Prototyping
Jigs
Suspension Geometry
Concept to Reality
As with any big project, before engineering takes place a concept needs to be determined. The team spent many hours researching existing car designs that had the best performing chassis, suspension, ergonomics, safety, and aesthetics in order to help determine the end goal of our own design. Many competing teams are on their 3rd or 4th generation of chassis design. Extra attention was paid in the concept phase to be sure we started off in the right direction. It all started with a sketch!
Early Conceptual Drawings (above)
After we determined a direction to take the car in, we needed a method of modeling it. We decided parametric modeling would best suit our needs. Parametric modeling software would allow us to alter design parameters as we developed not only the chassis, but also every sub system that will be housed within the chassis. We chose Solidworks largely because of it’s easy-to-use weldments feature. This feature allowed us to sketch the tubes of the chassis as 2 dimensional lines. Once the lines were all in place, we used the weldments feature to place tube where the lines were. This feature also allowed us to trim the tubes where they connect to one another forming copes. These copes could then be altered into 2 dimensional sketches and printed off to be used as templates for manufacturing.
The image(s) above and below are screenshots of our very first chassis rendering. It is very loosely constrained and very few hard dimensions were used. It was created to serve as a starting point from which we could produce our final design. The key in our design process was the ability to change the chassis geometry to allow optimal operation of the car’s sub systems. Primarily axle articulation and steering range. 
Once a general chassis model was drawn, an assembly was made to start fitting sub systems such as axles and drive train. This approach allowed us to balance multiple variables such as aesthetics and suspension geometry.
For more images of the final chassis design click here Chassis Models