High Specific Power Electrical Machines: A System Perspective

There has been a growing need for high specific power electrical machines for a wide range of applications. These include hybrid/electric traction applications, aerospace applications and Oil and Gas applications. A lot of work has been done to accomplish significantly higher specific power electrical machines especially for aerospace applications. Several machine topologies as well as thermal management schemes have been proposed. Even though there has been a few publications that provided an overview of high-speed and high specific power electrical machines [1-3], the goal of this paper is to provide a more comprehensive review of high specific power electrical machines with special focus on machines that have been built and tested and are considered the leading candidates defining the state-of-the art. Another key objective of this paper is to highlight the key “system-level” tradeoffs involved in pushing electrical machines to higher specific power. Focusing solely on the machine specific power can lead to a sub-optimal solution at the system-level

Passive Balancing Battery Management System for Cal Poly Racing\u27s Formula SAE Electric Vehicle

This senior project aims to replace the current battery management system (BMS) on Cal Poly’s Formula SAE electric vehicle with a more versatile, advanced, and reliable system. A BMS manages a rechargeable battery by ensuring the battery device operator’s safety, protecting battery cell integrity, prolonging battery lifetime, maintaining functional design requirements, and sending optimal usage information to the application controller. Passive balancing maximizes a battery pack’s capacity by dissipating excess energy through heat to regulate cell state of charge

Design of Electric Racing Vehicles: An experience of interdisciplinary project-based education in engineering

This paper describes a project based learning program carried out in the E.T.S.I.I. of the University of Malaga, Spain, whose main objective is the organization of a team for the development of experimental electric racing vehicles and their evaluation in competitive races. It is shown the work done during the first two years of the project, highlighting the most important aspects of the experience: the training focused on senior students (capstone courses), the training focused on freshmen (cornerstone courses) and the university-industry collaboration for the manufacture of the prototypes and equipment designed.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

20 years of UNSW Australia\u27s Sunswift solar car team: A new moment in the Sun, but where to next?

The Sunswift Solar Car project has been running at UNSW Australia in Sydney for 20 years as of 2015. It is an entirely student-run endeavour which revolves around the design and development of a solar/electric vehicle nominally designed to compete in the World Solar Challenge rally from Darwin to Adelaide every 2 years. The student cohort is drawn from a range of schools, disciplines and backgrounds, and the team has been increasingly successful and high-profile particularly in its second decade. The excellent level of hands-on training that the project provides to students is not rewarded with academic credit yet many of the alumni credit the project with launching their careers and ambitions. The team\u27s world record-breaking latest vehicle, eVe, is the fifth constructed and presents a radical departure from previous cars in that it carries a passenger in a conventional layout and is based around a road-going sports car. The team is currently working to meet road registration standards, making it the most complex vehicle yet. However, the issues of high costs, safety concerns, ensuring representative student participation, and student workload management present ongoing challenges which must be met if the project is to continue its run of success

Design of a tubular chassis for an electric racing car

Electric vehicles are proposed nowadays as a solution to reduce emissions generated by transport and, as long as the electricity to recharge these vehicles comes from renewable sources, the pollution generated will be less than that of internal combustion vehicles. Automotive competitions (motorsport) have always been the best testing ground for evaluating the technology that will be implemented in the future in commercial automotive. This project tries to contribute in this field, designing a tubular chassis that serves as a basis for building an electric racing car as cheap as possible, but that at the same time allows to enjoy the thrill of motorsport being respectful with natural environment. This thesis has a first theoretical part, which includes a study of the state of the art of electric vehicles, a research about the most important electric racing car components and an analysis of the regulations applicable to this type of cars. The second part of the project is more practical and shows the evolution of the chassis, from the preliminary design that can be seen in the layout to the final design. An iterative process was developed to obtain the final result, since several changes were made interpreting the results of the simulations. These simulations were based on the finite element method and the results were the plots of the stress and displacement distribution along the chassis. The final result of this project is a tubular chassis with a value of torsional stiffness above the average, in addition to not having an excessive weight, which fulfills the proposed objectives and the established requirements.Els vehicles elèctrics es proposen avui dia com una solució per reduir les emissions generades pel transport i, sempre i quan l’electricitat per recarregar aquests vehicles provingui de fonts renovables, la contaminació generada serà inferior a la dels vehicles de combustió interna. Les competicions automobilístiques (motorsport) sempre han estat el millor camp de proves per avaluar la tecnologia que s’implementarà en el futur en l’automoció comercial. Aquest projecte vol contribuir en aquest camp, dissenyant un xassís tubular que serveixi de base per construir un cotxe de carreres elèctric el més econòmic possible, però que al mateix temps permeti gaudir de l’emoció de l’automobilisme respectant el medi natural. Aquesta tesi té una primera part teòrica, que inclou un estudi de l’estat de l’art dels vehicles elèctrics, una investigació sobre els components més importants dels cotxes de carreres elèctrics i una anàlisi de la normativa aplicable a aquest tipus de vehicles. La segona part del projecte és més pràctica i mostra l’evolució del xassís, des del disseny preliminar que es pot veure en el layout fins al disseny final. El resultat final es va obtenir a partir d’un procés iteratiu, ja que es van fer diversos canvis interpretant els resultats de les simulacions. Aquestes simulacions es van basar en el mètode d’elements finits i els resultats van ser els gràfics de distribució de tensió i desplaçament al llarg del xassís. El resultat final és un xassís tubular amb un valor de rigidesa torsional superior a la mitjana, sense tenir un pes excessiu, que compleix els objectius proposats i els requisits establerts

Firm technological responses to regulatory changes: A longitudinal study in the Le Mans Prototype racing

Despite the critical role of regulations on competition and innovation, little is known about firm responses and related effects on performance under regulatory contingencies that are permissive or restrictive. By longitudinally investigating hybrid cars competing in the Le Mans Prototype racing (LMP1), we counter-intuitively suggest that permissive regulations increase technological uncertainty and thus decrease the firms’ likelihood of shifting their technological trajectory, while restrictive regulations lead to the opposite outcome. Further, we suggest that permissive regulations favour firms that innovate their products by sequentially upgrading core and peripheral subsystems, while restrictive regulations—in the long term— favour firms upgrading them simultaneously. Implications for theory and practice are discussed

Optimization of the powertrain of electric vehicles for a given route

The global challenge of reducing pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions has forced the development of alternatives to traditional internal combustion engine vehicles, such as electric or hybrid vehicles. Electric engines are the most efficient for delivery trucks or city buses. Their acceleration and deceleration patterns make them inefficient for the use of internal combustion engines. However, their range and purchase cost are the main factors limiting their use in these applications. The range and acquisition cost of an electric vehicle are mainly related to the energy storage system. Therefore, the optimal size of the battery pack should be considered as a design objective when its application is known. This paper presents a methodology to optimize the battery pack of an electric vehicle based on a given travel distance in a target time. Therefore, it would be applicable to delivery vehicles, buses and any vehicle whose route and travel time are known in advance. The proposed methodology allows minimizing energy consumption by determining the optimal gear ratio for a given route, setting the travel time as a target. A complete vehicle model and a multi-objective genetic algorithm are used for this purpose