Challenge X Team Places in Top Ten

WVU's Challenge X vehicle at this year's competition in Michigan.

West Virginia University engineering students placed ninth among 17 universities competing in the Challenge X: Crossover to Sustainable Mobility competition, North America 's premier college-level automotive engineering competition. The competition was held in the General Motors Proving Ground in Milford, Mich., last week.

The competition involved student teams from 17 universities across the nation competing to re-engineer a Chevrolet Equinox sport utility vehicle to increase fuel efficiency and reduce environmental impact, while maintaining vehicle performance. This was the third year of the competition.

"It is very exciting to be involved with a student competition to develop environmentally friendly, fuel-efficient vehicles that consumers will want to buy," said Scott Wayne, the team’s advisor and an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at WVU. "Our students learn so much from this project – certainly about automotive engineering, but also about project management and teamwork. It is a huge undertaking, but definitely worth the effort."

The teams are using a variety of alternative fuels including biodiesel, ethanol, reformulated gasoline and hydrogen. WVU’s vehicle uses biodiesel fuel. The WVU team is also using ultracapacitors to source high levels of power for short periods of time and still recaptures energy from braking. Ultracapacitors are more robust than batteries and can source more energy in operations, but cannot store as much energy as a traditional battery.

In 2004, the first year of the program, activities focused on vehicle simulation and modeling and subsystem development and testing. In years two and three, students have been integrating their advanced powertrains and subsystems into the vehicle. In the fourth and final year of the competition, students will focus on customer acceptability and over-the-road reliability and durability.

The 17 teams participating in Challenge X include Michigan Technological University; Mississippi State University, The Ohio State University; Pennsylvania State University; Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, San Diego State University, Texas Tech University; University of Akron; University of California, Davis; University of Michigan; University of Tennessee; University of Texas at Austin, University of Tulsa, University of Waterloo, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Virginia Tech; and West Virginia University.

The U.S. Department of Energy and General Motors are the headline sponsors for the Challenge X competition. Argonne National Laboratory, a Department of Energy R&D facility, is providing competition management, team evaluation and technical and logistical support. More than 30 industry sponsors provide participating teams with leading-edge math simulation software, automotive propulsion systems, fuels, emissions-control technologies, fuel cells and other tools and technologies to compete in the program.

06/11/2007