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Special Issue – June 29, 2001 |
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Special Issue – June 29, 2001 |
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ITS-Davis e-news is the electronic newsletter of the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies. ITS-Davis e-news reports information directly from ITS-Davis and from campus departments affiliated with the Institute. This is a special mid-summer issue inspired by the FutureTruck team’s national victory. Read the June 2001 Current Issue of ITS-Davis e-news. For previous issues, see the e-news archives.
Contents
Special Issue
June 29, 2001
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UC DAVIS WINS FUTURETRUCK CONTEST: Team Wins Highest Overall Score
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That Chevy Suburban covered in corporate logos sitting in Prof. Andy Frank’s Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering lab at UC Davis is the now-famous hybrid gasoline-electric FutureTruck Suburban. “Sequoia,” as it’s called, was the first place overall winner of the prestigious National FutureTruck Competition at General Motors’ Milford Proving Ground in Arizona, June 4-11.
It’s the same truck that moved to a finish line ceremony and media event on June 13 at the U.S. Department of Energy headquarters in Washington, D.C., and later was on display at the U.S. Capitol with other participating universities’ trucks and team members. Now, Sequoia is back in Davis, where Dr. Frank, development engineer, and team advisor Mark Duvall, Ph.D., and the 34-student strong 2001 FutureTruck “Team Fate” received a hero’s welcome at a reception on campus June 25.
“This win proves that our concept of a plug-in hybrid makes sense not only for truck fuel efficiency but also for lower emissions to benefit the environment,” said Frank. “The most important issue is that the car companies can put these cars and trucks into production today if they are properly encouraged.”
First place overall! This is the second time that Frank and his team have taken a first prize. In 1997, they won the final round of the FutureCar Competition with a modified 57-mpg hybrid gas-electric Ford Taurus. There have now been three full two-year cycles to the FutureCar/FutureTruck competition. With this victory, the UC Davis Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering Department’s team has earned the highest honor in the final overall assessment in two of the three final round competitions. FutureTruck is the follow-on competition to FutureCar.
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Professor Frank and his team reside in the outstanding UC Davis Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, which also administers the Hybrid Electric Vehicle Drivetrain Design Center, one of 10 national Graduate Automotive Technology Education (GATE) Centers of the U.S. Dept. of Energy. A second GATE Center on campus for fuel cell vehicle (FCV) education is administered by ITS-Davis, making UC Davis the only university that is home to two GATE Centers.
During the welcome home reception, Bahram Ravani, Ph.D., chair of the Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering Department, credited the students for their hard work. “Their success is a reflection of the quality of our students. In a competition like this they are benchmarked against others in a national setting,” he said. Dr. Ravani also credited the program, which emphasizes communication and teamwork, as well as design.
The engineering goals of the competition were to take an existing sport utility vehicle and increase its fuel efficiency, lower its greenhouse gas emissions and achieve ultra-low exhaust emissions while maintaining the performance, safety and features that consumers demand in a utility vehicle. Each team developed a unique approach that incorporated computer simulations and models as well as engineering modifications ranging from hybrid powertrains and fuel cells to advanced electronics, lightweight material substitution, alternative fuels and other advanced technologies.
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In both the FutureCar and FutureTruck
competitions, the UC Davis team took a different approach from the competing
universities by designing a plug-in hybrid. This charge-depletion
parallel-hybrid architecture further extends the fuel efficiency of the vehicle
by providing a portion of its travel in all-electric zero-emission mode. The UC
Davis Suburban delivered approximately 28 miles per
gallon while delivering all of the towing, hill climbing, acceleration, cargo
room and range of a stock 15-mpg Suburban. In addition, it achieved
super-ultra-low-emission vehicle (SULEV) status, and traveled 60 miles in
zero-emission all-electric mode.
In
a June 13 Los Angeles Times article, UC Davis’ Mark Duvall said the
team’s FutureCar
experience and the results of the truck program’s desert testing last summer
“taught us that preparation is everything and that the entire project needs to
be well-tested by the time you show up here,” at the finals. Since last
year’s tests, he said, the students “completely redesigned the control
system to make it more reliable and more modular so it is easier to
[reconfigure], and designed a new exhaust system treatment for better emissions.
We think it can now meet the strictest [emissions] standards in California.”
In
addition, the team developed a unique pair of retractable carbon-fiber body
panels that extend from the rear of the Suburban at highway speeds to cut down
on wind resistance, resulting in a 15% reduction in aerodynamic drag.
The top performers were:
First
Place: University of California
at Davis
Second Place: University of Wisconsin, Madison
Third Place:
University of Maryland
Fourth Place
Other competing
universities included: Concordia University, George Washington University,
Michigan Technological University, Ohio State University, Penn State
University, Texas Tech University, University of Idaho, University of
Tennessee, and Virginia Tech.
General Motors and the U.S. Department of Energy are the title sponsors of the FutureTruck Competition. Ford Motor Company will replace General Motors as the automotive sponsor in the second two years of competition while the U.S. Department of Energy will continue to provide financial, organizational and technical support.
“The GM team has always been energized by FutureTruck's mentoring relationships, and continues to be impressed by what the participating engineering students accomplish,” said Dennis R. Minano, GM vice president, energy & environment and chief environmental officer, in a release.
The UC Davis Team credits a large group of corporate sponsors, plus support from key government agencies including California Air Resources Board (CARB), California Energy Commission (CEC), South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD), Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
Visit: http://www.team-fate.net/index.html
CONGRATULATIONS TO ‘01 GRADS: ITS-Davis Students Graduate
ITS-Davis congratulates the latest crop of students who are graduating
this spring or later this summer:
In the ITS-Davis Graduate Group in Transportation Technology and Policy:
In Civil Engineering:
In Ecology:
SUMMER BREAK: Creative Career and Research Placements
Even though regular session classes are out for summer, life goes on at the UC Davis campus, with many researchers and grad students staying in Davis to take advantage of the comparatively quiet time to be productive. ITS-Davis e-news periodically tracks the activities of students in their internship and work-study placements.
In August, Patricia Hendren, a doctoral student in Transportation Technology and Policy and a master’s student in Economics, begins a three-month “co-op” position with the Office of System and Economic Assessment in the Economic Analysis Division of the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center in Boston.
Anthony Eggert, a master’s student in Transportation Technology and Policy is running Ford’s fuel cell program at the California Fuel Cell Partnership in West Sacramento 50 percent time while finishing his degree.
