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CSIRO Media Release | |||
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24 January 1998 |
Ref 98/20 |
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The Aurora 101 Solarcar is a strong contender to be first across the finish line today, in the CitiPower SunRace ’98, from Sydney to Melbourne.
The race is expected to finish at Albert Park in Melbourne around 4pm. As of late yesterday afternoon the Aurora Vehicle Association Solarcar was leading the race.
One of the secret weapons in this space age vehicle is the revolutionary solar-powered wheel motors, that make the car lighter and super-efficient.
In the race this week the car averaged 100 kilometres an hour in some legs, with a top speed of 110 kilometres per hour.
The wheel motors were designed by scientists from CSIRO Telecommunications and Industrial Physics, working with colleagues from the University of Technology, Sydney, UK’s Newcastle University and the Aurora team for use in the solar car.
Careful design has given the motor the astounding efficiency of 98 per cent at 1800 watts, and even better performance at lower power, says CSIRO’s Dr Howard Lovatt, who is also a member of the Aurora team.
A drawback of solar-electric travel is that the batteries and the motor take up a lot of space – but this wheel-motor will help to make solar travel roomier, says Dr Lovatt.
"We built the motor specially for the Darwin to Adelaide solar race, but it is a generic design which could easily become the sort of power unit used in the vehicles of the 21st century," Dr Lovatt explains.
"The circular motor employs a totally new construction which eliminates all iron from both rotor and stator and has a steel and aluminium structure to give the lightest possible weight for the highest power output," Dr Lovatt said.
The result is an engine which is 98% efficient compared to the usual 92-95 per cent efficiency, and weighs only 8.3 kilos compared with 12-16kg for other special solar car motors of similar output. Non-solar car electric motors in common use of a similar rating weigh about 6 times as much and have up to 7 times the losses of the solar car motor.
The armature of the motor consists of coils of very finely stranded wire (litz wire with about 400 strands), wound radially. On each side of the stationary armature disc is a set of powerful supermagnets made from the rare earth alloy neodymium-iron-boron. The result is an armature disc which stays still while the casing and magnets rotate around it.
The team fabricated each pole from a set of four magnets, using a wire saw to form the NdFeB material to create a correctly-shaped magnetic field. With 40 poles and four magnets per pole, a total of 320 individual pieces of magnet are required.
"The design is very generic, and could have quite a lot of uses. It’s a very torquey motor, extremely efficient and light weight."
The motor’s magnets are made from rare-earth compounds and its structure from steel and aluminium, in all of which Australia is richly endowed.
Dr Lovatt believes that when solar travel becomes a major element in world transport, Australia will be well placed to be both a major supplier of the raw materials and of the technology itself.
The car was built under the direction of the Aurora Vehicle Association
by a consortium including CSIRO, University of New South Wales, RMIT, University
of South Australia and Casey College of TAFE.
More information from:
- Dr Howard Lovatt, Motor Designer, CSIRO, Home: 02 9953 0761
Mobile: 0417 250097- Prof. Vic Ramsden, Faculty of Engineering University of Technology, Sydney
Home: 02 9973 2009- Mr David Fewchuk, Secretary Aurora Vehicles Association
Work: 03 9654 7155 Mobile: 0411 250464 - Prof. Vic Ramsden, Faculty of Engineering University of Technology, Sydney
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