— PROJECT NAME —

Inverter Container

— ROLE —

Designer

— APPLICATION —

CMR "24e" FSAE EV Racecar

Our racing team uses the FSAE competition standard for hub motors, produced by a company called “AMK”. While we currently do not have the capability to produce our own inverter units, AMK does supply a stock inverter module with each motor that we use. However, these modules are very large, and packaging them in a way that minimizes impact on the chassis shape and surrounding systems is a challenging task.

In previous years, our team has opted to use the recommended layout for these inverter modules. This year, I wanted to try something different that would drastically reduce the footprint of our inverter packaging while utilizing any available open space. Instead of stacking the modules in a 2x1x2 arrangement, I reformatted them to be on the same plane in a 2x2x1 arrangement; a “flat pack” where they are all laid out next to each other in a square grid-like pattern. This immensely reduced the height that the inverter package consumed in the rear of the chassis and allowed for enough height for our battery pack, which grew due to a change in cell architecture, to fit snugly in its original position.

Other minor quality of life changes were made in order to improve serviceability and ease of access to components, such as a completely independent inverter package within the container for easy assembly, and a brand-new front access panel for quick removal of the energy monitoring device, which is removed and checked by competition officials after each dynamic event at Formula SAE.

This project was awarded a monetary grant by Carnegie Mellon University’s Small Undergraduate Research Grant program.