Gemini Rear Suspension System

When I originally joined the MIT Solar Electric Vehicle Team back in October 2023 I was placed on the rear suspension project. Though the design for our car at the time, Gemini, had been mostly finalized in the years prior, it had yet to be manufactured. 

We spent most of the year manufacturing. All of our mounts had to be machined from blocks of aluminum and parts of the swing arm (tube steel) had to be machined away before it could be welded together. I ended up machining a lot of mounts, not just for the rear but also for the front suspension system. I also ended up machining parts for the other mechanical sub teams including steering and breaks. I ended up working with composites as well. 

One issue that came up as we started manufacturing was with our bearing retention mechanism. The engineer from ASC (the competition) who was reviewing our car's design didn't like the retention mechanism and wanted us to use lock rings instead. This meant going back to the old design and modifying it. Once I did that, I also had to re-run FEA to ensure that with the design changes the part could still hold up to the forces we expected it to take. It passed with a large safety factor. 

Another issue was interference from the colloidal on the chassis (this is the stuff that holds it together). This meant that the inner mount wouldn't sit flush to the panel. We ended up compromising with the chassis team. I removed some of the excess colloidal and also trimmed the mount down. After, of course doing another round of simulations to ensure the mount wouldn't break once used.

Overall, after almost 2,000 miles of driving across diverse driving conditions, the system has held up pretty well and is still operating as expected.