www.chinabuses.org: The University of Warwick recently opened a unique £2.28m facility at the WMG (Warwick Manufacturing Group), part of the University of Warwick that will be of vital importance to companies developing engines for hybrid vehicles, according to the University representatives, since this Vehicle Energy Facility (VEF) is the UK’s only purpose built hybrid powertrain testing facility for the automotive sector that is not owned and operated by an individual automotive company. The VEF facility will give businesses access to the state-of-the-art equipment and research support.

Midlands Hybrid Testbench 2011

The new facility will use two dynamometers with the advanced Texcel control system plus a Robot Driver to allow the testing of various hybrid powertrain designs. The two dynamometers are installed in parallel and can test electric motors gasoline, diesel,ethanol and Bio-fuels based internal combustion engines.

The VEF also includes a battery simulator and test station and full exhaust emissions measurement capability. The VEF will test transmission and powertrain systems, whilst simulating the powertrain components that are not available for test. These tests provide strategies for evaluating the optimisation of the vehicle’s powertrain and how it will operate in the real world.

According to professor Paul Jennings from WMG, the new VEF builds on the research work of WMG’s Hybrid Vehicle Research Group which, alongside its industrial partners, has created technical and cost modeling tools for hybrid vehicle development. These include WARPSTAR (WARwick Powertrain Simulation Tool for ARchitectures) which can be used to model the performance of any hybrid vehicle architecture, and is currently being enhanced to include real world driver behaviour.

Source : www.chinabuses.org

Editor : Busworld

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Tags: Hybrid powertrain testing facility