University of Utah Trust Plate Team

(Grand Canyon Project)

This team of four mechanical engineering students will be primarily working on quantifying the performance of the gas motors currently used on Grand Canyon motorboats and the electric motors that are under development. This performance evaluation will allow the team to more accurately view and, thus, address the issue of insufficient motor output by giving the team camparable data for both gas and electric motors. The objective of the Thrust Plate Team will be to design, construct, and calibrate a thrust plate/velocity-meter power measurement system. The design will facilitate mounting the measurement system on the structure of the current motorboat frames used by the Grand Canyon outfitters and will collect engine performance data relating to thrust and other various parameters as the need arises. Additionally this subgroup will assist with programming a computer-based system to collect the data. The data obtained will be used to make the electric motor perform at least to the thrust level of the current 30 hp gas engines currently in use. The Thrust Plate Team faces difficulties with designing a thrust plate that will be compatible with multiple boats and different types of motors.

Specific tasks to be completed include:

Review of current motor mounting systems on commercial boats, establishment of geometric limitations

Design of thrust plates for use on commercial boat aft frames (modular, attaches to existing jackass)

Development of instrumentation

Calibration, check-out testing

Performance testing electric and gasoline motors using UofU snout with instrumented thrust plate (with Upper Unit Team).

The Thrust Plate team will collaborate directly with the Electric Motor team from the University of Utah as well as the Smoothwater Electric Motor team from Arizona State University.

 

Mid-Year Presentation