Danko Arlington is proud to have sponsored the Johns Hopkins University’s 2013 Baja vehicle.
The Baja project is an intercollegiate mechanical engineering design and race competition of a home-made off-road car. The program is run by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). Entries are tightly regulated for common specifications and safety. Each entry is judged on design and performance.
With only three weeks before the race, John Hopkins mechanical engineers, Nate Shambach and Team Captain, Andrew Kelly, collaborated with Danko Arlington to cast a caliper carrier originally designed as a 7075-T5 aluminum hogout and a steering rack housing from 6061-T6. The company was able to manipulate the student’s provided Solidworks CAD files to add draft, shrinkage, fillets, and parting lines to remodel the designs as loose patterns. The loose patterns were then 3-D printed in poly carbonate plastic in a matter of hours using state-of-the-art additive manufacturing rapid technology. The castings were then poured out of A356 aluminum alloy and heat treated to T6. The process from start to finish took approximately three days.
This year’s competition was held at Tennessee Tech University from April 18-21. Although the Hopkins team did not win the race, they did tie in 4th place for design especially for their innovative use of aluminum castings in their vehicle. The students’ introduction to design options such as rapid castings as well as understanding the manufacturing process is essentially what the Baja competition is all about.
The engineers will continue to tweak their car for another race at the Rochester Institute of Technology in June. They also plan to work again with Danko Arlington to incorporate more castings in their unique Baja design.
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