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STUDENT ECO-ENGINEERING TEAMS ANNOUNCE PLUG-IN HYBRID ECOCAR ARCHITECTURES

February 22, 2012 in EcoCAR 2 News by ggguestuser | No comments

More Than $745M in Software, Hardware and Cash Donations from Sponsors to Build Highly-Efficient Vehicles

Detroit, Mich. (February 22, 2012) – Today, the 15 North American universities participating in EcoCAR 2: Plugging In to the Future announced the vehicle architectures they will implement in their General Motors-donated 2013 Chevrolet Malibu. The three-year EcoCAR 2 competition, which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Argonne National Laboratory, General Motors, and 20 other government and industry leaders, gives students the opportunity to gain real-world, eco-friendly automotive engineering experience while striving to further improve the energy-efficiency of an already highly efficient vehicle – the Malibu.

But teams don’t get to stop there. Much like the challenges facing automakers, EcoCAR engineering students must balance the challenge of increasing the vehicle’s energy efficiency and reducing the vehicle’s greenhouse gas emissions and petroleum consumption with maintaining the performance, safety and overall consumer acceptability of the original Malibu.

To meet these technical challenges, each EcoCAR team designed its own unique Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) architecture and utilized a crowd-sourcing format to select the powertrain components that it will integrate into its advanced technology vehicle over the three-year program. This technique mimics industry’s global vehicle development process, which focuses on advanced controls and software to develop future vehicles.  Hybrid vehicles on the road today already reach peak efficiency, so these teams must aim to get every last drop of energy possible out of the vehicle in order to reduce the environmental impact of a vehicle without compromising performance, safety and consumer acceptability. This hands-on experience is made possible by the numerous sponsor contributions to the 15 EcoCAR universities that exceed $745 million in software, hardware and cash donations.

“For this competition, we wanted to donate a vehicle that reflected today’s consumers’ needs, and the new 2013 Malibu made the most sense in terms of its size and flexibility,” said Kent Helfrich, executive director, electronic controls and software engineering, of General Motors. “EcoCAR 2 students will take our Malibu and re-engineer their vehicle to reduce its environmental impact, yet still deliver real-life, practical results. This is not an easy job, but it’s very rewarding. It’s what we do at GM every day.”

“The future in hybrid technology is happening now,” said Patrick Davis, program manager of DOE’s Vehicle Technologies Program. “It used to be that we were on the edge of this type of technology – now we are there, and these students are attempting to take it even further.”

All of the EcoCAR team vehicle designs are PHEVs, which use an on-board battery to reduce fuel use. The battery can be recharged using a standard wall outlet. Once the plug-in range of the battery is depleted, the vehicle can still operate as a regular hybrid. The diversity of architectures the teams have selected rests primarily in the power-flow, which teams will aim to improve upon by using various combinations of fuel, transmission, battery system, electric motor, generator or charger choices. Some teams are even developing their own engine controller.

The powertrain components that the teams have selected to drive the vehicle are five unique combinations:

Parallel through the Road (PTTR) Plug-in Hybrid vehicles utilize electrical energy to power one axle, while an engine drives another axle.  EcoCAR 2 teams using the PTTR architecture include: California State, Los Angeles; Purdue University; University of Washington; and Wayne State University.

Series Plug-in Hybrid vehicles consist of one or more electric motors driving the wheels, powered by a battery.  An engine-generator is decoupled from the wheels at all times and provides supplemental electrical power to drive the vehicle when needed. Teams building a Series PHEV are: Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University; North Carolina State University; Pennsylvania State University; and University of Waterloo.

Series-Parallel Plug-in Hybrid powertrains have the ability to couple and de-couple the engine from the wheels while still providing electric power from the on-board battery to drive a motor. EcoCAR 2 teams using the Series-Parallel architecture include: Mississippi State University; The Ohio State University; University of Tennessee, Knoxville; University of Victoria; Virginia Tech.

Hydrogen Fuel Cell Series Plug-in Hybrid vehicles use an onboard fuel cell to convert hydrogen into electricity and either propel the vehicle or recharge a battery pack. The battery pack can be charged using a standard wall outlet.  Colorado State University will build a Hydrogen Fuel Cell Series.

Split-Parallel Plug-in Hybrids utilize a motor connected to the engine’s accessory belt that can charge the on-board battery, start the engine and provide additional power for acceleration.  A separate motor provides additional power to the wheels. The EcoCAR 2 team using a Split-Parallel powertrain is Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.

The various architectures will use B20, E85, or hydrogen to extend the range of the vehicles. B20 is a blend of 20% biodiesel and 80% petroleum diesel, and E85 is a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline.

The first year of EcoCAR 2 emphasizes the use of math-based design tools and simulation techniques for designing a successful vehicle foundation. Each team will receive a 2013 Malibu at the end of the first year of competition in May 2012. In years two and three, students will rebuild the vehicle based on their new architecture and continue to refine, test and improve the vehicle’s operation.

Additional information about EcoCAR 2 is available on the competition website, Flickr stream, Facebook page and Twitter stream. The sponsors contributing to the $745 million in software, hardware and cash donations include: U.S. Department of Energy; General Motors; Natural Resources Canada; MathWorks; California Air Resources Board; Clean Cities; dSPACE, Inc.; A123 Systems, Inc.; Freescale; AVL Powertrain Engineering, Inc.; National Science Foundation; ETAS; Snap-On Tools; Magna E-Car Systems; Magna Powertrain; Robert Bosch, LLC; FleetCarma; Siemens PLM Software; CD-adapco; Ventor CANtech, Inc.;  Woodward; Caterpillar.

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Lights, camera, action!

February 22, 2012 in EcoCAR 2 News by ggguestuser | No comments

EcoCAR 2 is proud to announce it will host the Year One Competition in Los Angeles!

During the six day competition, held May 18-May 23, 2012, teams will present their final Electrical, Mechanical, Controls, Outreach, Business, Trade Show, Hardware-in-the-Loop and Project Initiation Approval presentations to industry leaders and judges. In the end, EcoCAR 2 will crown its Year One victor!

Students and sponsors will stay at the magnificent Renaissance Hollywood Hotel during the competition! Adjacent to the Hollywood and Highland Shopping Center, this hotel is just steps away from the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Madam Tussaud’s Wax Museum. The hotel is also surrounded by more than 20 restaurants and 60 retail shops and is near the famous Graumann’s Chinese 6 Theater and Kodak Theater.

Never visited Los Angeles? Here are some little known facts:

  • It is the only city in North America to host the Summer Olympics twice
  • It has hosted the Super Bowl seven times
  • It was the birthplace of the hula hoop, the Barbie doll and the chaise lounge
  • There are more than three million vehicle trips per day on freeways and surface streets
  • The LA Coastline stretches more than 75 miles long
  • There are more artists, writers, filmmakers, actors, dancers and musicians living and working in this city than any other city at any other time in the history of civilization.

Registration for Competition will open in March, but in the meantime, check out the hotel and learn some more about Los Angeles. As always, check back on the Green Garage Blog for blog posts about competition events and EcoCAR 2 updates!

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Team Tuesdays: Mississippi State

February 21, 2012 in EcoCAR 2 News, Video Blogs by ggguestuser | No comments

Welcome to Team Tuesdays: A new feature of Inside the Green Garage! From now until competition begins, we’ll highlight a new team video every Tuesday on the blog.

This week check out a great video from the Mississippi State University (MSU) EcoCAR 2 team, which is comprised of 84 members, spanning across 16 majors. The team is led by a mechanical engineering graduate student, serving as team leader, and five graduate group leaders, all of whom have significant experience in Advanced Vehicle Technology Competitions (AVTCs).

MSU first became involved in the AVTC series with the four-year Challenge X competition in 2004. The team is currently competing in its eighth year of AVTCs. In addition to Challenge X, Mississippi State also competed in EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge which finished up in May of 2011. For EcoCAR 2, the MSU team will be recreating their 2013 Malibu into a Series-Parallel PHEV.

Currently the MSU team is broken into the following sub groups: Mechanical, Electrical, Controls, Business, Outreach and Emissions. Together these groups work collectively to achieve and exceed the standards set forth by the EcoCAR 2 competition – to create a vehicle that is more safe and fuel-efficient and that exceeds current consumer acceptability standards.

For more information on the MSU EcoCAR 2 team please visit the team website. MSU can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr.

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CSULA EcoCAR 2 Team Makes Their Eco-Resolutions

February 21, 2012 in EcoCAR 2 News, Team Posts by ggguestuser | No comments

Who says work can’t be fun? The California State University Los Angeles (CSULA) EcoCAR 2 team recently attended its first green event with great success. Matthew Kirkwood and Matthew VanAtta from the Outreach/Business team attended the 2012 Eco-Resolutions Party, and the energy was, please excuse the pun, electric!

Carl Cole (right), founder of yourecoteam.com, a yellow pages for green organizations and investors, discusses his company

The event was located in Santa Monica’s  “Green Light District,” part of a national group of business committed to sustainable business practices that has helped make Santa Monica a green hub for Southern California. Events such as the Eco-Resolutions Party are held monthly all over the world by local chapters of Green Drinks International, a networking organization that allows for anyone working in the environmental field or that is concerned about environmental issues to get together to network, develop new ideas and create partnerships.

The team’s goals for the event were to inform the green community about EcoCAR 2 and generate interest, identify and network with key players in the green community, meet potential sponsors and event organizers and become better informed about the green community in order to gain insights into techniques that successfully reach the general public.

Organizations involved in the raffle quickly promote their message before announcing the winner

The event was not only a fun and engaging night, but a networking success for CSULA EcoCAR 2 as well. The team mingled with people from a wide variety of backgrounds, including heavy hitters such as Ken Spector, V.P. of Living Eco, who is heavily involved in the green community and is a potential link to media exposure and celebrity endorsement, and Carl Cole, the founder of a green business networking site, yourecoteam.com, which has a network of over 2,000 green businesses. Contacts were also made with event planners and community organizers, as well as people from the petroleum, solar and energy efficient construction industries.

Everyone attending the event was generous with their passion, excitement and advice. The green community has many diverse events and CSULA’s team generated several new ideas for its own public education campaign (as well as several eco-resolutions) by attending this one.

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UW Gets a Little Design Help from A123

February 17, 2012 in EcoCAR 2 News, Team Posts by ggguestuser | No comments

Engineering is a highly iterative process.  Sometimes new data causes an entire redesign, often for the better. University of Washington EcoCAR 2 team members have devised several iterations of a battery cooling system, but with A123 Systems’ help, they’ve finally hit the mark.

Four engineers are designing a system to cool the battery pack for UW’s proposed vehicle architecture. Batteries generate heat when in use, so cooling via air or fluid is necessary to avoid damage. The main issue is that the ambient air at the final competition in Yuma, AZ is going to be about 40 degrees Celsius, and the A123 Systems batteries shut down at 50 degrees Celsius.  After much brainstorming, the team’s initial thought was to run coolant through battery cooling plates and then through a radiator to dissipate the heat. They crunched thermodynamic data and learned that, in order to be effective in Yuma, the system would have to pump approximately 100 gallons/minute… which is completely unrealistic! UW needed to find an alternative.

After further deliberation, the team decided to use a thermodynamic refrigeration cycle. This system is similar to a refrigerator: Coolant is compressed to raise pressure through the radiator, heat is dissipated, and then the coolant is allowed to expand to add a magnitude of cooling. The system is a little more complicated and requires more power, but the UW thought they were headed in the right direction.

However, things changed yet again. At the Winter Workshop in Austin, A123 Systems representatives showed the team that cooling is not going to be as critical as they had thought. The batteries won’t heat up as much as predicted so UW had grossly over-engineered the cooling system. With A123’s input, the team re-redesigned a cooling system that integrates the coolant and radiator of the Chevy Malibu’s existing A/C system. This is a much simpler, smaller and more elegant solution than UW’s original design. The team thanks A123 Systems’ representatives for being so helpful in guiding them towards a much more feasible and realistic design!

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Decisions Decisions! MSU’s Year One Preparations

February 16, 2012 in EcoCAR 2 News, Team Posts by ggguestuser | No comments

With the EcoCAR 2 competition well underway for Year one, the Mississippi State University EcoCAR 2 team has recently been shoulder deep in component and architecture research, literature reviews and training the ‘new hires’ on the various software programs they will be using for the next several years of the competition. Planning everything from an overall budget, to sponsorships roles and outreach endeavors are also an integral part of the current team undertakings.

Year one is all about carefully selecting a specific architecture as well as meticulously picking over which specific components will bring the team the best overall results. Many, many hours of modeling, calculating and designing go into this year but every decision the team makes during Year One will affect it throughout the rest of the competition.

Just what components will MSU use to implement its proposed design? Only time will tell, but there will be more information to come soon! In the meantime, make sure to keep up to date with the team’s progress and events by visiting its social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter as well as the brand new website!

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OSU at Winter Workshop and the Washington D.C. Auto Show

February 15, 2012 in EcoCAR 2 News, Team Posts by ggguestuser | No comments

The Ohio State EcoCAR 2 team was invited to attend the Washington D.C. Auto Show recently for Public Policy Preview Day! While there, the team got to meet with media, policy makers, and General Motors executives. Even the president of General Motors North America, Mark Reuss, stopped by to talk with the team. He was very impressed by all the hard work EcoCAR 2 teams do and he is looking forward to seeing how the vehicles turn out at the end of the competition.

The 2nd place SUV designed by the OSU team from the EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge was on display next to HEVT (Virginia Tech’s team) and a 2013 Chevrolet Malibu. The team had a great time talking about the benefits of the EcoCAR 2 competition and would like to thank the D.C. Auto Show organizers for the invitation!

Soon after the Auto Show, the OSU team headed to Austin for EcoCAR 2’s Winter Workshop. On the first day of the workshop, the team set up its HIL (Hardware in the Loop) to make sure everything was running properly. The HIL, from dSpace Inc., is a very helpful tool that allows the team to simulate different scenarios on its vehicle. But the best part was that it only took an hour to set up! Afterwards, OSU joined the rest of the EcoCAR 2 competitors for a wonderful dinner at the Thurman Mansion. They had the chance to try Austin’s famous BBQ from Salt Lick, and it definitely lived up to its reputation!

Day two of Winter Workshop was also filled with activities. Both the Business and the HIL presentations were given in front of 12 judges. The OSU presenters’ hard work paid off and they did a great job. The Outreach team also visited a local middle school with some of the other schools. They taught middle school kids about EcoCAR 2, advanced vehicle technologies and the environmental effects of conventional vehicles.

The team had a great time in Austin thanks to all of the wonderful organizers and sponsors. Special thanks to Freescale for hosting the event at their facility!

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Commercializing Innovation with UWAFT

February 14, 2012 in EcoCAR 2 News, Team Posts by ggguestuser | No comments

Recently, the University of Waterloo Alternative Fuels Team (UWAFT) participated in The Canadian Institute’s Forum on Commercializing Cleantech in Toronto, Ontario.  The Forum consisted of a series of panel discussions filled with a variety of distinguished industry and government representatives. The event began with a keynote address by Albert Behr, President of Behr and Associates Inc. – a consulting firm that specializes in the commercialization of ‘clean’ technology. Concluding the event was the Honourable Glen Murray, Ontario Minister of Research and Innovation, who spoke about due diligence and the cleantech regulatory framework in Canada.

Outreach Coordinator Mark Goody

Team Captain Gurhari Singh and Outreach Coordinator Mark Goody represented UWAFT during the two day event. Unlike past events, which have been focused on campus and community outreach, the forum on Commercializing Cleantech was an industry-based conference. It provided UWAFT with significant learning and networking opportunities. It was also an ideal environment to speak with potential sponsors for UWAFT!

In addition to acquiring valuable business knowledge and industry contacts, Singh and Goody had the opportunity to promote the team and the EcoCAR 2 competition. Alternative fuel technology was a large part of the conference and it is clear that Canada’s industry and government are committed to building a more sustainable transportation future!

 

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First Semester Experiences From a Purdue Project Manager

February 13, 2012 in EcoCAR 2 News, Team Posts by ggguestuser | No comments

Haley Moore Purdue’s EcoCAR 2 Project Manager, shares her experiences from first semester in the competition.

“The first semester of the EcoCAR 2 Challenge was fun and successful for the team. There was a lot of learning that went on at all levels. For me, the most challenging parts of the semester were keeping the team organized and leading the team while finishing the final semester of my undergraduate career. I was amazed at how many tasks were necessary to make the team successful. We had several meetings each week, sent out many emails and even met with people outside of the program.

I learned a great deal about becoming more organized, which will only help me as I continue with my studies and EcoCAR 2. I am fortunate to have a great Steering Committee and Faculty Committee that has helped the team become so successful. We will continue working hard this semester to achieve this year’s goal of completely simulating our car on computer software, which will make it easier to implement our architecture to the vehicle. I am looking forward to seeing what this semester has in store for the team!”

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The 2012 Winter Workshop Wraps Up in Austin

February 10, 2012 in EcoCAR 2 News by ggguestuser | No comments

The 2012 Winter Workshop has come to an end as the 15 EcoCAR 2 teams head back to their universities to prepare for the remainder of Year One competition.

Over the five day workshop, which was co-hosted by Freescale and dSPACE, Inc., teams participated in detailed sessions from competitions organizers General Motors, the U.S. Department of Energy and Argonne National Laboratory. Teams also took part in in-depth training on sponsor-donated components and software tools from dSPACE, A123 Systems, Freescale, AVL Powertrain Engineering, CD-adapco, Siemens, and Vector.  The Winter Workshop was also the first time teams presented to judges on their Hardware-In-The Loop (HIL), Business Plans, and Youth Education efforts.

The team’s Outreach Coordinators (OCs) had the opportunity to attend the first Education Day of the EcoCAR 2 competition series. At the end of the day, teams talked to more than 250 middle and high school students in the Austin area. A special thank you goes to John Haraf, Director of Hybrid Vehicle Integration and Controls at General Motors, for speaking to the schools and bringing a new Chevrolet Volt with him! The OCs also attended a special PR Panel and received a tour of a local television station while in Austin.

One of the most exciting sessions of the Winter Workshop was the Plenary Session on Saturday morning. During the session, AVTC Director Kristen De La Rosa, announced the location of the Year One Competition (check back in to the Green Garage Blog next week for the big news!) and released a competition schedule to the teams. Teams heard first-hand about the events they will be competing in, including Electrical, Controls, Mechanical, Trade Show, HIL, Business, Outreach and Program Initiation Approval (PIA).

During the evenings, students and advisors had the opportunity to attend a Welcome Night dinner at the Thurman Mansion catered by Salt Lick and an evening ‘fun’ night at Maggie Mae’s on Sixth Street. EcoCAR 2 teams also networked with sponsors at the 2012 Winter Workshop Sponsor Social at the famous Driskill Hotel with keynote speaker and former Austin Mayor, Will Wynn.

Thank you to Freescale and dSPACE for co-hosting the 2012 Winter Workshop, and a special thank you to Freescale for allowing the EcoCAR 2 program at their Oak Hill facilities.

Missed the Winter Workshop? Check out the Winter Workshop Video below and all of the Workshop photos on Flickr!

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