Product category:
Industrial Drives/Controls
News Release from: ABB Automation Tech (Drives and Motors)
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 03 June 2004
Electric vehicle drives for record in
Tunisia
A British team is aiming to break the world electric land speed record with help from electrical engineering giant ABB.
A British team is aiming to break the world electric land speed record with help from electrical engineering giant ABB ABB has supplied the main engine, made up of an electric motor and electronic drive unit that will propel the 9.75m long vehicle to over 480km/h
This technology is more commonly employed in everyday industrial applications for saving energy in pump, fan and conveyor applications.
In addition, the company is also sponsoring the car - known as ABB e=motion - for its record attempt on the Chott-el-Jerid salt flats in Southern Tunisia on 9th June.
Driver Mark Newby and Engineer Colin Fallows have taken their ABB e=motion car to Tunisia in an attempt to establish a new world record, recognised by the world motor sport organisation FIA, in the face of stiff competition from around the globe.
As an added goal, the team is striving to make the ABB e=motion car the first electrically powered vehicle ever to break the 480km/h barrier.
The drive unit has already helped the ABB e=motion team to unofficially break the British electric land speed record of 224km/h.
During testing at Bruntingthorpe airfield in Leicestershire last summer, the car achieved 235km/h within just 915m, compared with the 3.2km needed by the existing title holders.
"Normally, the equipment we supply is used to power industrial plant such as pumps and fans", explains Steve Ruddell, General Manager of ABB's drives and motors business in the UK.
"This is the first time ABB technology has been used in a record attempt of this nature".
The 485kW car is 9.75m long, and, according to computer simulation, should be capable of 489km/h.
ABB e=motion, designed, built and developed by Colin Fallows, features two motors available from ABB and controlled by an ABB variable speed drive.
The motor and drive system was designed and developed by ABB's applications engineering team in Manchester.
In developing the system, one of the biggest challenges was the need to simulate the vehicle dynamics and performance likely to be experienced during the land speed record attempt without the car actually having run.
"We initially had to develop our system without physically testing the car on a track", explains Ruddell.
"Likely performance was modelled and calculated using a set of estimated conditions involving factors such as rolling resistance, drag and battery discharge rate".
"Much of this information either did not exist or else had to be extrapolated from data found on the Internet, such as when we were trying to obtain figures for potential tyre resistance at 300mph".
Power is provided by 58 Exide Technologies/CMP Orbital Series 800 batteries delivering a total of more than 600V and 2300A.
Final drive to the 25in-diameter Goodyear land speed tyres is via a bespoke belt and pulley system.
ABB e=motion left Dover on June 1st for the overland journey to Tunisia.
The car's first run will be on 9th June, when the team will attempt to set a new world record at the special track provided by the Tunisian authorities near to the southern town of Tozeur.
"Based on the performance of the car so far, we're convinced that the ABB e=motion team will be the new holders of the world electric land speed record", says Ruddell.
"We are very proud to be associated with the attempt and to have played such a key role in the development of the car".
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