CASE STUDY

Race car weight reducion

End-use parts

Case study

END-USE PART: Race car weight reduction

AGH Racing_3D printed part made with model material PEEK and soluble material ESM-10 for a racing car
3D printed gear change lever with PEEK.

PEEK application

Scientific research club of AGH University of Science and Technology in Cracow, which deals with the construction of racing cars of Formula Student class, decided to use of 3D printing technology to make the race car elements, tooling, and prototypes of end-use parts with high-performance polymers such as PEEK.

3D print

Cooling system parts, aerodynamic system parts, a gear change lever.

End use parts

Highly durable parts of low weight with high-performance materials such as PEEK.

Goals

1. Replacement of the parts originally made of metal alloys with parts made of PEEK

Manufacturing the metal parts have been done by using conventional technologies: machining or casting.

Using 3D printing in race car parts production allowed to shorten the final part implementation time and reduce its production cost.

2. Race car weight reduction

On race tracks, each additional kilogram or even gram decreases the power-to-weight ratio of the race car, which results in worse performance. 

Use of high-performance polymers for race car parts production allowed to reduce the race car weight. Parts made of PEEK are over 2 times lighter than the parts of the same volume made of aluminum alloys and even 6 times lighter than parts made of steel or cast steel, whilst retaining the mechanical properties sufficient for the application.

Products we used

INDUSTRY
F340
MODEL MATERIAL:
PEEK
SUPPORT MATERIAL:
ESM-10
3D model in 3DGence SLICER 4.0 - Slicing software
AGH Racing_3D printed part made with model material PEEK and soluble material ESM-10 for a racing car (1)
PEEK parts were made on the industrial 3D printer - 3DGence INDUSTRY F340.

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