ENERGY CLASS

UNIBOAT – ARGONAUTS TEAM

University of Bologna

The Team

UniBo has participated for numerous years now in the FSAE competition in which a group of students build a race car that competes with those from other universities all around the world As an initiative to expand the learning by doing projects led by students outside of the automotive world, the UniBo A T team was created on December 2019 The Energy class has been chosen as being the one that allows for the more innovative and diverse powertrain concepts A hybrid hydrogen/electric powertrain was the base idea of the project UniBo A T UniBo Argonauts Team is a project born at the University of Bologna with the aim of putting the skills of its students into practice on eco sustainable challenges At first, only a few PhD students started the preliminary powertrain
analysis and as ideas became clearer and the project more defined, more graduate students from different engineering sectors got involved based on the need of the proposed boat project The engineering’s involved are mechanical, electrical, energetic, and control and automation The team works on the design and realization of a boat with an electric motor powered by a high efficiency battery, a hydrogen fuel cell and photovoltaic panels The main aim is to develop forward looking technologies that can be applied not only on the marine industry but also other forms of transportation.

The Project

Boat and powertrain components and features
• 2 kW PEM Fuel Cell coupled with 9 l 200 bar hydrogen tank
• Self built Li ion battery pack Custom design casing and BMS
• Monocrystalline PV panels with custom MPPT Self designed mechanism for instant panel orientation adjustment
• Torqeedo Motor with custom built inverter for increased power delivery and greater electrical efficiency
• Self developed control strategy for real time energy management and power demand control
• Reutilization of a FSAE race car frame for the construction of the cockpit

The main idea of the project was to incorporate a hydrogen/electric powertrain that until now has never been explored by the university and add high efficiency solar panels as means to gather extra green energy during the race Self built electrical components such as DCDC converters and motor inverter are used in the optics of a more tailored solution as well as the search of increased performance and efficiency From the construction stand point, the reutilization of the race car frame imposed manly a weight challenge, being made of mainly steel tubes, but a lightening process was evaluated and possible modifications were carried out.