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The Formula Lightning is an exciting part of GMI Engineering & Management Institute's motorsports program. This project is an excellent opportunity for students to apply and test their acquired classroom skills in practical applications. Competing in six race events annually, students are exposed to high caliber competitions in engineering design, combined with the thrill of racing. The Formula Lightning is a unique high-speed electric vehicle. Most of the challenging engineering tasks lie within the drive train design and battery system efficiency. Part of the battery system design and development includes a quick and reliable technique for exchanging battery packs under race conditions. Designed and built by GMI students, this project encompasses all fields of engineering giving experience with mechanical and electrical design as well as project management and marketing.

Rape oil, as used in fresh cooking oil (FCO), and the methyl ester derived from waste cooking oil (WCOB100) were tested as 100% biofuels (B100) on a heavy duty DI diesel engine under steady state conditions. The exhaust emissions were measured and compared to those for conventional low sulphur (<50ppm) diesel fuel. The engine used was a 6 cylinder, turbocharged, intercooled Perkins Euro2 Phaser Engine, fitted with an oxidation catalyst. The engine out gaseous emissions results for WCOB100 showed a large decrease in CO and HC emissions, but a small increase in NOx emissions compared to diesel. However, for FCO the CO and HC increased relative to WCOB100 and CO was higher than for diesel, indicating deterioration in fuel/air mixing. The particulate matter (PM) emissions for WCOB100 were similar to those for diesel at the 23kw condition, but greatly reduced at 47kw. The FCO produced higher engine out PM at both power conditions due to a higher volatile organic fraction (VOF).

Results from a wind tunnel testing program of a cab-over truck-trailer combination vehicle are presented. The model is scaled at 1:3, and represents an accurate replica of currently available trucks and trailers in Australia. Cooling intakes have not been modelled. Reynolds number independence is established to the maximum obtainable in the wind tunnel test configuration adopted equating to a full-scale forward speed of 57 km/h. The wind tunnel is a ¾ open jet facility with a nozzle area of 10.9m2. The vehicle is mounted on a turntable to a 6 component force balance. A range of vehicle add-on devices are investigated, including boat-tails, side skirts, cab extenders, air-dams and roof fairings. Drag measurements are presented over a yaw angle range of 10 degrees.

Full scale heavy vehicle aerodynamic testing requires a very large wind tunnel test section, with few wind tunnels having this capacity worldwide. Small scale testing often requires a loss of model detail as well as introducing Reynolds Number and compressibility effects. A ¾ open jet wind tunnel set-up has been developed at Monash University Wind Tunnel that enables testing of 1:3 scale truck-trailer models, of full-scale length up to 18 metres to be tested. The measured drag on longer vehicles is more strongly affected by horizontal buoyancy and long models create additional blockage when yawed. In addition the length of the model means that special care must be taken to ensure that shear layers emanating from the nozzle at the start of the test section are sufficiently separated from the shear layers and wake at the base of the truck.

A KIA Soul was instrumented to measure the relative velocity (magnitude and yaw angle) at the front of the vehicle and in-cabin sound at a location close to the side glass near the A-pillar vortex impingement. Tests were conducted at a proving ground under a range of conditions from low wind conditions (~3 m/s) to moderate (7-8 m/s) wind speeds. For any given set of atmospheric conditions the velocity and sound data at any given position on the proving ground were noted to be very repeatable, indicating that the local wakes dominated the "turbulent" velocity field. Testing was also conducted in an aeroacoustic wind tunnel in smooth flow and with a number of novel turbulence generating methods. The resulting sounds were analyzed to study the modulation at frequencies likely to result in fluctuation strength type noise.