About

Rensselaer Motorsport is an ongoing Formula SAE team that designs and produces a completely new racecar every year. I’ve participated on this team since August 2021, first as manufacturing engineer for the suspension subsystem, and now as the project manager and lead engineer of the drivetrain subsystem. Additionally, in 2022, we began the transition from an internal combustion gas-powered car to a fully electric car, which involved the complete redesign of the drivetrain system under my direction.

The final design of the drivetrain incorporates a single-piece motor and differential mounting system with built-in eccentric chain tensioning. This packaging design massively reduces necessary space, complexity, and cost, while being optimized for strength and stiffness at the lowest weight. Great care was taken to ensure manufacturability and assembly using DFMA principles. The selection of our Drexler limited slip differential and Emrax 228 HV motor were determined using consideration for drive dynamics and cornering, which involved creating tools like an open source lap-time simulation program (see the section on RCOS Lap Sim). These tools also assisted in selecting gear ratios, which were optimized for lap times while balancing motor efficiencies at different speeds, battery considerations, and cooling limits.