And speaking of fun, and a lot of dedication, here’s a few photos from the Sunswift IVy launch, compliments Michael Blennerhassett. More info on this from the links provided thereafter.
Some specs in brief:
- Dimensions (L) 4.6m (W) 1.8m (H) 1.8m
- Body & Chassis (Frame) Monocoque (Body Material) Carbon Fiber
- Suspension (Front) Double Wishbone (Rear) Trailing Arm
- Steering Rack and Pinion
- Wheels & Tires (Number) 3 (Wheels) Carbon Fiber (Tires) Dunlop Solarma
- Brakes (Front) Hydraulic dual redundancy (Rear) Hand brake (Regen) CSIRO wheel motor
- Energy Storage (Chemistry) Lithium Polymer (Weight) 24.75kg
- Motor (Type) Brushless CSIRO 3 phase DC (Power) 1800W (Efficiency) 98%
- Controller (Type) Tritium wave sculptor (Power) 20KW (Efficiency) 97%
- Solar Array (Quantity) 400 (Type) Silicon A300 + Topcells UNSW (Efficiency) 22%
- Performance (Solar Only@ 5.998m2) 1300W (Max Speed)115 km/hr (Est. Avg.) 85 km/hr
I know many bag out the solar car challenges and see it as superfluous to the real challenge of developing every-day usable, street-wise environmentally viable alternatives to regular transport, but such developments and spin-off technologies go a long way to complementing new EV development. As mentioned in previous posts, some electric vehicles are being developed with solar arrays integrated into the windscreen, oft swept back in new designs (these are used as supplemental battery pack charge, or trickle charge of accessories batteries (every little bit helps)). Sure, I know that to move a 1200kg electric car like mine on solar alone is impossible at the moment, but who knows for the future?
For starters, the flexibility of solar panels is improving; amorphous cells are lightweight and applied to polymers or glass etc. When combined with silicon or high-efficiency thin-film polymers, efficiency can out-perform more conventional Czochralskie/ribbon etc process used for mono/polycrystalline cells as the series resistance (voltage drop between junction and terminal given same current) is less; (I’d be interested to know the resistance measured in the IVy array top-cells). Efficiency can be as good as 25% for amorphous cells. They’re still expensive – for now. Other applications include BIPV, that’s photovoltaic cells used in office block arrays for trapping energy. Transparent cells consisting of a tin oxide coating are laid behind glass or plastic etc to conduct current from a cell containing titanium oxide coated in a photoelectric dye.
Now I’m not really well-versed with the tech used in the IVy but the conventional cells would primarily use visible light and infrared to generate electricity and the top-cells they’re using are around 22% efficiency. They’re pretty good for what you can get today. In future vehicles it could be possible for partially-opaque or wholly transparent cells to trap UV only, allowing visible light to pass, thus using the UV portion to generate power and one wouldn’t even know there’s a solar array integrated. Again, surface area is important and a layering (rather like triple glazing or ‘tandem’ arrangement) could be possible with minimal loss. A future car’s entire body could be a solar array but it would look like an ordinary car. Now I’m rambling, but such are the possibilities of future energy solutions that people like the Sunswift team are constantly investigating.
I wish them the very best in the upcoming 2009 World Solar Challenge and hope they powertrack to number 1!
More info on the IVy project:
Nice intro page; kind of reminds me of a Forbidden Planet scape (minus Robby the Robot!).
Oh, and here’s a link for the controller – http://www.tritium.com.au/products/TRI50/index.html
