FORMULA HYBRID
2010 saw the first international collaboration build an entire FSAE car, and GFR followed up its good work this year by winning the event for a second year running
BOLOGNA
As well as mechanical and automotive engineers,
Formula Student also presents challenges to electrical engineers, and the increase in the standard of the electronics systems seen on the 2011 entries was phenomenal. Almost every car on the grid had some type of updated or modified ECU and data loggers to monitor everything from tyre temperatures to water coolant pressures. The team from Bologna, Italy had a particularly interesting design, which was entirely self-made. ‘It has been a challenge, even with our two professors from the University,’ said a team representative. ‘We used National Instrument hardware and the same company’s Labview software for the control of the engine bench.
We programmed everything – the FPGA and the real time. The results are very interesting because we can change everything with only our ECU, compared to other teams that have two or three control devices. This year we also introduced electric actuation of the gear change. We can even control the engine in real time, which allows freedom of use,’ enthuses one of the students. This advance technology
comes at a price, but not if you are the first team to do it. ‘In the first year, National Instrument lent us the ECU but, seeing the interesting results at the end of 2010, they gave it to us for free. If you have a commercial ECU you cannot change the softness of the ECU, but we can, so it’s possible to really do everything.’
place with the fastest time of 61.463 seconds, just seconds faster than both second and third place finishers and long-time advocators of wings, University of Kansas and Maryland. Saturday’s Endurance and
Fuel Economy events concluded the competition just prior to the award ceremony. Fifty two cars took the green flag in Endurance but only 30 cars received the chequered flag and of those, two were outside the maximum permitted time limit. Once again, ETS finished the event first with the fastest time of 1345.438 seconds, having hit a total of three cones. The University of Maryland entry was a close second with a time of 1352.107 seconds and two cones, and in third place was University of Wisconsin-Madison with a time of 1369.156 seconds, also with two cone penalties. Capturing first place in Fuel Economy for the second year running was University of California, Irvine, who last year showed up with a car containing a Briggs and Stratton engine primarily built for fuel economy. The award ceremony wrapped
up the day with École De Technologie Supérieure being announced as first place overall, University of Oklahoma taking the second place slot and University of Wisconsin-Madison third.
Building a bespoke electronics system for a competition car is a major achievement, but the students from University Bologna, Italy went one better and even programmed their own ECU
The 2011 competition ended with the announcement that the 2012 Formula SAE competitions will be located in Brooklyn,
Michigan and Lincoln, Nebraska. FSAE MICHIGAN Joining the ranks with only two other teams (University of Texas- Arlington and Cornell University) to pull off a back-to-back first place finish in the history of Formula SAE, Global Formula Racing (GFR) – an international team collaboration consisting of students from Oregon State University and Duale Hochschule Baden-Württemberg-Ravensburg of Germany – clinched that honour when it was named first place finisher at Saturday night’s award ceremony in MIchigan. To take the overall title, GFR obtained first place in three of the most highly sought after categories, including Engineering Design (sponsored by PTC), Endurance and SAE Spirit of Excellence. Along with those first place finishes, GFR captured eight more awards in various other events. The collaboration started with
students designing aspects of each other’s vehicles, but moved to a whole new level last year with the two universities working together as one to design and build an entire car to enter both in the US and EU competitions. Formula SAE Michigan’s
competition returned to the Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn for its fourth year, making use of recent updates to the site, including the construction of suites, which were used for the Presentation category. All the dynamic events were held on the back side of the oval, which will be re-paved for next year’s competition. Over 100 teams registered
for the competition, with 99 bringing working vehicles to the event, representing colleges and universities from Austria, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Mexico, Singapore, South Korea, UK, USA and Venezuela. Technical inspection approved all 99 cars, but not all passed through the subsequent fuel / tilt and brake / noise tests. After a full day of Design judging, 13
September 2011 •
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