1988, the
student project teams of the DME ME 482 Senior Design Course compete before a
panel of practicing mechanical engineer judges in an oral project presentation
judged on the basis of technical content, originality of concept and resolution
of design problems, and effectiveness of the prototype. Besides helping to
recognize and reward innovative design efforts and the practicality of the
design, the competition encourages the students to practice communicational
skills to develop the ability to present the design in a clear and
understandable manner later in their professional careers.
As described by
one competition observer, all presentations were on a pretty high level with
each team member speaking on the area of his or her project expertise.
Listening to the student participants it became apparent that most realized the
value in this design course and the competitions with the “lessons learned”
from the snowball effect of a minor change to the dealing with tradeoffs in
design features.
Under the guidance
of Professors Mehrdad Ghasemi Nejhad and Ronald H. Knapp, students developed
their HPV and Mini Baja projects from concept to prototype to finished product.
The following are brief descriptions of the design projects.
The first place
project team members were team captain Blake Sato, Jason Baguio, Armand Baclig,
Michael Jose, Jasen Kaya, Chris Kinoshita, Ryan Lyum, C.J. Mun, Naomi Ogawa,
and Clifton Yasutomi. They received the FRM $800 first prize to share. Dr. Mehrdad
Ghasemi Nejhad was their Faculty Advisor and the ME 481/482 Instructor.
The HPV project
was created for competing in the annual American Society of Mechanical
Engineers (ASME) Human Powered Vehicle Challenge (HPVC). The purpose of the
HPVC is to address all areas of engineering problem solving, while
incorporating elegance and ingenuity into the design. The DME ME 482 team
designed and built a lightweight aerodynamic land vehicle and competed in the
competition in Fresno, CA on April 29 – May 1, 2005.
The competition is
judged on three categories with a total of 100 points. The first category,
design competition, with 40 points, consists of a technical report in which the
design, analysis, manufacturing, and testing are presented. The second category,
sprint competition, with 30 points, demonstrates the advantages of the HPV’s
aerodynamic fairing as well as its efficiency to achieve high speeds. The final
category, endurance race, with 30 points, demonstrates the robustness of the
vehicle as well as the rider’s skill and stamina.
The HPV team
strived to produce an ultra lightweight frame and a fairing with an optimal
balance between aerodynamics and weight. They used several design analysis
computer programs including AutoDesk Inventor for the frame and fairing, ANSYS
Finite Element Analysis to determine the amount of carbon/epoxy composite
layers required to provide the optimal combination of strength and lightness
for the frame, STAR-CD Finite Volume Analysis and ANSYS FLOTRAN Finite Element Analysis
for computational fluid dynamic (CFD) to optimize and computationally test
fairing drag.
The second place
team project members were team captain David Katsuda, Michael Bicoy, Robin
Ferguson, Glenda Grande, Zensho Heshiki, Scott Lee, Ryan Meyer, Kevin Ohira,
and Jesmond Toilolo. They received the FRM $400 second prize to share. Dr.
Ronald Knapp was their Faculty Advisor.
The Mini Baja
project was created to compete in the 2005 Mini Baja competition held June 1-4,
2005 at the Caterpillar Training Grounds in Tinaja Hills, Arizona. This
competition is an intercollegiate engineering design competition for
undergraduate and graduate students. The objective of the competition is to
simulate real-world engineering design projects and their related challenges.
Each team competes to have its design of all-terrain vehicle accepted for
manufacture by a fictitious firm. The students must function as a team to
design, analyze, build, test, and promote a vehicle and compete within the
limits of the rules.
This will mark the
third time competing since the first UH prototype was designed in 2002.
Significant design improvements have been made to make a lighter, more robust
vehicle than previous years. These improvements include increasing the outer diameter
and decreasing the thickness of the frame tubing and using a posi-traction
transaxle.
The Mini Baja
competition has been organized by the Society of Automotive Engineers for the
past 30 years and sponsored by Briggs and Stratton by providing the 10
horsepower four-stroke internal combustion engine used to power each Mini Baja
vehicle.
The FRMDC was
established in 1987 in memory of Francis Rhodes Montgomery to further the field
of Mechanical Engineering. It is aimed at the student of Mechanical Engineering
with the goal of recognizing and rewarding innovative design efforts, the
practicality of the design, and the ability to present the design in a clear
and understandable manner. An original trustee of the Francis Montgomery Foundation
included Major General (HI) Robert G. F. Lee, Adjutant General State of Hawaii,
Department of Defense.
Present for the
competition was Mrs. Margaret L. Montgomery, the widow of Francis R. Montgomery
and Board member of the foundation who has supported the competition since its
inception.
Coordinating this
event with Dr. Mehrdad Ghasemi Nejhad for the foundation was James F. Grogan,
ASME-HI Past-Chairman. The judges included ASME-HI members Kevin K. Dang,
Ronald M. Flegal, and Terry A. Shimabukuro. On hand to encourage the
participants were the College of Engineering, UHM, Assistant Dean, Dr. Song K.
Choi, and DME Chairman, Dr. Bruce E. Liebert.