Aston

The Aston team consists of 20 students from courses including automotive product design, mechanical engineering and computer science. The university will enter its 11th car this year featuring a number of changes from previous years, including a two part carbon fibre monocoque. This enables accessibility at the rear, but retains the advantages of stiffness and low weight from carbon fibre.

The carbon fibre structures were entirely student built, as were the front chassis and nose cone moulds produced by resin infusion, marking a new technology developed this year. Compared to past wet layup methods this gave advantages in terms quality, safety and time to build. The car also made heavy use of Aston’s in house manufacturing capability, for example the CNC milling of gearbox and suspension components.

The team this year aims to be successful thanks to a relatively long testing programme, and thanks to some good discipline and hard work we hope to avoid any reliability issues at the competition.

After a disappointing 2010 we are determined to show that Aston is capable of producing a successful, reliable, easy to drive and most importantly a fast car. The car is focussed around ease of use, as it is aimed at the weekend racer, so the continued use of a Continuously Variable Transmission allows the driver to concentrate on hitting the apexes of the tight bends that the Formula Student course has to offer.

The team comprises of over 20 final year students studying Mechanical Engineering, Automotive Product Design, and Computer Science. The project is managed by three Postgraduate MSc Students studying Engineering, Design and Management.

2011 has seen a major reshuffle by way of project management, with much stricter deadlines ensuring a running car by April to get in as much testing as possible. This year has also seen the introduction of a Quality Assurance manager who has put in place many useful procedures such as document control for the future teams at the University.