We’re happy to report that Bauer Limited Production won an engineering contest sponsored by engineering company Creaform. The “Put Us To The Test” engineering contest asked companies large and small to explain how they’d utilize $25,000 worth of services from Creaform, an international company specializing in 3D measurement solutions and engineering services.
We won by telling Creaform that we need their help! In order to put out the best possible product, it’s important to prove our frame design using Finite Element Analysis (FEA), and to confirm that the body is as slippery and aerodynamic as it looks by using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Both engineering services work separately and together, in the case of downforce being applied by the use of aerodynamic aids. Add movement, suspension, center of gravity, mass, and you rapidly create a set of variables only a server farm can manage. Creaform excels at these difficult processes, and has even developed their own scanning system that digitizes any objects in order to test, change, improve, copy or manipulate the design. Check back often as we’ll be releasing data from our frame and body design testing that CREAFORM generates, and will be showing the performance characteristics of the Catfish. www.creaform3d.com
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no1ZgvaEOJQ&list=PLoorqOguaX86iAbCCenUaHBCBYLZag5yh&index=6
The design challenge itself was publicized GRABCAD. If you’re a techie, engineer, designer or have a “weakness for geekness”, don’t go to this site unless you have a couple of hours to kill. It’s like Christmas for CAD designers, where all sorts of incredible parts, tools, and designs are available for download. You can also share and upload your designs, and get input from other designers and engineers from around the world. www.grabcad.com
Find out more about the contest here.
Congrats guys! Glad to see you’re putting it through rigorous testing – going above and beyond just “putting a kit car together”. Interested in seeing the data – and even more anxious to feel it at work.
Thanks Derrick! You’ll be one of the first to know. 🙂
This sounds really awesome, though i hope that the current body design doesn’t get too many alterations due to any aerodynamic inefficiencies it may have :P. You are providing an excellent example of how a few dedicated people with the right skills can turn engineering dreams to reality. Keep up the great work.
Thanks Andor. We already have a body design on the books that uses proven aero techniques, and it will be applied to the current car. We’ll be able to prove out the design via CFD, and see if the car is theoretically aerodynamically balanced and if the gains in downforce we expect are possible.
While it’s perfectly predictable that you may not be interested in doing this, it would be great if you could post the designs back to grabcad. This could really aid some homemade additions to the Catfish for individual applications.
Congrats from the folks at GrabCAD! And thank you for the kind words about our Community.