by Marianne Brokaw

MTU students are working on a problem with no clear-cut answer. The solution is not in the back of an instructor's manual. In fact, there is no instructor's manual.

If this sounds like a challenge, you're right.

Specifically, Michigan Tech students are in the second year of a two-year electric vehicle competition called the FutureCar Challenge, "a collaboration that brings together the brightest minds of government, industry, and academia in an effort to 'reinvent the American automobile,'" according to Vice President Al Gore.

Others are saying the FutureCar Challenge is the moon race of the '90s, requiring new technology, imagination, and horse sense-perfect for MTU students.

After Northern Auto of Hancock delivered Tech's Intrepid in fall 1995, more than 100 can-do students from disciplines across the University formed about a dozen teams, many with faculty advisors, all focused on different aspects of the project from design to public relations. Armed with the optimism of first-time competitors and twenty-plus pages of guidelines, restrictions, and criteria, they rolled up their collective sleeves and peered inside.

Then they ripped out most of the car's innards.

Appropriately called the NorthWind, the car had to be transformed from the inside out into a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV), which depends on both battery power and an internal combustion engine.

Researchers have found that cars using just batteries for power have a short driving range, perhaps 50 to 120 miles. An HEV, using an internal combustion engine combined with batteries to power it, can have the driving range of a mid-sized car-probably 250 to 400 miles.

Two basic configurations of HEVs prevail: parallel and series. Many parallel hybrids, for example, power the wheels with both the electric drive motor and the internal combustion engine. After much research by the modeling team, MTU chose the series hybrid configuration, which utilizes the gasoline engine to produce electricity, while the electric motor drives the wheels. The batteries are used for temporary energy storage. Power is drawn from the battery pack with a heavier power demand. Through "regenerative braking," the electric motor also charges the battery during braking for extra fuel economy.

The vehicle modeling team had to decide what was reasonable for the students to achieve. Graduate student Cornelius Opris, modeling team chair, said after looking at the judging criteria, they needed to know how each parameter required by the competition would affect the mileage, and they needed to weigh the interaction of the criteria. For example, how did vehicle weight, drag coefficient, and rolling resistance affect the mileage?

The team designed their own computer program to give different estimates, which led them to the basic approach and control strategy of the vehicle. Using fundamental principles, they calculated the vehicle power requirements, based on the EPA city and highway driving cycle. The key strategy was to operate the engine at its most fuel-efficient condition through these cycles, while meeting the power requirements through the use of the electric motor.

The Tech team had to set itself some goals to carry them through the maze of timelines, theories, and technicalities.

"We said, 'keep it simple,'" smiles student Matt Hortop, electric systems chair. That was the first goal. "We had to remember that we were just getting our feet wet."

Another goal was to use existing, leading-edge technology. "The students used a lot of wisdom in not trying to invent their own technology," remarked Bill McGarry, Michigan Tech's chief financial officer and FutureCar champion, "instead, they did a lot of creative problem-solving."

Finally, but foremost, the students wanted a driving car by the first day of competition. Although that may seem obvious, at least one school assembled their car at the competition, another didn't show, and a third had a nice-looking undrivable car.

Students Trevor Warfel and Todd Robinson, '97 competition co-chairs, found the entire previous year was a learning experience. As Warfel and others soon learned, "There's no book on how to build a hybrid electric vehicle."

One large hurdle was familiarizing themselves with HEVs. The team read other student competition project reports, searched the Web, and called electric-vehicle manufacturers to learn specifications. "It's difficult for the students to call and talk to an experienced engineer. The engineers know the lingo and the key words," said Robinson. Students also had to be able to justify why they wanted these innovative, expensive, often one-of-a-kind prototypes.

This experience created a base of in-house knowledge for the team, says Warfel. "We can discuss design issues. We see ourselves as researchers."

Back to the Future--With Confidence

After seeing the flux-capacitor-driven moving lights on the center console (a la Back to the Future) and a Mountain Dew® bottle holding engine coolant overflow under the hood, it was clear that different ways of thinking came easily to these hard-working, hands-on, fun-loving students-the kind of people who like to tinker in the garage, sometimes all night. Probably not the type of person you visualize doing high-level research.

Yet that's why the giants of industry are looking toward these relatively inexperienced students for new ideas.

"Young people have the fewest constraints on their creativity," said Mechanical Engineering Professor Carl Anderson, faculty advisor for the project. Most designers and manufacturers are used to the "steel" mode of thinking. But the standard ways of building a car are being thrown out.

For example, the motor/alternator team did their own engineering on the alternator. They took a mechanical, not electrical, engineer's viewpoint on the problem. "Other design results were too big to fit in the car and we needed to control our rpm's," explains Robinson. The team wanted the voltage to drop quickly with load, but the manufacturer they chose hadn't built an application that way before. They thought the design was wasteful. But Robinson's group prevailed.

"The alternator works great. It is perfect for our application."

This enthusiasm and confidence carried them over a lot of pot holes.

The five to six faculty advisors helped keep the team focused. Anderson explained that they were there to give advice. Without actually telling them what to do, "We try to keep the students from going down a dead-end road." But the unexpected always occurs.

When Anderson learned on January 20 that "we missed the electric motor we wanted by three hours," he felt some doubt MTU could have a drivable car by June. The team had been in a healthy technical disagreement about motors and was trying to decide between the Unique Mobility electric drive system and an alternative from GM. When the decision was made to go with Unique Mobility, the University of California-Davis got there first and bought the only one.

Tech had to wait for another electric motor. Then they blew up part of its controller. Professor Anderson was very aware of the timeline. "Ideally, procurement should be over by December. Testing should happen in March through May."

"We learned to work fast within bounds," said Hortop. The pressure built. Robinson confessed the team was "getting parts in the mail on the last day," but he remained confident. "I always thought it would go."

 The team's confidence paid off. MTU had its drivable car. Anderson, who spent fourteen hours per day, seven days per week with the team in Dearborn, was proud. "When we rolled in, sponsors were delighted that a first-time school could do it in a year-actually nine months."

Tech didn't win in this first round of the competition, but came in a respectable seventh out of twelve schools.

The NorthWind: Year Two and Beyond

The students want to make two major improvements before the second round-using a more-efficient engine and better batteries.

The engine will be a direct fuel-injected, two-stroke Mercury Marine-better optimized, more-advanced, and smaller. They want to move this smaller engine up front to avoid the hot-engine compartment problems they had last time, which caused parts failures and higher emissions.

The team is also looking into smaller lead acid batteries, after considering nickel metal hydride but learning the charging requirements were too strict to be used in a hybrid vehicle.

Although the second year of the competition involves less theory, the students will have to solve finer aspects of increasingly complex problems. Weight reduction is a major issue when increasing mileage is a factor. At the competition "we were the lightest Intrepid," noted Professor Bruce Pletka, faculty advisor from metallurgy. The NorthWind still weighed about 700 pounds more than a standard Intrepid. "Battery weight killed us," said Aaron Klopp, chair of the materials reduction group.

They initially reduced weight, for example, by using aluminum wheels and replacing the window glass with Lexan®, a plastic polymer. For year two they may want to make the hood and trunk lighter. "If we replace the steel hood with a fiber-reinforced plastic and save only a pound or two, would it be worth it?" asks Pletka. The students need to factor in testing and safety criteria with cost.

Customer comfort and satisfaction as well as tighter emissions standards will play a bigger role in the second round of competition. Hortop has high hopes. "We learned a lot by being there, like where to put things. Some teams were better at hiding or putting things in better places."

Robinson, who spent most of his time under the car at the last competition, is willing to go out on a limb: "My prediction is we will finish in the top three. We've got the energy and the ambition."

 Noting that the rules didn't forbid painting the car a different color, the students painted the NorthWind "Dodge Viper Yellow." When Detroit school children viewed the line up of twelve cars-eleven red cars, one yellow-they acclaimed Michigan Tech's to be the best: "It was the coolest color." The car not only caught the eye of these future consumers, but the press as well. Anderson saw the TV crews all head for the yellow car. "It's very visible."

Beyond winning, visibility means good things for MTU. Top manufacturers, government agencies, and industry leaders know Tech can compete with the best. McGarry, who also attended the competition, explains "the project was direct marketing and advertising in front of the people who are making the hiring and contribution decisions. If you really want solid hands-on engineering talent, Tech is the place to come." These now-experienced student-researchers are valuable to industry.

Not only are manufacturers getting new ideas from students, companies say that instead of training graduates for 112 years after hiring, they can put this kind of student right on a project. Anderson notes that Unique Mobility is training Robinson to program a new top-of-the-line controller the company developed, "giving us the power to do exactly what we need" on the car.

Working on the challenge has also directly benefitted the students. Hortop was invited to a dinner with Gore, was named the '96 Departmental Scholar in Tech's electrical engineering department, and has had interviews and a job offer, all due to participating in the Challenge.

Many students, even those not involved in the actual Challenge, are gaining in the classroom. Anderson assigns FutureCar design projects in class. The mechanical engineering-engineering mechanics department is changing their curriculum to add required senior design-projects experience. Pletka also brings FutureCar ideas into his metallurgy classes. "It's good for getting students into thinking about materials substitution. I can bring components into class and show how things are being done."

FutureCar is just one of the many exciting design projects undertaken by MTU students. Although Michigan Tech has a long history of competing in similar national competitions (such as Formula SAE, Mini Baja, Aero Design, and concrete canoe), it's clear that FutureCar generated unprecedented University-wide cooperation and support that many believe should continue.

"We don't want this project to go away," explains Warfel. "We want it tied to other student design projects. Students need a place to work and funding support. FutureCar is the catalyst for that support."

In an arena usually occupied by experienced engineers, Tech's students at all levels are engaged in serious R&D. But the folks in the baseball caps don't have time to reflect on that. They have a car to work on. Winter's here and the countdown for the June 1997 competition continues on their home page-(http://project.ee.mtu.edu/futurecar.html) "Only 15 weeks left 'til competition." Another timeline ticks away.

It's hard to predict if industry will adapt Michigan Tech's series hybrid configuration (or the recycled Mountain Dew® bottle) as a FutureCar feature. But the NorthWind is already a success in the eyes of its designers.

Warfel can't hide his enthusiasm. "It's our baby. We love it a lot!"

Robinson sits back and grins, "It drives real nice."

Up here, when the north wind rolls in, MTU students are in the driver's seat.