NEWSLETTERfebruary 2015

Manufacture ofTBR15 Begins

Newsletter

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Team Bath Racing are pleased to announce a new partner-ship with Transpower Applica-tions Ltd, joining TBR for the first time. Transpower have provided the team with finan-cial support for 2015, enabling us to purchase a brand new differential from Drexler Mo-torsports. This differential, designed specifically for For-mula Student, will provide the team with maximum torque distribution control at the rear wheels, and marks a major step forward for Team Bath Racing, who are now able to have two running cars.

With the existing Drexler differential remaining on TBR’s 2014 car, benchmarking can be carried out on the new 2015 car, giving the team a direct indication of the perfor-mance improvements between 2014 and 2015.This can be anything from comparisons of straight line acceleration speed, to the transient performance and handling of the new car, allow-ing for setup refinement before summer competitions. The team would like to thank Transpower Applications Ltd for their support and look forward to having two running cars at the end of 2015 - a first

for Team Bath Racing!

Written by Tom Stevens

TRANSPOWER JOIN TBR

The first week after exams saw two team members head to Andy Robinson Race Cars near

Basingstoke to start the manu-

facture of the rear spaceframe of the 2015 car. Andy kindly offers his time, expertise and resources every year for the team to build a full spaceframe, or since the intro-duction of a carbon-fibre monocoque, the rear space-frame. After some design tweaks at the start of the week, with double and triple check-ing of the Formula Student rule book, a more simplistic design was settled on. With every machine thinkable at their disposal, the team were able to quickly get the rear spaceframe together in a custom made MDF jig. All the bracing and supports were

then cut to length and notched as required, before the assembly was TIG welded up by expert welder Dave. The result is a stiff and strong rear frame that will give good torsional rigidity and excellent access to the engine compart-ment. The final engine mounts and suspensions pickup points will be added to the frame back in the TBR workshop. Team Bath Racing would like to thank Andy Rob-inson Race Cars for his com-mitment to the team through-out his 10+ years of sponsor-ship and for providing us with the means to fabricate our spaceframe.

Written by Mike Graham

THE REAR SPACEFRAME TAKES SHAPE

February 2015

After a successful implemen-tation in 2014, Team Bath Racing will again produce a carbon fibre monocoque for the 2015 season. After revising the monocoque shape to conform to the new set of regulations, the existing pattern was modified and manufacture of the moulds was under way. The mould laminate consisted of 10 plies (a mix of surface and tooling carbon fibre) layed up qua-si-isotropic to ensure opti-mum rigidity in all directions. Due to the amount of layers needed and the time intensive process, team members from

first year up to final year were able to

take part in the mould layup, promoting teamwork and knowledge transfer of these high performance materials. With the completion of the mould layup, the manufacture of the monocoque could then begin. The team made a start on the first skin of the upper half, resulting in a 12 hour layup process. The next few weeks will comprise laying up the first skin of the bottom half and adding aluminium honeycomb as core material. We would like to thank Cytec Industries for their support and supply of surface and tooling carbon fibre, as well as

the extreme high perfor-mance carbon fibre for our 2015 monocoque.

Written by Kevin Johnson

MONOCOQUE MANUFACTURE BEGINS

Team Bath Racing would like to thank new sponsor Loctite for their support of the team in 2015. The provision of adhesives and release agent/-sealer will be used for the manufacture of our carbon fibre monocoque, as well as joining many of our compo-nents to the car. Loctite’s products are of the

highest quality and the team is extremely grateful for their contribution to TBR in 2015.

We are also really excited to annouce Kistler as partners with Team Bath Racing for 2015. Kistler are a manufacturer of sensors and measurement systems and have supported us with a brand new in-cylin-der pressure transducer for

our KTM. This will allow us to under-stand and refine the com-bustion events, as well as allowing us to make full use of our new fuel, E85! We are now in the middle of our powertrain testing

schedule and hope to update you all as it draws to a close.

Written by Tom Peirson-Smith

NEW SUPPORT FOR TBR15

Newsletter February 2015

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