Search Results

One of the deliverables for the GM/DOE sponsored EcoCAR2 competition involved the design and validation of an energy storage system (ESS) that could withstand 20g of acceleration in the longitudinal direction, 20g of acceleration in the lateral direction, and 8g of acceleration in the vertical direction with a minimum safety factor of 2, in the event of a crash. Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (RHIT) elected to base their energy storage system off of A123 battery modules (7×15s2p) and components. The design included a thermal analysis for various drive cycles and a mechanical analysis of the enclosure built to support and protect the battery modules. The thermal analysis investigated passive cooling versus active cooling and, after identifying active cooling as the best strategy, an appropriately sized cooling loop was developed. The mechanical analysis involved the use of Siemens NX7.5 to develop CAD models for the ESS enclosure components.

Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology is one of 16 universities that competed in EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge, a three year international competition where teams were challenged to design, build, and test a hybrid vehicle architecture utilizing alternative fuels to decrease the energy consumption and emissions production of a 2009 production GM vehicle on a well-to-wheels basis [1]. A hybrid-electric vehicle is a complex system of subsystems requiring the use of advanced modeling tools, distributed control, and rapid-prototyping. The main goal of the competition is to expose students to the tools, methodologies, and development processes of the automotive industry and to give them a running start if they choose to enter that field. Consequently, the goals of the Rose-Hulman team are to learn the use of these advanced tools, apply these tools to design and realize a hybrid-electric vehicle, and then translate that knowledge into general courses offered to all students at Rose-Hulman.

Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology is one of 17 universities competing in EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge, a three year international competition where teams are challenged to design, build, and test a hybrid vehicle architecture utilizing alternative fuels to reduce the energy consumption and emissions production of a 2009 production GM vehicle [ 1 ]. Teams are presently in year one of the competition where students choose an architecture, specify components, and design the vehicle. Design includes both the mechanical integration of the parts as well as design of the supervisory control system for the hybrid system. Year two of the competition is the build phase, and year three is the optimization and refinement phase. The design phase lasts approximately 9 months and most teams will completely replace the original powertrain with a hybrid powertrain.

Model-Based Design is increasingly prevalent in industrial sectors including aerospace and automotive, but lacking from college and university curricula. The need for students to be adept at the modeling of systems, their associated subsystems, and overall system controller as per the standard industry practice is the impetus for The MathWorks, Freescale, and MotoTron to partner with Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology to address the lack of students familiar with this industry standard practice. Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology has created the Model-Based-System Design Center with the express purpose of introducing the philosophy of Model-Based Design to the educational community. This paper describes the function of the Center and the teaching materials currently being generated.

Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology is designing a power-split hybrid-electric vehicle that uses three power sources: a 70 kW Diesel engine that uses B-20 Diesel fuel and two 60 kW induction electric machines. All three power sources are connected through a planetary gear set (PGS). The electric machines move the vehicle in forward or reverse, act as motors or generators, and one of the motors is required to control the speed of the engine. When the three power sources are combined with a battery that must be maintained within specific operating limits, the system becomes a challenging control problem. This paper discusses the simulation methods used to design and verify the operation of the supervisory controller that controls all aspects of vehicle operation.

Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology is one of 17 universities competing in Challenge X - Crossover to Sustainable Mobility, an international competition where teams are challenged to design, build, and test a hybrid vehicle architecture utilizing alternative fuels to reduce the energy consumption and emissions production of a 2005 Chevrolet Equinox while maintaining stock performance, utility and safety. During the first year of competition, our team has capitalized on numerous new technologies in both modeling software and physical components. PSAT was employed for preliminary architecture screening and component sizing while The Mathworks Simulink, SimDriveline, and Stateflow provided the environment for modeling our selected architecture and powertrain components. Our modeling progressed to real-time verification via multiple NI PXI chassis and a local CAN network.

Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology is one of 17 universities competing in Challenge X - Crossover to Sustainable Mobility, an international competition where teams are challenged to design, build, and test a hybrid vehicle architecture utilizing alternative fuels to reduce the energy consumption and emissions production of a 2005 Chevrolet Equinox. Our first year of competition has focused on vehicle simulation in which The MathWorks SimDriveline and Stateflow toolboxes have been used almost exclusively. A model of our vehicle's split train architecture was developed in SimDriveline and Stateflow was used to develop the control strategy. This approach was extraordinarily useful as we could readily identify hazards such as high torque stresses, battery over or under voltage spikes, battery over current spikes, wheel skidding, and rpm limits. We have been continuously improving our model and control strategy to uncover new hazards and verify components specifications and limits.