Stewart-Haas Racing’s mission is to win races and championships. And it comes down to providing their top driver, Cole Custer, with the most advanced race car possible. To achieve the high performance that this competitive sport demands, Stewart-Haas Racing is turning to artificial intelligence. With safety as a priority, the team set out to lightweight one of the most important parts on Custer’s No. 41 Ford Mustang—the brake pedal.
Generative design helps Stewart-Haas Racing to create lighter and stiffer brake pedal.
SRAM fuels research and development for new, lightweight bike crankarm
Interested in Learning More?
Request Information
Request Information
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
Explore generative design for manufacturing
Stewart-Haas Racing is a championship-winning NASCAR organization that competes in two top national touring series. Their mission is to win. And every split-second counts for driver Cole Custer and his No. 41 Ford Mustang.
Putting the brakes on traditional manufacturing methods
Play Video
Image courtesy of Stewart-Haas Racing
New design and manufacturing innovations for safety, performance, and weight reduction are critical to keep Stewart-Haas Racing victorious. Continuing their partnership with Autodesk, the organization took a new look at a key feature of the race car—the brake pedal. Traditional manufacturing methods were no longer providing any breakthrough discoveries.
“We undertook the brake pedal project primarily for weight savings,” said Walter Mitchell, engineering integration manager, Stewart-Haas Racing. “Our existing brake pedal design was designed and manufactured using traditional methods. Through previous iterations and revision, we could no longer produce or realize any additional weight savings.”
Image courtesy of Stewart-Haas Racing
Safety is always the most important factor, especially with a component like the brake pedal. At the same time, Stewart-Haas Racing wanted to find a new way to further lightweight the race car. They decided to try artificial intelligence to gain an advantage.
Using Autodesk generative design in Fusion 360, the team came up with multiple design options and then selected their top choice for simulation testing. They used Renishaw's Ren 500Q quad-laser powder bed metal printing 3D system to manufacture the new brake pedal for load testing.
“We tested the pedal on an in-house designed test rig to simulate normal braking events over multiple race distances,” said Mitchell. “We set the pedal up in a fixture to simulate a driver input load under normal braking conditions of 150 pounds, as well as panic braking loads of 350 pounds. Those braking events were conducted at a cycle of 6,000 events, which represents 3000 laps of braking. And the pedal withstood all of those loads and cycles flawlessly.”
Accelerating with generative design
With the new brake pedal, Stewart-Haas Racing realized a 32% reduction in weight and a 50% increase in stiffness with the optimized design coming out of Fusion 360.
The entire project took just two months to complete—from initial design to simulation, additive manufacturing of the pedal, testing, and finalized part. And it was all delivered within two weeks of the needed race date.
In a sport where speed is everything, new technology such as artificial intelligence is helping teams like Stewart-Haas Racing get to the finish line faster.
“Being able to utilize both Autodesk generative design and Renishaw's metal printing capabilities will unlock doors that were previously unavailable to increase performance, reach higher speeds, and decrease lap times,” said Mitchell.
Taking a victory lap
Image courtesy of Stewart-Haas Racing
Generative design technology helped SRAM explore new designs for a crankshaft.
Generative design provides new competitive edge for cycling Innovation
Outpacing the competition with AI-driven brake pedal design
Stewart-Haas Racing
