CSU Captures Its First Trophy in the Formula Hybrid Car Competition
Colorado State University’s Formula Hybrid team finished second out of 30 teams in the 2009 SAE Formula Hybrid competition in Loudon, N.H., giving Colorado State its first formula car competition trophy. They scored first in two events - the 75-meter electric acceleration event and the 75-meter hybrid acceleration event.
The team consisted of Joe Bixby, Kyle Butterfield, Matt Craft, Mike Gordon, Adam Havens, Alan Morine and Dave Richards, all seniors in mechanical engineering. Having done so well in the U.S. competition, they hope to raise enough money to compete in Italy’s Formula Electric & Hybrid Competition this fall.
”We are confident in the performance of our vehicle, and it would be a great opportunity to show our innovation on an international level,” said Morine. Morine and his teammates spent time on the 2000-mile drive reviewing all details of the competition; they prepared much of the summary below for their final senior design report.
Formula Hybrid is an international collegiate competition that challenges university students to design, build and race high-performance hybrid drive vehicles. Teams build these open-wheeled, single-seat racecars based upon the 100+ pages of rules governing the competition. This year’s competition was held May 4-6, 2009 in Loudon, New Hampshire, at the Hampshire Motor Speedway.
A combination of static and dynamic events allows teams to compete on all levels. Static events include a presentation of the vehicle’s design, a business case statement aimed at manufacturing and selling the vehicle to the weekend autocrosser, and several technical inspections of the vehicles.
The dynamic events consist of the Acceleration, Autocross and Endurance challenges. Each event is intended to test various performance aspects of the cars. The acceleration event was comprised of an electric-only 75M run that must be completed in 15 seconds or less in order to qualify as a hybrid, and an unrestricted 75M run.
The Autocross event is comprised of four laps around an autocross course, with the best lap time winning.
The last, but most heavily weighted event is the Endurance event where, on approximately one gallon of fuel minus a calculated amount for the on-board energy storage, teams must complete a predetermined number of laps on a more open road course equating to approximately 22 KM. The winner of this event is whichever team with two drivers completes the laps the fastest. Overall competition winners are determined based upon cumulative points earned in each of the events.
The CSU team scored fourth in the engineering design finals where the top four cars are judged best in engineering design, analysis, fabrication, assembly and testing. In the 75 M (~250 ft.) electric-only acceleration event, CSU was able to capture first place with a run of 6.002 seconds. For the unrestricted event, CSU ran in hybrid mode and achieved a time of 5.011 seconds to capture first.
Professor Patrick Fitzhorn was the team’s faculty adviser. "I think the reason they did so well was based on their strong industry support, especially from a Colorado company, Nilar Inc. in Centennial," Fitzhorn said. "Nilar engineers were generous not only with their patented battery technology, but they were equally as generous with their time and information. It is clear to me that this success is specifically due to the partnering between bright and committed CSU mechanical engineering students interested in new energy technologies, and a Colorado company working in state-of-the-art energy systems."
Additional industry sponsors that attributed to the team's success were OtterBox, Curtis Instruments, Colorado Waterjet, Ray’s Motorcycle, USD Racing Tires, Aurora Bearing, Bender, Graybar, Omoon, D&D Motor Systems, and MTO. CSU’s Department of Mechanical Engineering provided financial support.