Aprilia Head
My final project for the semester was a solid model of engine head off the Aprilia SXV-550. This motor is a V-twin is being used in 2008 as well as the 2009 Formula-SAE car. Aprilia used one cast for their heads, so the same part is used for each cylinder, just turned around.
At the time, my roommate was the team leader for the 2009 FSAE team. They were in the process of building a custom intake manifold for the Aprilia engine they had selected for the car and were in need of solid model of the engine. I borrowed the spare head they had lying around the shop and began the process of reverse engineering it.
The project started with a 3-D scan of the entire head on the Picza 3-D scanner, made by Rowland. At the time the technology was state of the art, however the scan results needed some work before the point cloud was usable.
Using Pro-Engineer I was able to trace out key features such as the port openings, mounting points and various profiles. With a little time and some detailed measurements of the head, I was able to generate a accurate solid model that was later sent to the FSAE team for the intake manifold design.
The first attempt at a full scale SLS rapid prototype failed when the machine's adhesive did not completely bond with the powder. I then modified the model to make it hollow on the inside to eliminate the amount of "powder" and adhesive needed. I also decided to scale the prototype down to 1:4 scale as seen below.
