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VideoRecent Projects: Transportation
Big Green Bus Energy Metrics
Team: Jules Valenti, Erin Dauson '11, Valerie Hanson
Sponsor: The Big Green Bus
Advisor: Professor Christopher Levey
The Big Green Bus, which runs on waste vegetable oil, promotes sustainable practices. The crew asked us to develop an energy metrics system that measures, analyzes, and reports electrical energy use and fuel use on the bus. We divided this project into three systems: fuel, electrical, and network integration. To provide near-instantaneous miles-per-gallon efficiency and report tank levels, we implemented fuel-flow and fuel-level sensors. The electrical energy monitoring system measures 24V DC and 110V AC usage, with one sensor per socket and one RFID reader for each set of two sockets. An extra current sensor along with a power resistor acts as a voltage sensor for the system. The monitoring system uses multiple microcontrollers to read the sensors, calculate the power being used at each site, identify devices as they are plugged in, and sort power consumption by individual loads. The network component consists of collecting sensor data, logging data, and displaying the processed data. The display portion includes a dashboard display of speed, mileage, and fuel economy, a realtime local display of all energy metrics, and a website display.
Dartmouth Formula Racing: Driver Controls
Team: Matthew Chong '11, Yiwei Wang '11, Adam Dohner '10
Sponsor: Dartmouth Formula Racing
Advisor: Professor Kofi Odame
For this year's entry in the Formula Hybrid Competition, DFR is looking to improve upon last year's driver controls. Our goal is to create paddle shifters that would allow the driver to shift without removing his or her hands from the wheel. To minimize the time it takes to shift, and thereby the time the car is not accelerating, we will implement a clutchless shifting system by momentarily stopping the spark to the engine. We are using an electro-pneumatic system to control the shifter and clutch. With the energy-recovery feature of a hybrid vehicle, managing the regenerative braking also falls under the category of driver controls. Rather than separate the electric and hydraulic brake controls, as has been done on past cars, we will combine the two into a single package.
Dartmouth Formula Racing: Modular Front Wheel Motors
Team: David Lindberg, Eric Mann, Yoon-Ki Park
Sponsor: Dartmouth Formula Racing
Advisor: Professor Erland Schulson
We have produced a novel front wheel drive system for Dartmouth's Formula Hybrid racecar. Modular front wheel motors have the potential to aid in cornering ability, provide more effective regenerative braking, and be a simple "bolt-on" addition to future DFR hybrid racecars. We incorporated all of these features into a system that can be manufactured, assembled, and fully integrated with the vehicle controls system on the racecar. A thorough review of the necessary features of the uprights and drivetrain was conducted over the course of the project. The uprights were optimized for manufacturing, and a significant redesign of the drivetrain simplified the design and reduced the number of parts.
This team received the 2010 Dartmouth Society of Engineers Prize.
Dartmouth Formula Racing: Vehicle Cooling
Team: Chris Bustard '10, Benjy Meigs '10, Sam Peck '10
Sponsor: Dartmouth Formula Racing
Advisors: Professor Horst Richter, Chi-Yang Cheng
Dartmouth Formula Racing's gasoline-electric racecar had experienced problems with overheating of its high-voltage components in the past. The cooling team designed two parallel liquid-cooling systems — one for the car's internal combustion engine, and one for its electric motor and high-voltage control unit. Based on extensive testing and computer modeling, the team developed a cooling solution that minimized weight and drag from radiators, kept the engine at a target temperature for efficient operation, and allowed the electric system to be located closer to the car's center of gravity for improved handling.
Dartmouth Formula Racing: Vehicle Dynamics
Team: Erik Bell, Erik Stig Lundqvist, Ben Sampson
Sponsor: Dartmouth Formula Racing
Advisor: Professor Solomon Diamond
Dartmouth Formula Racing designs, builds, and races formula-style race cars against other engineering schools. The vehicle dynamics package maximizes the traction between the tires and tarmac. The deliverables for this project include complete design and fabrication of the front and rear vehicle dynamics packages as well as a thorough understanding and optimization of the handling of this year's formula hybrid car. Analysis was done using CAD models, MATLAB simulations, static and dynamic force analysis, and racecar geometry software. Front and rear packages were both machined in the Thayer School machine shop.
This team received the 2009 Dartmouth Society of Engineers Prize.
Design And Construction Of Flight Data Recorder
Team: Benjamin Homelson-Meister, Oscar Molin, Jacob Jurmain
Sponsor: Charles Nearburg '72 Th'74
Advisor: Professor Stephen Taylor
Current methods of gathering flight characteristic information on small aircraft for certification purposes are expensive, slow, imprecise, and a bottleneck to development. They consist of having an FAA test pilot fly the plane multiple times and record observed instrument readings by hand. STOL Aviation, makers of the Arctic Tern airplane, commissioned our group to build a flight data recorder and sensor system for the Tern to replace the crude manual methods. This effort was entirely successful, and the FAA has displayed strong enthusiasm about the system's potential to revolutionize their certification process.
