Week 7 - Spartan Superway Internship

During our seventh week of the internship, I began improving on our mount design. With the previous design, the dimensions of the new track were not taken into account. Now that I have received a general idea of what the new layout will be like, I have made the necessary changes to accommodate this rack onto the rail system.

The first step was to widen the holes. We learned that the new tracks are now 3.5 meters apart from center to center, so I needed to spread the mounting holes more. In addition, a new beam will be attached to the top, so I have raised the whole array in order to not cause any problems with spacing. Lastly, I widened the flanges in order to be more stable. Until I do any finite element analysis, I will not know how much of a change this makes, however I believe that it should help a bit. 

 Figure 1: Assembled mount

Below the upper and lower pieces of the mount have been flattened to show how it will be cut from sheet metal. A goal we are trying to achieve is a 95% total usage of the sheet metal, so I tried to restrain from making any deep pockets or crevices in the sheet metal that would render the scraps useless.

Figure 2: Lower mount flattened

Figure 3: Upper mount flattened

Lastly, I mounted an example solar panel design onto the racks to see how everything looks. Overall I am happy with the looks, although I will need to find a way to cover the gap on the sides from raising the array.

 Figure 4: Assembled with panels

The following week I plan to make adjustments to the mounts such that it can be raised and lowered fairly easily. The plan is to build the arrays and mounts on the ground then have it hoisted up and onto the rails. In order to do this, I will need to add supports where we can hold the whole assembly up, as well as making sure that all the pieces are stable. This will probably required cross braces between the mounts in order to reduce any strain on the panels.