Engineering a more fuel-efficient engine from scratch
Last fall, eight engineering students from the ÖŰżÚζSM crowded around a small leaf-blower engine and argued whether it could power the worldâs most fuel-efficient vehicle. Then they tossed it aside and started building a better one from scratch.
Now â after their professors said it was impossible â that engine is at the heart of a new eco-car thatâs headed this week to the Shell Eco-marathon in Houston, Texas. Built by the U of T Supermileage team, the vehicle will compete against other high school and university groups in a worldwide challenge for fuel efficiency.
âThey called us crazy. I canât tell you how many professors said it wouldnât be possible [to create a new engine], considering we only had eight months and a limited budget,â said Jonathan Hamway, co-president of this yearâs U of T team. âIf nothing else, that was a bigger motivator for us: we just wanted to prove them wrong.â
Hamway and the Supermileage team also competed in last yearâs Eco-marathon. They didnât win, but their vehicle travelled 266 kilometres on a single litre of fuel, making it 25 times more efficient than the average Canadian car. In this yearâs competition, they aim to travel even farther on less fuel, while bringing a new world record to U of T.
According to Hamway, they were the only group in North America this year to redesign their engine from the ground up â a task attempted with the help of George Brown student Ryan Billinger and U of T student Nikita Singarayar, who worked on it as part of a .
The Supermileage engine, which is unlike any other of its size, also won first prize among mechanical engineering capstone projects and took home the Wallace G. Chalmers Engineering Design Award.
âThe number one thing we looked at is keeping as much heat in the chamber as possible,â explained Hamway. âSome engines lose up to 70 per cent of their combustion energy as heat loss through the walls and as exhaust gasses.â
The team combatted the issue of heat loss by finding ways to convert the heat into usable energy, which massively increased the efficiency of the engine and makes it a huge contender in Houston.
In addition to building the motor, this yearâs team also redesigned the vehicle body. They replaced last yearâs heavy aluminum components with a streamlined, carbon fibre structure. This made the vehicle much lighter, while maintaining strength.
Jonathan said the diversity of his team was the reason they achieved the seemingly impossible: âWe all come from different backgrounds, not just academically, but personally, and our experiences in life and in school all come together and complement each other.
âWeâve all been exposed to different things: itâs not just whoeverâs in charge in electrical is only doing electrical; we all almost do everything, so that allows for a spread of knowledge. Everybody gets a chance to learn and be part of the team.â
The Supermileage team will compete head-to-head with other teams from across Canada, the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Guatemala. You can follow the competition on Twitter with the hashtag #SEM2014.
The 2014 team consists of co-presidents Jonathan Hamway and Mengqi Wang, as well as Mayukh Chakraborty, Pooya Tolideh, Pranav Kadhiresan, Jacob Shultis, Monica Lee, and Marcus Tan.
Sydney Goodfellow is a writer with the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering at the ÖŰżÚζSM.