Students go green under the hood at YPG

YUMA PROVING GROUND — Engineering students from Texas Tech University were busily working on trying to solve a recurring coolant leak problem they've been having with their EcoCAR vehicle on Friday morning, before the day's testing, inspections and judging got underway.

Team member Joey Garnsey said the EcoCAR vehicle that he and his teammates have built is designed as a front-wheel drive 2-mode hybrid, powered by a 1.6L GM Europe engine, two 55 kw electric motors and a four module battery pack.

"We wanted to have the lowest emission possible," Garnsey said. "We also used larger electric batteries to increase the range and power."

Garnsey added that, ideally, their EcoCAR vehicle would operate solely on electric power at low speeds and blend with a combustion engine for power at high speeds.

"This is the third time we have had a coolant leak," Garnsey said.

Although they haven't actually road tested their EcoCAR yet, team leader Carl Gabriel said they have run it for up to 640 miles during simulations.

"We want to see how long we can go before having to recharge the batteries," said Gabriel, who graduated last Friday and has accepted a job at GM.

For the past week, the Texas Tech team, along with 16 other collegiate engineering teams have been taking part in he EcoCAR: The Next Challenge finals, which got underway Monday at GM's 2,400-acre test track at Yuma Proving Ground.

As part of the competition, GM engineers at the proving ground have put the student-built vehicles through several days of rigorous testing, ranging from safety and technical inspections to towing, autocross, drive quality and emissions and energy consumption.

After each test the students would take their EcoCARs back to the garages and continue to refine and work to fix any problems they may have encountered.

The engineering tests are similar to those conducted by the automotive industry to determine the readiness of a prototype for production.

The EcoCAR Challenge is a three-year competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and General Motors that challenges the participating student teams from universities across the country to re-engineer a GM-donated vehicle using a range of alternative eco-friendly technologies and integrate them together to make their own unique design.

The goal of the competition, said Aaron Sulivan, an engineer with General Motors, is to increase fuel efficiency and minimize emissions while retaining performance and customer appeal.

"All the vehicles are built a bit differently, so they are all unique in their own ways," Sulivan said. "We also do require the vehicles be well-rounded because we don't want to produce a vehicle that is unrealistic for the consumer."

Sulivan said the EcoCAR vehicles being tested in the competition fall into one of the following four categories: extended-range electric vehicle (EREV), plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV), fuel cell plug-in hybrid electric vehicle and full function electric vehicle.

"This year the students have been putting their cars together and getting them to run," Sulivan said.

The other participating colleges are Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Georgia Tech, Michigan Technological University, Missouri University of Science and Technology, North Carolina State University; Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, Rose-Hulman University of Technology, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, University of Victoria, University of Waterloo, University of Wisconsin, Virginia Tech and West Virginia University.

This is the second year of the EcoCAR Competition, which began in 2008. The first year of the competition, the students spent designing their vehicles.

Now in the second year of the competition, teams have turned the designs they engineered during Year One, into their prototype vehicles. Next year the students will refine their EcoCAR vehicles into near-showroom quality cars.

The Year Two Competition Finals continues next week in San Diego where teams will highlight their efforts from throughout the year with presentations on the following categories: mechanical, electrical, controls, outreach and other various sponsored awards.

The competition concludes on May 27 with an Awards Ceremony at the House of Blues San Diego where awards totaling nearly $100,000 will be handed out and the first, second and third place winners for this year will be announced.

The Texas Tech team wasn't the only team having problems with their EcoCAR's design on Friday, so was the University of Wisconsin team.

"We have been having trouble with the rear motor working," said team member Will O'Connor. "Actually it has never worked so we don't have the ability to run our series architecture."

He added, "we have had engineers from GM working on it this week also, but still no luck so far."

O'Connor said the University of Wisconsin team's vehicle design is considered to be an extended electric range vehicle (EREV).

It has a 60 kw electric motor, coupled with a 750 cc turbo charged Weber engine, that powers the front wheels and also has the capability to generate electricity to recharge the battery pack.

Included in the design of the vehicle is a 55 kw motor to power the rear wheels. The vehicle is capable of traveling approximately 20 to 25 miles on full electric.

O'Connor said the team will continue trying to figure out why the rear motor, which is half the size of the front motor, doesn't work, or eventually replace it.

O'Connor, who had no background in automotive engineering said being in the competition has been a huge learning experience, not just for him, but everyone on the team.        

"Now I feel like I know everything, but obviously that isn't true," said O'Connor, who joined the team as a freshman. "I have always wanted to get into green automotive technology and now I have the ability to do so."

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James Gilbert can be reached at jgilbert@yumasun.com or 539-6854.