Entrepreneurial Team: Shannon Comiskey, Sari Field (sitting), Erica Kibbe, Akosua Taylor
2008-2009: The Vehicle Design Summit (VDS) Global Consortium is a student-led, non-profit collaboration to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the creation of energy efficient vehicles. With support from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance, this student team designed an automobile suspension system for the second VDS prototype, the Vision 2.0.
Informed by the requirements for the overall vehicle, the team established design requirements specific to the suspension system. The team then generated a range of suspension system concepts and selected the most suitable for their vehicle. The team developed and refined their design by modeling it in SolidWorks and evaluating its performance under several loading scenarios using finite element analysis.
Further refinement of this suspension system design and integration of it with the other Vision 2.0 components will be completed by future VDS members. Ultimately, the VDS Global Consortium plans to create a production-ready vehicle and associated business plan to enable distribution in developing markets.