MU hydrogen car shows potential in Houston race
The team participated in the Shell Eco-Marathon.
Published April 6, 2010
With just days to go before a big annual race, the Mizzou Hydrogen Car Team was racing to fix a couple last-minute problems with its car, including cracked support ribs and a broken drive shaft.
The team was able to design and build another drive shaft in the five hours it had to spare before leaving for Houston, but the problems did not stop there.
"We kept on having problems with the electrical system, so we missed the first day of races by half an hour trying to get the systems right," sophomore team member Jonathan Tylka said.
The Mizzou Hydrogen Car Team traveled to Houston last week to compete in the annual Shell Eco-Marathon. The competition, which was held March 26 through March 28, pits 50 teams against each other in a battle to design the most efficient vehicle.
A hydrogen car is an electric car in which the electricity is produced by a hydrogen fuel cell on board. A reaction in the fuel cell separates the electrons from the protons and generates the electricity.
Although the MU car didn't finish the entire race, it reached the hydrogen equivalent of 480 miles per gallon, which would have been enough to win its division in the event.
Tylka, a mechanical engineering major, is one of about 40 students on the team, though he estimates only about 20 to 25 participated in the actual building of the car.
The MU car competed in the UrbanConcept division of the competition, Tylka said. The division features cars with four wheels, a door and a trunk, more closely resembling a typical car than those in the Prototype division, which have only three wheels and are built purely for efficiency.
"From 1990 to about 2003 we were a solar car team," sophomore Marc Canellas said. "But we had taken the solar project about as far as it could go. At that point, it was a matter of buying better parts, not working on better engineering."
Canellas said the team switched to hydrogen because it is the fuel of the future.
"Hydrogen is where the future is heading," Canellas said. "With solar energy, you have to wait on the sun. Hydrogen is portable. All you have to do is refuel."
The hydrogen car most recently raced is the second built by the MU team. Tylka was involved in the second project, dubbed Tigergen II, from its beginning.
"I came in as a freshman when they started designing Tigergen II," Tylka said. "They had made six solar cars before switching to hydrogen and then one non-competition hydrogen car to transfer the thought process from solar to hydrogen."
Work on the car reached a peak in the month before the event.
"Starting about a month before the competition we had people working on the car almost 24 hours," junior chemical engineering major Jennifer Claybrooks said.
Once the kinks seemed to be worked out, the car stalled on the sixth of 10 laps. Still, Tylka was impressed by the resiliency of the team.
"It was really cool to see all the teamwork that went on to solve problems, to integrate all the different pieces of the project into one moving team," he said.
Canellas said the efforts this year would benefit the team in future races.
"We surpassed our expectations," Canellas said. "We could have won our first time entering the competition. We can now look at what we have and what needs to be redesigned for next time."