Eco Shell Marathon 2012 - Europe

[MadMatt]

Is there anybody here coming ? We are bringing our 2 usual cars (1 prototype and 1 urban). Last year we finished 7th with the prototype and 3rd with the urban, but honestly we had no time really to work on them because the school has moved so all facilities had to be moved too and that means lot of difficulties that you can imagine.

[machin]

That looks like a really interesting event, especially now its urban-based.... I'm sure I'm not alone in saying it would be interesting to see some of your car details / photos...?

[spacer]

Hi Matt, I'm also attending for the second year now. We drive a hydrogen prototype, aiming for the 2000 km/litre mark.
What classes do you compete in?

[greenpower dude reloaded]

Hi,

I'm not attending - this year at least. A good friend of mine and I often knock around some ideas for a joint venture in to the SEM. I was involved with my school team and the competition i'm currently competing in Greenpower F24+ see's us construct similar vehicles.

If you're ever after some CFD, let me know, I MAY be able to help.

Good luck!

[MadMatt]

machin, I will take pictures, I just have to ask the professor if I can post them online. You know, every team try to keep his secrets, although most of the things happen inside the engine, so I think its gonna be ok if I post pictures ! Here is our prototype :



spacer, nice ! We are entering 1 year in Urban and 1 in Prototype (like every year). But this year its gonna be difficult, we are totally out of our schedule so we are not sure we will have everything ready by next Monday...

[machin]

Cool!

let us know how you get on!

[spacer]

madmatt, so how did it go?

I really liked the urban setting this year compared to the Lausitzring circuit, lots of visitors too!

Our week exceeded all of our expectations. We managed to get quite some tracktime during practice and reach our 2000km/litre goal in the first run.
We were able to get the car more and more efficient throughout the competition runs and finally set a best score of 2321 km/litre. This means that we have improved on the Dutch national record in only our second year in SEM, something we could only have dreamt about!

Hope you and your team had a succesfull (and fun!) week as well!

For those interested:
Below is a pic of our car. It is a prototype car that uses a hydrogen-powered fuel cell. Car has a full carbonfibre monocoque, total weight 44kg. Rear wheel steering, rear wheel drive. Top speed ~35km/h, average competition speed ~27 km/h.
Fuel consumption: 261 km/kWh, which is the equivalent of 2321 km on one litre of shell 95 gasoline.

[flynfrog]

can you give us some more details on your cars? what do you do for an engine off the shelf of build your own. How did you construct the body ect. This is a technical site and we love the details.

[MadMatt]

spacer, congratulations to your team, that's a very good results ! I hope you can continue like this !

Unfortunately, and as I explained it even before the competition, we were really not prepared for this year's race. We all worked balls out the whole week, average sleeping time was 2-3 hours per night, not so easy to reach the end of the week ! We also had new prototype driver and she was quite scared of the track, so during the 2 runs she used the brakes on 2-3 occasions, costing us quite a lot.

We managed 8th place in prototype (7th place last year) and no result recorded with the urban concept. We had many problems with the engines (we had parts badly machined) so we had to rebuild our engines many times, and we went back to our old ECU system also, but finally on our last attempt an injector seal broke forcing us to retire. 2 runs completed in prototypes and none in urban. Not to mention we were also not able to practice with the urban car because it wasn't working at that time.

Shame, but we were expecting this, with all the things that happened to the school this year. Hopefully next year everything will be set for a good result ! Btw I was the guy with the black cap.

flynfrog, yes we build our engine ourself, but if you want to reach the top 10 you have to ! Our body is old now so we will change it, but some teams have really awesome body kits like the Hungarian guys who finished 2nd this year. Great build quality. There are even cars which are built around a carbon monocoque. Our has a home made tubular chassis and carbon fibre body.

We hope to build a new car for next year tho, using different technology (but still gasoline). There are so many possibilities that when you have been using one for years, and cannot get better results, you have maybe reached what the car can produce !



I really liked the atmosphere, especially from midnight to 8 o'clock when only the "real" ones were there, that was good time !

[flynfrog]

what layout do you use for the engine. I assume its a single. How big, what valve layout ect.

[MadMatt]

Single cylinder engine, yes. I can give few values for an older spec engine, you understand that I cannot give the current specs and all values but you get the idea of the numbers. At the moment it is water cooled.

- bore : 30
- stroke : 42
- intake valve diameter : 14
- exhaust valve diameter : 12

I am currently making a MATLAB model of the whole car as a bachelor project, so we will get a proper simulation tool for the future.

[flynfrog]

Single cylinder engine, yes. I can give few values for an older spec engine, you understand that I cannot give the current specs and all values but you get the idea of the numbers. At the moment it is water cooled.

- bore : 30
- stroke : 42
- intake valve diameter : 14
- exhaust valve diameter : 12

I am currently making a MATLAB model of the whole car as a bachelor project, so we will get a proper simulation tool for the future.

just a 2v then? What does your engine do for you that an off the shelf engine couldnt.

[MadMatt]

To my knowledge, there is no engine on the market with these specifications. And its not just about this. By building our own engine, we can really design the parts with minimum tolerances, achieving better performances for the same engine you "could" buy somewhere. If the camshaft angles are not fully optimal, we just have to change the profile in the CAD program, and machine a new camshaft.

There are few teams running 4 strokes engines used on garden machines, but despite the fact it is very reliable, it is over-sized. And this is a big issue. Our engine is really small and light. At this level of the competition you have to build your own engine if you want to reach the top 10.

[MadMatt]

Rumors have gone through that Shell might force the teams to use front steering wheels rather than at the rear. Anybody heard news about this ? I won't be a part of the team because I graduate this year and that in my school we only work on that car on our graduate year, but I was just wondering.

I am also wondering if there are other members of the forum participating to this competition !