Formula SAE Steering Wheel

Designed a innovative steering wheel to house electronics and differing from previous Northwestern Formula Racing steering wheel’s, this steering wheel was built with separate halves made out of two different materials.

The steering wheel was designed using CAD software to accommodate electronics inside the steering wheel housing

Seen on the left is the CNC built half attached to the Northwestern Formula Racing 2022 car steering column by itself. Seen on the right is the carbon ABS half and the CNC’d half attached to one another.

Pictured above is the FEA of only the back of half the steering wheel made out of aluminum

The images above display the FEA of both halves of steering wheel made out of ABS

Pictured above is the FEA of both halves of steering wheel made out of aluminum

Conclusion:

Creating a steering wheel with both halves made out of aluminum would be unnecessarily strong, heavy, and be far too time consuming to produce. Alternatively, from the FEA we can see that a steering just made out of ABS would be far too weak to withstand the necessary forces. Additionally, we can see that if the steering wheel was only a back half made out of aluminum, that it would be strong enough. Therefore, based on the results of the FEA we decided to make the steering wheel back half be machined out aluminum and the front half be 3D printed out of ABS.