FEV, Inc. Announces Winners of FEV Powertrain Development Award
5/20/2008
The Award was presented on Sunday,
May 18 during the awards ceremony that was held at the conclusion of the
competition. The Powertrain Development
Award considers aspects such as performance, fuel economy, endurance and cost
in determining a winner and uses a quantitative scoring system that is already
well known and tested.
The winning teams were:
1st
place: Royal Melbourne Institute of
Technology (RMIT), 808.4 points, $1,250 prize
2nd
place:
3rd
place:
“FEV is very pleased to be an award
sponsor for the Formula SAE again this year,” said Robert J. Last, vice
president of operations and communications for FEV. “This program, and the preparation that goes
into developing these vehicles, lays a solid, practical foundation in preparing
these students for careers in the automotive industry. It is truly a pleasure
to be involved and to see the exuberance that these students exhibit when faced
with complex engineering problems in designing, developing and fabricating a
vehicle thatperforms well within a set
of very strict performance criteria.”
In addition to adhering to the
rules specified by the SAE, which can be found on its Web site, www.sae.org, students will have also mastered
critical elements of strategy planning, project management, contingency
planning, and logistics management, according to Last.
“What SAE has put together in the
FSAE event is a microcosm of the complete engineering project cycle. It’s not limited to design, development and
build. These students also need to
demonstrate marketing and business development skills as they raise supporting
funds for their projects and are required to defend their project in a detailed
presentation that is, in essence, an engineering study that specifies how they
developed their vehicle solution, along with all the calculations that support
their results. Mastering these skills, truly helps prepare the students for
success in the industry,” said Last.
The FEV Powertrain Development
Award emphasizes the elements that are most important in the development of a
powertrain and provides the engineering student and FSAE team with an
“equation” that can be optimized, much like the product attribute decisions
that today’s powertrain designers and developers must make as they perform
their day-to-day activities. This
results in multiple solutions that a team can employ to win. Full details of the weight factors and
scoring system are available on the SAE website:
(http://students.sae.org/competitions/formulaseries/fsae/corpsponsors/fev_rules.pdf).
The winning team from RMIT finished
nearly 140 points ahead of the rest of the field and dominated the competition
for the 2008 FEV award. The RMIT
solution featured a carbon fiber monocoque body, coupled with a single-cylinder
Yamaha WR450 engine with a 5-speed Yamaha gearbox and electronic fuel
injection. This resulted in a quick,
durable and fuel efficient, light-weight package that posted excellent scores
in every category.
The
The SUNY- Buffalo team adapted a
Briggs & Stratton V-twin engine that was air-cooled, combined with
electronic fuel injection and a CVT gearbox.
About Formula SAE
The Formula SAE® competition is for
SAE student members to conceive, design, fabricate, and compete with small
formula-style racing cars. The restrictions on the car frame and engine are
limited so that the knowledge, creativity, and imagination of the students are
challenged. The cars are built with a team effort over a period of about one
year and are taken to the annual competition for judging and comparison with
approximately 120 other vehicles from colleges and universities throughout the
world. The end result is a great experience for young engineers in a meaningful
engineering project as well as the opportunity of working in a dedicated team
effort.
About FEV
The FEV Group is an internationally recognized powertrain and
vehicle engineering company that supplies the global transportation
industry. FEV offers a complete range of
engineering services, providing support across the globe to customers in the
design, analysis, prototyping, powertrain and transmission development, as
well as vehicle integration, calibration and homologation for advanced internal
combustion gasoline-, diesel-, and alternative-fueled powertrains. FEV also
designs, develops and prototypes advanced vehicle / powertrain electronic
control systems and hybrid-electric engine concepts that address future
emission and fuel economy standards. The
FEV Test Systems division is a global supplier of advanced test cell,
instrumentation and test equipment. The
FEV Group employs a staff of over 1,700 highly skilled specialists at advanced
technical centers on three continents. FEV, Inc. employs approximately 300 personnel at FEV’s North American
Technical Center in
.