EDI: Locked Axle SUPER73

Background: 

Under high stress, the axle in SUPER73 e-bikes grind into the dropout, and deform, ultimately leading to failure over long term usage. The goal of this project is to redesign the axle or dropout to be able to handle the impact loads and torque regularly experienced, so as to not fail.

The team researched existing vehicle axles, and used that as a baseline to brainstorm new ideas. Calculations of the load cases and use cases of the original design created a standard by which the team compared the viability of new designs. In addtion, the team visited the company site to gain real life engineering experience during pandemic. 

After narrowing the brainstormed ideas down to 3 final designs, FEA analysis in CAD software showed us that a torque arm design, a collet gear axle design, and a full floating axle design are all reasonable alternatives to the current axle with flats, due to their better handling of torque and stress. 

Team Contact:
Team Lead: Daehyun Jung (daehyunj@uci.edu) 

Company Sponsors:

Company Name: SUPER73 ®

Company Contact: Harrison Lu 

Faculty Advisors:

Farzad Ahmadkhanlou (farzad.a@uci.edu)

Vincent Mcdonell (vgmcdone@uci.edu)