Coming Friday, 26 May, Green Team Twente will be entering its H2∞ hydrogen car in a race against hundreds of teams from all over Europe. At the European edition of the Shell Eco-marathon, a major sustainability race that will be held in London this year, the team wants to at least match the third place it won last year.
Green Team Twente is one of the few Dutch teams to be favourite in its class. The team is competing in the Urban Concept Class, the ‘Royal class’ of the Eco-marathon.
Green Team Twente’s hydrogen car is much improved this year and has also been specially adapted to London’s hilly conditions. The H2∞ can drive for three hours on the amount of energy contained in a Snickers bar. The vehicle represents the team’s vision of the automotive fuel that they believe has the future: hydrogen.
During the Shell Eco-marathon, the contestants attempt to drive as efficiently as possible on their chosen fuel. This year, the European edition of the race is being held for the second time in and around London’s famous Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Last year’s race was held at Rotterdam’s Ahoy stadium. The new racecourse has many steep slopes and sharp corners, including a two-hundred-metre-long incline, a steep descent and a 90-degree corner, and so will pose an interesting challenge for the competitors.
‘All or nothing’
‘We want to get as close as possible to the holy grail of fuel consumption – 1 litre per 1000 km – but it will have to be all or nothing,’ says team leader Vitto Bonnemayers of Green Team Twente. ‘Our predecessors and ourselves have been working towards this intensively and for a long time. We changed the hydrogen car’s transmission so that we can achieve an optimum efficiency of 99.1%. This theoretically enables us to drive from Enschede to Geneva on only one litre of fuel. We also introduced a special clutch this year with which the driver can uncouple the wheels from the engine and so eliminate the resistance of the drive train whenever it is not needed. This considerably increases the efficiency of the car. With all these innovations, we cannot not afford any technical or human errors. In fact, we are our own biggest rival, but we still have plenty of confidence that we will get a top ranking.’
Inspired by Formula 1
This year’s H2∞ has a steering wheel inspired by Formula 1 racing cars. All the vehicle’s controls, from accelerating to switching the lights, are on the steering wheel. The team also built a system for tracking the status of all the components of the vehicle in real time, the CAN OtA (CAN-bus Over the Air). ‘We can use these data to change our driving strategy during the race and gain even more efficiency,’ explains Bonnemayers. ‘We can also adjust the vehicle’s settings remotely if the race conditions change, which is an important advantage.’
First hurdle cleared
The team took an important first step towards their goal last Tuesday when their car passed the technical inspection. ‘Many teams fail to pass the strict inspection,’ says Bonnemayers. ‘You need to comply with 350 rules for safety, technology and more. Our vehicle was deemed technically fit and safe, which is what we expected.’
photo: technical inspection
Green Team Twente 2017
Green Team Twente 2017 involves 19 students from various disciplines. The majority are studying Electrical Engineering or Mechanical Engineering at the University of Twente, but there are also students from Industrial Design, Advanced Technology, Technical Computer Science, Applied Physics and Public Administration and Technology. The Green Team Twente minor is offered as part of various degree programmes.
Green Team Twente will start the Eco-marathon on Friday, 26 May 2017. The race lasts two days. Follow the team on www.greenteamtwente.nl and the social media channels.
