For the 2023 Baja SAE season at Virginia Motorsports (University of Virginia), I co-developed the spaceframe design for the vehicle with my co-captain, Bryan Murphy. The design needed to be strong enough to withstand shock, impact, and torsion of the vehicle over jumps and rocks, but not heavy to the point of substantially impacting the performance of the car. This was designed and tested in Autodesk Fusion 360, then manufactured by the team from 3140 chromoly steel tubing.
The frame also had to accommodate suspension hardpoint locations and loading. Bending stresses were avoided at these points as much as possible, triangulating the points of stress so that members under loading were under tension or compression. Fitting the driver was also a primary design point, as both drivers were over 6ft tall. Strict regulations from SAE combined with driveline accommodations determined the frame height, side impact member location, firewall angle and size, and other critical factors.
A challenge faced in the design process was creating a strongpoint for the suspension hardpoint shown above in the middle of the plane of the toe box. This was remedied with two additional members - one with a midpoint bend to connect the two diagonal hardpoints, and another at the bend point to resist the resulting bending moment. While not the most ideal solution, this method was the best design compromise that could be reached in the allotted time.