CENTER FOR AUTOMOTIVE RESEARCH RECEIVES FUNDING FROM DOE
COLUMBUS -- The Center for Automotive Research at The Ohio State University recently received an award from the Department of Energy (DOE) to sponsor graduate student research of hybrid electric vehicles -- ones that run on a combination of gasoline and battery power.
The award, coupled with funding from industry, is helping the College of Engineering establish a new graduate curriculum for the study of hybrid electric drive trains and control systems.
DOE gave Ohio State and eight other universities Graduate Automotive Technology Education (GATE) awards “to help design and develop automotive technologies that will lead to a clean and ultra fuel-efficient car of the future."
Each university will receive a maximum of $200,000 over two years to develop curriculum and laboratory projects, as well as $100,000 per year for fellowships to students who pursue an advanced engineering degree in this area.
“GATE will help accelerate progress on the development and use of major new critical automotive technologies. It will help build a work force of skilled automotive professionals unparalleled anywhere in the world,” said Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson during the announcement.
Giorgio Rizzoni, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Ohio State, said that the GATE award will “enable the university to recruit high-caliber graduate students. We will develop two new graduate courses and build two new laboratories in which they can learn about hybrid vehicles and actually build cars as they work toward a master’s or Ph.D. thesis. The curriculum will also be supported by existing electrical and mechanical engineering courses in internal combustion engines and transmissions, electric machines, and the related control systems.”
Rizzoni explained that engineers are now trying to develop hybrid electric vehicles because they perform better than vehicles powered by electricity alone. For instance, a fully charged electric car could cover only 40 to 50 miles, not the 200 to 300 miles most people expect from a traditional car with a full tank of gas. What’s more, the infrastructure required to maintain a city full of electric vehicles simply doesn’t exist.
“We’d have to build charging stations like we build gas stations,” said Rizzoni.
While a typical drive train includes a gasoline engine and transmission, a hybrid drive train combines an electric motor and battery pack, or other energy storage elements, with a traditional but leaner engine.
Most people, Rizzoni said, never run their car’s engine at its maximum power rating. A hybrid vehicle with a smaller engine could easily maintain the more common speeds of 60 to 70 miles per hour while cutting fuel consumption and exhaust emissions in half.
In such a scenario, an electric motor would power acceleration, and capture waste energy from the brakes during deceleration to recharge the battery.
The new graduate program will let Ohio State researchers and students investigate hybrid electric drive train design. DOE is also encouraging the winning universities to partner with companies in the auto industry which can offer jobs or internships to GATE fellows, share research facilities and equipment with the university, and provide guest lectures.
In addition to DOE support, fellowship funds are also being solicited from (or have already been contributed by) automotive industry partners, including Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp., DaimlerChrysler Corp., Delphi Automotive Systems and Visteon Automotive Systems. It is envisioned that as many as 15 graduate fellowships may result from the combined DOE-industry effort.
Rizzoni and six other Ohio State professors will manage the new students: Gregory Washington, assistant professor of mechanical engineering; Yann Guezennec, associate professor of mechanical engineering; Ali Keyhani, professor of electrical engineering; Steve Yurkovich, professor of electrical engineering; Donald Houser, professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Center for Automotive Research; and Krishnaswamy Srinivasan, professor of mechanical engineering and acting associate dean of the College of Engineering.
Other winners of GATE awards included the University of California-Davis, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, University of Maryland, University of Tennessee, West Virginia University, Michigan Technological University, University of Michigan at Dearborn and Pennsylvania State University. The other universities will be focusing on vehicle technologies such as fuel cells, lightweight materials, direct injection diesel engines and advanced energy storage.
Contact: Giorgio Rizzoni, (614) 292-3331; Rizzoni.1@osu.edu
Written by Pam Frost, (614) 292-9475; Frost.18@osu.edu