Please introduce your university and team!
We are UH Racing Formula Student team from the University of Hertfordshire. We have been competing in the Formula Student competition since it began 20 years ago! This year the team are building UH21, an evolution on last year’s very rapid challenger. It is a tubular space frame, CBR500 turbocharged powered car with a full aerodynamics kit including front and rear wings, main and side diffusers. We have under 20 committed student engineers on the team, split into 7 departments.
Please briefly summarise your experience of the 2017 competition!
FSUK proved to be a very fulfilling event, with multiple awards achieved, including 1st place in the design event. Unfortunately, the car suffered with a brake pressure sensor failure and a battery fire, which drastically affected our scoring for the Endurance event. UH Racing still enjoyed walking away with the claim of fastest overall lap time; something giving the team hope for this year with the car being faster still!
Carbon fibre composite bodywork lay-up
What are your objectives for this year’s competition?
UH Racing is aiming to win FSUK outright this year!
The team won four awards last year and replicating that would be a dream come true, however we will stop at nothing to come first place overall. We have the speed, we just need the reliability and a little bit of luck.
What stage is your Class 1 car currently?
We are in the manufacturing stage for the car. Our chassis has been fabricated, TIG welded and painted and is currently having the stiffening composite panels bonded in place. The manufacture of our pre-preg carbon fibre bodywork and wings is well under way thanks to RP Aerosystems, with many parts being mocked up on the chassis as we speak.
We are using last year’s car for testing at the moment to collect all the data needed for us to compare with when UH21 is finished.
The new and exciting components and systems of the car this year include a 629gram 7068 spool for the drivetrain, a new GT12 turbo charger with promised efficiency and power increase over our pervious unit and an all new brake system design featuring 230mm discs and lightweight mounting spiders.
3-Axis CNC Sprocket and brake spiders
What kind of collaboration do your Class 1 and Class 2 teams have?
Class 1 and Class 2 share knowledge through regular design reviews of each other’s cars which gives a fresh perspective for how each team can improve each component for their cars. The more active class 2 members are invited to participate in class 1’s team meetings and help manufacture the class 1 car. With this said however the Class 1 and 2 designs are unique to their separate teams, meaning that both teams get the full learning experience.
How does your team organise your workload?
The workload for the team is split by having separate departments along with each individual person working on a specific area that they specialise in or have a passion for. Of course everyone is willing to help each other which really helps the team gel. Also we are very lucky with the university being very supportive by letting us use the facilities 6 days a week and until late allowing for maximum team contact time! We also have fantastic industry sponsors and companies working with us to produce parts which require more extensive work.
What is new and exciting for your team in 2018?
This year we have nearly a whole brand new team which means we have many different skills we can utilise.
The university has newly acquired a water jet cutter that we have used to manufacture several parts which enabled us save manufacturing time and decrease the mass of several components.
We are adding a drag reduction system which can be activated either automatically through an accelerometer input or manually applied by the driver from a button on the dashboard. A diffuser will also be added to the aero package for the first time this year. Along with these changes to aero, we have created an innovative dash system incorporating a mobile phone. The car this year is a back to basics concept with nothing left on the car which doesn’t add performance. What is left is refined and lightened based on testing data and extensive use of CFD.
What have been your biggest challenges this year and how have you overcome these?
We have one of the smallest team for this decade, which was overcome by each individual member of the team taking on a heavier workload than usual. Further to this our much loved faculty advisor became injured has been away from the university for a considerable amount of time. We wish Howard the best recovery and we are even more encouraged to excel at this year’s FSUK competition.
What made you and your team members join Formula Student?
Our university is well known for its success in Formula Student which drew each of us here. Each and every member on the team is a competitive personality with a passion for engineering, motorsports and now motorbike engine powered spaceframe vehicles.
What’s your proudest moment at Formula Student?
We managed to win the design event at FSUK last year and would have been very close to winning the event outright had it not been for the DNF in the endurance. This pushed us toward our second place finish at Formula Student Czech, a moment which will stay with those team member forever. In extension to this, another proud moment for the Formula Student community came when we had our battery fire at the acceleration event, we were flooded with help from other UK teams offering us parts and assistance to get us back out on track. That instance showed how important this competition and shared appreciation for work into each project is.
What do UH Racing as a team bring to the competition?
The experience of 21 years in Formula Student, where we have competed with a multitude of different cars. From this we have had many opportunities to learn new things each year, with this experience applied to the design of UH21 we hope to enjoy good fortune at Silverstone. This year we are hoping to have less drama and smoother running, however we will still be the team in the pits until it closes and we are looking forward to spending time with the other teams!
UH21 Chassis fresh from paint
What advice would you give for fellow teams?
Test. Test. Test. We completed over 250Km of testing before the competition last year and we will be exceeding that this year. We fell victim to outsourced parts failures which were new prior to the competition so bring to the event what is tested and don’t make last minute changes.
How can we keep up to date with you?
Our website with all our information is www.racing.herts.ac.uk. We are very active on social media, especially on our facebook page UH Racing and our Instagram page @uhracing and twitter @uhracing
Images kindly supplied by UH Racing.
Catch up with UH Racing and over 130 teams who will be competing at Silverstone this year - spectator tickets for 13-15 July 2018 are available now via the Silverstone website.