Update on Blog Assignment #2

Prior to our meeting last week, the team decided to disregard the current Bogie mechanism and start designing a new one from scratch. Thus, each team member spent time to come up and sketch a new design for the Bogie mechanism that would seem viable. However, during last week’s meeting, it was decided to make modifications to the current Bogie mechanism instead of designing an entirely new one.

After the meeting, I spent more time to do research by reading more into detail about the steering mechanism from the 2014-2015 project report. I thought of several shortcomings the previous design had. From last year’s report, the specifications that last year’s team had was to design switching mechanisms for top and bottom rail to keep the bogie securely engaged to the guide rail and have the switching mechanism actuate automatically. Furthermore, the critical points where the steering mechanism will experience the most stress were taken into consideration. Because the Bogie will experience a moment at the bottom wheels which will rotate the bogie off the track, the moment must be counteracted by another force.

I propose to utilize a hydraulic actuator system to generate enough force to counteract the moment to keep the Bogie on the guideway and prevent it from falling off. However, this is just an initial thought and much more research needs to be conducted. Also, additional force analysis calculations need to be done in order to determine how much force is needed to counteract the moment.