I (Intermediate) Guideway

I Intermediate scale guideway

Background and context

• Guideway important because cabin/bogie must travel between two points

• This year, guideway team demonstrated straight, switch, and sloped path
• Guideway has two pathways

i. Travel to destination

ii. Arrival to station

• These 2 pathways only accessible through fork split

i. Path to destination → long 70-foot path of straight rail suspended 10                    feet

ii. Path to station → turn out followed by a drop of a 17-degree slope

Objectives

• Show that bogie/cabin can travel turns and elevations.
• This year’s goal: To show that Bogie can travel up/down 17 degree angle path to simulate patron pickup
• Switching in guideway shows that sloped track entering to the right
• Direct design from full-scale (except for fib)
• Angle of the bottom of the posts are now 45-45-90 to provide more stability
• Objectives for this year's guideway

i. Design a complete loop guideway

ii. Provide the bogie the required pathway to travel across

iii. Design the guideway to be able to carry the load of the cabin, bogie,                                     suspension and the electronic interfaces for the EE team

iv. Design the supports to be able to carry the load of the 5 solar panels                                                    across the straight path

v. Provide adequate room for wayside to mount their designs

Design requirements and specifications

• Guideway Design requirements

i. Design sections come apart into smaller 8’9” inch sections

ii. Support Structures: 1 per every 17’ 6” of track, end of turning section and end of lowest point of track

iii. Desired elevation change with a slope of 17 degrees to demonstrate declination to station followed by inclination back to track

iv. An allowance of four degrees per second to allow suspensions actuators to level cabin

v. Complete closed loop guideway to allow cabin to complete path and     return to initial position

• Guideway assembled into 8’9” sections (to put in small truck)
• Longest piece was sloped section at 16 feet (for smoother travel)
• Actuators moved at 4.0 degrees specified,  if curved sections too sharp, then the actuators would not level in time and cabin would dip forward

Description of design

• Length of guideway shortened to accommodate for maker faire,
• Guideway rails/support ribs made from A513 steel
• Support posts A36 steel
• Length of track = 70’
• The straight portion of the track was assembled using cut to length 8'9" pieces of straight ¼"-thick rectangular tube of cross-section 1"x3" and 1"x2", lower and the upper rail, respectively.
• Rib supports made to length using ¼’ thick 1” x 1” square tubes
• Posts were made up of ¼” thick 3”x3” post → Cut into 10’ long pieces→ Tack welded on with ¼” thick flat bar→ flat bar was tack welded to the bottom of posts → 45 degree angle supports were welded between them → Conn
• Posts were first thing that were done during fabrication.
• After rib supports were ready/aligned with rail they were tack welded on

Analysis/testing

• Maximum deflection is 0.39mm
• Rails can support over 300 lbs of force

Money Spent on Project

• Overall cost: $1907.07

Results and discussions

• Outcome was partially incomplete
• Importance of slope → be able to pick up people at different heights to make traffic safer
• Idea needed to make rails where the posts meet more aligned.
• Clamps could be used and weld brackets to keep them fixed
• Errors in posts due to inexperience with welding

What to do differently

• Get started right away
• Have more people in on it early on
• Stop building track when we run out of room at design center