With our first pass through scrutineering yesterday, and with our second pass and qualifying scheduled for tomorrow, today was quite a busy today. During the morning we worked on preparing our car for the track, so that we could make our last practice laps before the single-lap time trial. We were inconvenienced by one of our telemetry radios failing; however, our back-up radios are a different technology that we have used for many miles of testing, so we don’t expect this failure to show up again in the future.

After we got Infinium rolling, we were met by Ford Australia’s Global Green Challenge Team. Their eco-cars are starting in their respective class of the Global Green Challenge tomorrow, so they came and visited us at the Hidden Valley Speedway so we could meet each other and see each other’s vehicles. Their eco-cars side-by-side with Infinium and our support vehicles was quite a sight!

After our quick meeting, it was back to the track to get in more practice laps! Our driver, Sudeep Rohatgi, has been able to achieve consistently faster laps each day, putting us in a good position relative to our competition. We did lose some time on the track after Infinium suffered a flat tire after going over a patch of grass. However, after getting back into the car, Sudeep was able to achieve a time that would have challenged for pole position in 2007–quite a feat for a car carrying 25 extra kg of batteries compared to the competition.

At the end of the day, we rolled Infinium through the garages and out into the track’s parking lot. Once in the parking lot, we set up Infinium’s concentrators for an evening charge to further test the system. We received quite a crowd of onlookers–many competing teams were curious about the system, of course. We will be testing the system once again tomorrow for sunrise, then making final bolt-checks before our qualifying run. While Infinium was certainly not designed to be the fastest car around the track, we are very pleased with its track performance so far, and hope that our qualifying result will set us up well for the race.

In order to meet the challenges of transporting our 20-person Race Crew and many of our spare parts across Australia, the Solar Car Team requires a fleet of versatile vehicles for its race caravan.  The University of Michigan team would like to thank Ford Australia for supporting the team by lending us four vehicles that satisfy even the toughest of the race’s demands in the upcoming Global Green Challenge.

The team’s semi trailer approaches Ford Australia’s Head Office

During the afternoon of September 18th, Ford Australia hosted the team at its Head Office in Melbourne. Infinium and two of the four vehicles Ford Australia provided to the team were on display outside of the Head Office, and we had the pleasure of meeting with many Ford employees. Ford Australia’s President and CEO, Marin Burela, joined us to see the solar car and to wish us luck in the Global Green Challenge. Mr. Burela, who previously oversaw Ford’s small cars operations globally, spoke excitedly about the Ford Fiesta and Ford’s other fuel-efficient vehicles that will be taking part in the Global Green Challenge’s eco-car event. Our team is looking forward to competing alongside the consumer vehicles entered into the challenge.

Ford Australia President and CEO Marin Burela speaks with Solar Car Team members

Of the four vehicles Ford Australia is providing to the team, the Ford Territory SUV is a perfect fit for the needs of our Lead, Chase, and Weather vehicles. With three rows of seating, each Territory can carry either seven passengers or five passengers with ample room for extra equipment.  The 30 storage compartments in each car provide plenty of space for any spare parts or tools we may need. Our Chase vehicle even has an LCD screen mounted to the ceiling, so our strategists will be able to use the screen to display telemetry data coming from Infinium. The last of the four support vehicles, Scout, is a Ford Ranger pickup capable of hauling a large cargo load plus a full cab of team members. With these quality vehicles and the generous support from Ford Australia, our team caravan is well-prepared to respond to the challenges we will face in the outback.

Solar Car Team with Lead vehicle, a Ford Territory

Greetings from Adelaide, South Australia, where the team will call home while we prepare for next month’s Global Green Challenge. Last week, our team left Michigan for the 10,000 mile journey to Australia. After some time spent overcoming jet-lag and moving our equipment through international customs, we have settled in to our workspace-away-from-home at Prince Alfred College (PAC) in Adelaide. We are grateful once again this year for the support of PAC, which has provided us the facilities in which we can work as a team. It is great to be reunited with all of our friends and supporters in Adelaide, and we are surely looking forward to the rest of our stay here.

Jeff Rogers and Josh Feldman wind wires in front of the semi trailer at Prince Alfred College.

Our arrival in Adelaide reminds us of how far we have come, and we must thank all of those who have allowed us to achieve so much. The efforts of all of our team members, advisors, faculty members, sponsors, friends, families, and other supporters have all been instrumental in the creation of Infinium.

We would like to especially thank two of our Platinum Sponsors for making our travels during the past week possible: Delta Air Lines, for supporting our air travel to Australia through their new Los Angeles to Sydney flight, and Ford of Australia, for providing us with four vehicles to transport team members and equipment during the race. Stay tuned to hear more about our adventures from the past week!

Coming off our 2008 victory, we have learned that every mile driven on Infinium before the race is one less mile we are likely to break down on the race. Reliability is essential to building a championship solar car, as well as allowing for ample time to make minor tweaks that translate into minutes off the clock.

Infinium at Michigan International Speedway

As of now, Infinium has driven for over 1080 miles (1738 kilometers) and 26 hours with an average speed around 40 mph (65 kph). We have tested the car through a variety of different scenarios: low speed endurance, high speed endurance, precision steering and handling, basic vehicle dynamics, cobblestone road, and open road during rush hour. I am happy to say that with the exception of a few very minor glitches, the car is performing exactly as designed. We also pass all mandated vehicle dynamics testing for both the 2009 Global Green Challenge and the 2010 North American Solar Challenge with a sizable safety factor. In fact, everyone who has driven the solar car attests that it handles significantly better than the vans that serve as our lead and chase vehicles.

Our team would like to thank all the facilites that have graciously allowed us time on their tracks. We have tested Infinium at Michigan International Speedway, Dana’s Ottawa Lake Facility, Ford’s Michigan Proving Grounds, and Autocity Speedway as well as numerous roads neighboring our facility.

Infinium on the Open Road

Solar Car Supporters-

The unveiling is only one week away! We hope you will joing us this Friday June 5th, 3pm at the Henry Ford Museum to witness the unveiling of the tenth-generation Michigan solar car: Infinium. After the unveiling Infinium will be on display outside the museum so you can get a closer look. If you plan on attending, please RSVP here.

Michigan Team’s 20^th Anniversary Solar Car To Be Unveiled At The Henry Ford Museum

May 28, 2009

ANN ARBOR –The University of Michigan Solar Car Team will reveal its much anticipated tenth^-generation Michigan Solar Car, Infinium, during a public unveiling event in the Sally and Wendell Anderson Theater at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich. on Friday, June 5 at 3p.m.

The event will celebrate the past, present, and future of the Michigan Solar Car Team. Beginning with the keynote address given by Susan Fancy, a founding member of the Michigan Solar Car Team, the ceremony will culminate in the unveiling of the tenth-generation Michigan Solar Car, Infinium. Infinium will make its first public appearance just feet away from where the first Michigan Solar Car, Sunrunner, is on permanent display at the Henry Ford Museum. The unveiling will introduce the team members and honor the team’s sponsors, including Ford, GM, Delta, and the University of Michigan College of Engineering. Additional speakers will include David Munson, the Dean of the College of Engineering, Project Manager Steven Hechtman, and Business Director Julia Hawley.

The all-new vehicle is designed, built, and raced by an all-student crew. The Michigan Solar Car Team is the most decorated solar car team in North America, with five North American Championships and three third place finishes at the World Solar Challenge). Infinium will build on the success of previous generations of solar cars while incorporating the newest and most innovative technology available. Showcasing the latest technologies from advanced electric vehicles and photovoltaic systems, Infinium is predicted to be the most competitive Michigan Solar Car yet, achieving top speeds more than 90 MPH and a range of more than 200 miles in the absence of sun.

The 2009 team’s founding vision is to be the best solar car team in the world, leading in performance and innovation. The immediate goal is to bring the World Championship home to the United States for the first time since the inaugural World Solar Challenge was won by General Motors more than two decades ago. Michigan is the defending North American champion and will compete for the World Championship against over 60 universities, private teams, and corporations in the Global Green Challenge (previously the World Solar Challenge), an 1,800-mile cross-continent race through the Australian Outback. The Global Green Challenge begins Oct. 25, 2009.

The UM Solar Car Team is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and is an entirely student-run organization whose solar-powered vehicles compete across North America and throughout the world. Further event and RSVP details, as well as more information about current and former University of Michigan Solar Car Teams, can be found online at www.umsolar.com/unveiling.

Go Fast, Go Smooth, GO BLUE!

Contact:

Julia Hawley, Business Director

University of Michigan Solar Car Team

734-764-2257

http://www.umsolar.com

solarcar@umich.edu

 

The design-build process our aerodymanics team engages in to produce the car is fairly straight forward.  Once World Solar Challenge regulations were released, our entire engineering division quickly poured over every single regulation.  A variety of different aerodynamic configurations were modeled in Unigraphics NX 5.0 and later analyzed in Fluent to determine coefficients of drag.  At the same time, the Mechanical Division determined the respective weights of all the components in the vehicle to understand their impact on the vehicle’s center of gravity as well as the track and wheel base of the car dictated by the aerodynamic shape to determine the ultimate stability of Infinium.  Once the vehicle was determiend to be stable, the Strategy Division took the various coefficents obtained from Fluent, ran vehicle simulations, and the team settled on a body design for Infinium.  

On the path to producing the best car possible, our team is very priveleged to work with some of the best companies in the world.  The model we create in Unigraphics is a meer shell of the car and nowhere close to being manufacturable.  This is the point where Eicher Engineering Solutions steps in.  Eicher Engineering Solutions takes the vehicles body, sections it into each individual component (fairings, upper surface, lower surface, etc.), adds thickness, and refines the aerodynamics.  They are able to do a large amount of the technical work that our team is unable to do.

Once the body has been sectioned accordingly by Eicher Engineering Solutions, our files were then sent to Ford Motor Company and Roush.  For the production of our canopy plugs, low density tooling board was donated by California based Coastal Enterprises to be later machined by Roush.

Rear Canopy at Roush

Our team is also very proud and thankful to have the generous support of Ford in the production of the remainder of the vehicles plugs.  We would especially like to thank John Consiglio, Rick Martin, and all the members of the Design and Milling shop at The Ford Motor Company.  Ford machined the vehicles upper and lower surface plugs as well as all 6 fairings.  The high density tooling board used was kindly donate by McCausey Lumber.  Below are some images of team members at the shop prior to the machining of Infinium’s lower surface.  All of us were in awe at the size and capability of the mill used to make our car.  The machine is run on a magnetic levitation system similar to a bullet train.  Because of this propulsion system,  the only sound that can be heard while running is the sound of the tool bit cutting material. We were told that the mill is large enough to machine an entire F-350 without any refixturing and that the max speed is around 12 mph.  

Team Members in the Milling Room.  Back Row: Chris Hilger, Rachel Unger, Gerald Chang  Front Row: Alex Dowling, John Federspiel, Steve Durbin

Team Members with Members of the Design and Milling Shop with Infinium’s Lower Surface

 

-John Federspiel, Infinium Engineering Director and Crew Chief