Before last week, I would have never imagined a formula SAE car as a plug-in hybrid. To my amazement, a group of University of Waterloo Engineering students want to build such a vehicle – and there just happens to be an international competition where the team can race against other universities from around the world.
The competition, simply named “The Formula Hybrid International Competition“ is a fairly new competition which was founded in 2006 at Dartmouth College in the United States. Competing schools are required to design, build, and race high performance, plug-in hybrid vehicles. The best analogy is to compare it to the Formula SAE program, but with the added challenge of trying to find the perfect balance between performance and fuel efficiency in a hybrid vehicle. Did we mention that it has to be sporty and fun to drive?
As the name of the competition suggests, the car’s build isn’t exactly the same as regular formula SAE vehicles. Apart from the normal gasoline four-stroke engine, the car requires a few extra components for it to be a plug-in hybrid racing vehicle. First, a 29 HP 3-phase AC induction motor is used for electric powered propulsion and regenerative braking. The motor outputs 70 ft-lbs of torque which, according to team’s electrical designer, Nevin McCallum, “can be used for intense acceleration and just-as-intense deceleration.” Secondly, the vehicle must be able to store electrical energy converted from regenerative braking of the vehicle. The storage component must be able to store and discharge electrical energy very rapidly, and an accumulator comprised of many ultra-capacitors is utilized for this purpose. Tying both of these components to the gasoline engine is the Parallel Hybrid Drivetrain. This drivetrain allows the vehicle to be connected to both the electric motor and gasoline engine at the same time; this provides an electric boost from the AC motor in tandem with the gasoline engine’s acceleration.
The engineering side of the team is comprised of students from mechanical, electrical and mechatronics engineering disciplines. Such an interdisciplinary team is essential because, as McCallum says, “it provides [them] with a well-rounded base, allowing [them] to have a truly cross-disciplinary design team that tightly integrates all of the car’s subsystems.” In addition to the engineering students, the team also has members from Arts and Business who focus on sponsorship, community outreach, and race logistics.
Since the team is new, it needs team members to help design, build and race the car. If you would like to join this student team, you may contact them at uwaterloohybrid@gmail.com. To find out more information on the Formula Competition, check out the competition website at http://www.formula-hybrid.org.
Leave a Reply