Week 8

This week we continued working on our final report, and presentation it is coming together and we are anticipating starting to practice our presentation early next week. The gas Tank is complete and is ready to be installed in the car.

Week 7

This week we performed the final volume and pressure test. The pressure test showed that there were no leaks in the welds and that everything was able to be pressurized to at least 10 PSI without a failure of the tank. The final volume including the foam displacement and filler neck was shown to be 1.515 US gallons.

This week there was also a significant portion of progress made on the final report and presentation.

Week 6

During week 6 all of the manufacturing that was talked about in the previous week's post was completed and only small jobs were left to finish the tank and all of it's related hardware. Upon the completion of the filler neck we noticed something that we had overlooked, actually being able to see the sight tube. To remedy this we first had to finalize the placement of the tank in the chassis and redesign the filler neck in SolidWorks, once the brackets for mounting the tank were done and partially welded in the 3 pieces that make up the filler neck were cut out and welded together. This only left the sight tube fittings, the fitting for the vent, and  mating the filler neck to the fill plate left in terms of manufacturing. This week also marked the completion of an outline for the final paper so that forming a draft would be easier,

Week 5

This week we cut welded the filler neck and are starting to piece everything together. We have made the threaded aluminum pieces for the sight tube and will be welding them on the filler neck soon. We now have the tank that just needs a patch over were we originally thought the fuel outlet would be and the new outlet needs to be welded in. we are expecting to have the tank ready for installation next week. 

Week 4

This week we worked to manufacture the nuts to be welded onto the top of the filler neck for the sight tube. We used solid aluminum tubing to create the nuts. The nuts were made using a lathe and taken down to the right size to minimize weight. We then tapped the nuts using the correct threads to be able to thread in the fittings. We also cut out the old outlet on the bottom in order to move it to the back. Next week we will cut out and shape the pieces of aluminum tubing for the filler neck. We are waiting to weld anything until we receive a wire brush in order to better clean the aluminum, allowing for better welds.

We also removed the old threaded bung and cap from last year's gas tank because we will be reusing it. To do this we sawed off the old bung and then placed it in a lathe to remove the old welds and clean up the part. In addition to cleaning up the outside of the bung for aesthetics we decided to remove material on the inside so that we could simply slide the bung onto the new filler neck and weld it on easily.

Week3

During week 3 we came to a final design for the placement of the outlet on the tank. The original was not going to work (see Week 2 Update) so a new design was implemented. This week also marked the last week that the teem needed the 2012 car together and running, so over the weekend the car was stripped of most of it's components, including the fuel system, so we got a chance to inspect it and we think that our design is a major step forward.

Also this week a few of the needed parts came in, including all of the fittings that we need for the sight tube, the tubing for the filler neck its self, the new 80 micron fuel filter, and the new adjustable fuel regulator. We are still waiting on the fuel pump and the fittings that go along with it.

Week 2

This week we did numerous tasks that needed to be completed to ensure the gas tank would work. The first thing that we did was pressure test the tank. For the most part the tank was air tight; we found one pin hole in a weld that we will go back over to make sure the tank is safe to use. Then we volume tested the tank with the foam inside of it. We determined that the tank held 1.375 gallons of water. This is within the amount we need for our longest race which is the endurance race. We also started planning out all of the fittings and tubing we will need for the fuel system. In doing so, we discovered that the fitting we originally had welded in the bottom of the tank for the fuel outlet would not work like we had planned due to the way fuel lines will need to be run. If it was left alone the fuel tank would have to be mounted about 2 inches above where we wanted it which should raise the cg unnecessarily. We came up with an alternative to this and will be working towards correcting the issue over the coming week and finalizing the fuel system itself so that we can order the necessary supplies.