Sescoi Helps Compress the Development Time for the T.25 City Car

By DE Editors

Sescoi’s WorkNC CAM/CAD software has a role in the design and development of a new vehicle concept that addresses traffic congestion and the overall CO2 impact produced during the lifecycle of a car.

Designed and developed by Gordon Murray Design based in Shalford, Surrey, UK, the key design elements for the T.25 City Car and iStream manufacturing process are for a very small vehicle, which protects personal mobility, is economical and safe to own, fun and stylish to drive, yet has a low lifecycle carbon footprint. To achieve these aims, and to make the car as spacious as possible inside, required considerable effort on vehicle packaging, with many design iterations. This was further complicated by the principles of iStream, which demanded flat packing of the vehicle for transportation, ready for final assembly in end user markets.

Jon Ingleby, prototyping applications manager, uses WorkNC to produce the body panels for the styling studio model as well as for the seating buck, which is used to evaluate the space inside the vehicle. Machining of the models and molds, which can be full size, is carried out on the company’s ITP overhead gantry CNC mill.

A range of rapid prototyping methods is used in the styling studio, including conventional pattern making, fused deposition modeling, CNC milling and composite panel production. To compress development times, engineers need to be skilled in all these areas and have the means of working on several tasks simultaneously.

“There are three cycles of body design during the vehicle development program, from wind tunnel models to a full size model, which we can machine on the ITP gantry mill using 3+2 machining techniques,” says Ingleby. “In WorkNC it takes about one to two hours to program the roughing toolpaths and, while cutting is under way, we program the finishing paths. We have never had a problem with WorkNC so we can leave it to cut overnight, and while we get on with other tasks, with absolute confidence in the results.”

Gordon Murray Design uses Catia V5 to model the T.25. The “A” class surfaces are imported into WorkNC ready for machining.

For more information, visit Sescoi.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company's website.