Case Study: Cyclone Racing cuts rear wing mount weight 67% and boosts stiffness with Altair’s solidThinking Inspire

Cyclone Racing - Customer Case Study

Cyclone Racing, Iowa State University’s Formula SAE team, needed a much lighter but extremely stiff swan neck wing mount to improve vehicle performance and reduce roll. To meet this challenge they turned to Altair’s solidThinking Inspire for topology-optimization and concept-level simulation during the early design phase.

Using Altair’s solidThinking Inspire, Cyclone Racing generated and validated an optimized bracket geometry, set manufacturing and symmetry constraints for aluminum waterjet cutting, and verified performance with analysis tools. The new design cut bracket weight by 4 lbs (about a 67% reduction), reduced the wing package from roughly 7 lbs to 4 lbs, lowered the car’s center of gravity, survived competition rigors, and helped the team excel in design review and on-track performance.

Cyclone Racing

Nate Lenz

Technical Director