Formula student suspension setup and laptime simulation tool

In motorsports time is usually limited. With use of dedicated tools for measuring wheel alignment, camber, ride heights etc. setting up the car can be done fast and consistent. With the setup sequence and tools described in this report, progress has been made in the time it takes to set up the car. Also progress was made on the reproducibility of the setups used during the 2013 season. For this reason it is advised to continue designing these tools for future cars to ease setting up the car. Simulating laptimes is a great tool for making design choices. This report describes improvements made to use the laptime simulations on-track and improvements made to increase the accuracy of the simulation output w.r.t. test data. These improvements are made by implementing motor data provided by the motor manufacturer and measurement data from the Apollo slick tyres. The simulation output of the improved model showed a more realistic comparison with the test data during the 2013 season, and with the on-track use of the model it provides a great tool for the engineers. With use of the laptime simulation tool the sensitivity analysis has given great insight on the importance of parameters such as the tyre friction coefficient, vehicle mass, aerodynamic downforce, and torque distribution. These are just some of the parameters which have substantial effect on the event laptimes. Using an optimization algorithm in MATLAB the designs for the URE08/09/10 are optimized for faster laptimes per event. The outcome of this study shows the "optimal" design for each event which gives insight on the setup differences between the events. The design of the URE08 has no aerodynamics and the URE10 has four wheel drive. The outcome of the optimization has shown that for the different designs "the optimal values" for parameters such as wheelbase and weight distribution differ