Engineering Skills Project Brief: Flume Ride

Introduction

Employers are constantly asking for engineering graduates who have good team skills, are problem solvers and are good communicators. On top of that, engineers need to be creative and innovative. They have to work with many constraints, while developing safe products and solutions to help the community.

Your team is working on a large project at a consulting engineering firm in Kuwait. Your boss has approached you to find a solution to a problem. Given that the current engineering tasks on the project all seem to involve the same standard, your boss asks your team to design and build a fully functional Flume Ride within a proposed Fun Park on a piece of land near to the sea shore in Salmiya.

Project description

A Flume Ride is a balance between safety and sensation. Naturally, the ride should be as safe as possible. After all, if the people are injured riding the Flume Ride then there would be fewer repeat riders. Fewer repeat riders mean a short life span for the Flume Ride. No to mention the severe legal implications that could be imposed on the owner of the Flume Ride and the engineers responsible for the design. Keeping in mind that passengers ride a Flume Ride for the "death defying" thrill. Here, the key to be successful is to give the rider the sensation of speed and acceleration. It all comes down to speed control. To achieve this, the hills, curves, dips, and straight always are not randomly designed.

Your job as an engineer is to design a simple Flume Ride similar to the attached figure. The track starts with an inverse vertical curve followed by a ramp as shown in the figure. The car should reach the small water pool at the end. You are also responsible for designing the Flume Ride car. In this project, you are expected to discuss and document some of the principals involved in real-life design. You are also responsible for building the Flume Ride and the car.

Requirements:

The owner (represented by your Instructor) has constraints regarding the material to be used. Each team member needs to develop individually a design idea, to analyse the structure using hand calculations or software (i.e. SOLIDWORKS, AutoCAD, Staad.Pro, etc.). Your team needs to discuss advantages and disadvantages of the design ideas, showing your evaluation criteria on a decision matrix. Other requirements are:

1. The Flume Ride MUST BE inherently safe. The car should not fall off the track.

2. The minimum clearance between ground and Roller Coaster track should be 0.5 m.

3. The maximum height of the Flume Ride track should be 1.5 m.

4. The maximum plan area in which the Flume Ride is built in is 2.25 m2 (1.5m×1.5m).

5. The maximum Flume Ride track width is 0.15 m.

6. SOLIDWORKS must be used to design the Roller Flume Ride.

7. Flume Ride car should be manufactured using 3D printing technology.

8. Flume Ride car should be designed to carry 1.5 kg load.

9. The Flume Ride track should be made of wooden sticks or a sheet metal based on truss shapes.

10. The weight of the whole Flume Ride structure should be as light as possible.

11. The Flume Ride structure must be able to withstand the rolling car and an additional 1.5 kg of extra load.

12. All joints need to be pin joints (using wires) or be glued.

13. All work has to be carried out on-campus.

14. The Flume Ride has to be ready for testing in week 12.

Students of the winning team who best meet the requirements will be awarded the "Flume Ride design competition certificate", awarded by ACK's School of Engineering.

Project Submission

Each team is responsible for submitting a complete design a technical report that must contain some of the following engineering fundamentals:

1. Design and additive manufacturing (3-D printing) fundamentals:

a) Apply your engineering skills to design the best Flume Ride to meet the requirements given, showing all valid and clear assumptions.

b) Show all of your calculations including your safety factors. Your team needs to discuss advantages and disadvantages of your design ideas, showing your evaluation criteria on a decision matrix.

c) Determine any other design related calculations and/or assumptions

d) Complete your design using CAD software (i.e. SOLIDWORKS, AutoCAD, etc.). 2-D drawings are required for your technical report. 3-D models are needed for additive manufacturing purposes and they are expected to be presented on your final presentation

e) Convert your 3-D models to the appropriate format (i.e. STL, STEP, etc.) so you can make your car and any other required materials using additive manufacturing (3-D printer).

2. Statics & Dynamics principles:

a) Calculate all forces required for the car and the Flume Ride structure including the shear, compressive, and axial loads (columns).

b) Work out and detail all governing equations and those resulted from the car motion at each element of the track.

c) Plot the axial forces vs. the track length

d) Provide a graph of car speed with the additional weight vs. track length

3. Physics Principles:

a) Apply and show all related physics calculations

b) Determine all energy analysis at each element of the track resulted from the motion of the car

c) Graph total energy vs. track length

4. Mathematical principles (equations representing the adopted track)

The following nontechnical principles are also expected to be submitted in your technical report:

1. Decision Matrix

2. Risk Assessments

3. Project Plan (Gantt chart)