Carbon Fibre Street Luge

In 2008, I started off with using 1.5mm plywood, sandwiching fibreglass between the layers to make the street luges. However since 2020, I started working more towards a completely carbon fibre pan on the street luge using resin infusion as the manufacturing process.

I've always wanted to push what can be done with a Street Luge aerodynamically. Usually, this is done by making the Luge and rider have less drag, but I went in another direction, downforce. Now, given that Street Luges use skateboard trucks that are lean-steer, this makes utilising ground effect not possible.

So, I designed a dual-chassis luge, much like the Lotus 88, which uses un-sprung aero to keep the undertray level and flat. This meant that I needed to redesign the trucks to hold everything underneath the luge. I managed to get an early prototype working in 2020, and though I knew the theory of what I was trying to do, I'm no expert in aerodynamics! I'd been learning bits and pieces from Kyle Forster's YouTube Channel, Kyle Engineers and contacted him in early 2021. He worked on the aero plan and design along with the CFD work, with fantastic results.

The next part was actually making the part. I approached a nearby company, United Aerospace, for help, and we machined the mould using high-density polyurethane board, sealing it up afterwards. I wasn't really confident with doing big parts at this point, and the cost of the materials alone had me on edge the whole time. Eventually, we popped out two undertrays and 3D printed all of the aero parts as prototypes. Once assembled, I've taken it for several test runs at events in the UK and will be racing it again later this year.