WDS Components Used For Warwick
University’s Award Winning Submarine
esign projects are a fantastic
way for universities to give
their engineering students
real world experience of
the challenges they will
face in their professional lives. They're also
great for inspiring the next generation to
take up engineering. This year Warwick
University took part in just such a project,
encouraging eight of their most promising
young engineers to build a human
powered submarine to take part in the
International Submarine Race in the USA.
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Thanks to companies like WDS Component
Parts Ltd. providing sponsorship, the team
was able to build a working submarine and
win the competition's innovation award.
The challenge was simple enough,
though the execution was anything but.
The Warwick Sub team must design and
manufacture a submarine capable of
racing along a 100m course using nothing
but human power. The team would be
competing against entrants from all
over the world, many of whom had been
entering the competition for years. To
make matters even harder, the university
awarded the team a budget of just £1,600;
ensuring that they had to emulate real
world conditions where sourcing and
controlling the budget is equally as
important as perfecting the design.
Rupert Barnard, one of the student
engineers on the team, comments:
"We were all extremely happy to have
been picked for the project, but we
knew that we had our work cut out for
us. We had just 10 weeks to finalise our
design in order to leave enough time
for the build before we had to take the
finished submarine over to America for
the competition. With a tight deadline
and limited budget it was obvious that
we would have to source sponsorship
opportunities so we started looking for
potential partners at industry exhibitions."
It was at Autosport International that the
Warwick Sub team first made contact
with WDS Component Parts Ltd., the
UK's leading manufacturer and supplier
of standard parts and workholding
components. WDS already worked with
the university's Formula Student team and
was keen to support such an ambitious
and interesting project.
Phil Holyome was the main point of
contact for the project at WDS: "As a
company we are always keen to get
involved in projects that show off the
fun side of engineering. Whether it's the
Bloodhound Team's multi-million pound
land speed record attempt or a university
project with no budget to speak of at all,
we love to work with dedicated engineers
who are competing on a world stage
to prove that British engineering is still
something to be proud of.
"As soon as we heard about this project
we wanted to be involved for a number
of reasons. Obviously it's important to
support the next generation of engineers
as they come to the end of their education
and enter into the professional world
as our colleagues, but also we saw the
underwater application as an excellent
testing ground for the quality of our
products."
In order to keep the transportation costs
to a minimum the team decided to build
the submarine in a flat-pack design. This
meant that the chassis had to be easily
detachable from the submarine body
and that both components had to be
collapsible to fit within the storage case.
WDS worked with the team to specify a
selection of fastening components which
would allow the team to quickly reconstruct the submarine.
The final result of the project was a storage
footprint that was significantly smaller
than that of the next smallest competitor
and less than 50% of the average entrant.
This was one of the key contributing
factors which led to the team winning the
award for innovation at the competition.
Rupert continues: "When we first started
designing the submarine we knew that
in our first year of competing we were
unlikely to win the race outright. Instead
we set ourselves a target of putting
together a design that future teams
could develop into a winning vessel and
that would offer something new to the
competition. Winning the innovation
award was a fantastic achievement, one
which I feel shows we met our target.
"The fact is that we would never have even
made it to America, let alone won the award,
if it wasn't for the support of businesses like
WDS."
www.wdsltd.co.uk
Issue 18 PECM
77