Participating for the second time in the Shell Eco Marathon Europe, the Texas A&M (TAMUQ) Mechanical Engineering Class of 2016 entered the contest under the Urban Concept (UC) category. Participation entailed designing an energy efficient vehicle that is closer in appearance to today’s production type passenger cars. See infographic for more details.
Qatalum’s contribution to the project was building the chassis in its workshop. To achieve the efficiency target, Qatalum were supplied with low weight, high strength and stiffness hollow tube aluminium 6061-T6 alloy by the College. The manufacture of the chassis took several man hour days led by Benjamin Teteh and Stephen Kumar from the Central Maintenance Workshop.
The high quality machining and welding characteristics created in the workshop at Qatalum allowed TAMUQ students to optimize the shape of the chassis and join aluminium members together without the added weight of fasteners.
Chassis made from Aluminum Al 6061
Qatalum additionally assisted in the shipping of the completed vehicle to and from the UK.
Shell Eco Marathon (SEM) is a world-wide competition that challenges students to design, build and test ultra-energy-efficient vehicles. Texas A&M at Qatar participated in London from June 30 to July 3rd, 2016. The race track was around the iconic Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
The vehicle was designed with adaptations to the track relative to steering, braking, stability and safety. The team aimed to complete 8 laps in less than 43 minutes to qualify.
Following the end of the race and vehicle returning to Qatar, Qatalum organized for the car to be displayed in the Service Centre Building, Qatalum.
On the 6 December the participating team was invited to Qatalum to present their race data and the proposal concept for next year’s entry. Representing Qatalum at the invitational gathering were management led by CEO Khalid Laram where words of future support were made and congratulations were in order.
