Eco-Runner Team Delft
| Full name | Eco-Runner Team Delft |
|---|---|
| Base |
Delft, Netherlands 51°59′58.5″N 4°22′35″E / 51.999583°N 4.37639°ECoordinates: 51°59′58.5″N 4°22′35″E / 51.999583°N 4.37639°E |
| Team Manager |
.svg.png){kind=small} Eva Smeets |
| Website |
ecorunner |
| Founded | 2005 |
Eco-Runner Team Delft is a student team from the Netherlands, aiming to build extremely fuel-efficient hydrogen powered vehicles. Since its first appearance at the Rockingham Speedway in 2006, the team has participated in multiple editions of the Shell Eco-marathon, in which it has achieved a fuel burn equivalent of 3653 km/L last year. The office of the team is situated in the D:Dream hall of the University of Delft, where other dream-teams are situated as well.
About the Team
Eco-Runner Team Delft was founded by a handful of technology students in the Netherlands in November 2005. In its first year, the team consisted of eleven second year students of the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Delft University of Technology. Seven of these students were from Belgium and four were Dutch. The team's goal was to compete in the Shell Eco-marathon on the Rockingham Speedway in the UK in July 2006.
Nowadays, the team consists of around 20 TU Delft students, from different faculties. The team consists of 5 full-timers, who stop their study for a year to work on this project. The rest of the team consists of par-timers, who work a few days per week on this project. The team is divided into different departments, that are each responsible for a certain aspect of the project. The different departments cover body design, suspension, finance, fuel cell and powertrain, PR and sponsering.
The First Year
In its first year the Eco-Runner Team Delft built the Eco-Runner 1. This vehicle was built in a limited time and with limited resources, but it nonetheless achieved the team's goal of running 500 kilometers on one liter of petrol. Even with a non-functioning fuel injection system, which was the most important feature of the vehicle, the team was able to achieve 557 kilometers per liter. This achievement encouraged the team to build a new Eco-Runner and participate again with a goal of 2000 kilometers per liter and a top-5 place in the Shell Eco-marathon at the Rockingham speedway.
The Ecorunner H2
The second Eco-Runner is called the Eco-Runner H2. Its main improvement with respect to the first version is its completely integrated design. This results in an extremely aerodynamic shape and a light weight of the vehicle. On top of that the team is developing two propulsion methods for this new Eco-Runner H2, actually resulting in two Eco-Runners H2.
The first propulsion method comprises a fuel cell driving an electric motor.
The other method is a six-stroke petrol combustion engine. The basic principle of this engine is the same to that of a four-stroke engine but for the injection of a drop of water after the fourth stroke. Due to the extreme heat remaining in the cylinder head, the water will expand rapidly, resulting in a "free" working stroke. The team is aware of this engine's downside, which is the combination of water, high temperature and high pressure, inevitably resulting in a high level over corrosion.
The Eco-Runner H2 participated in the 2007 edition of the Shell Eco Marathon, where it achieved the Dutch fuel efficiency record of 2282 km/l of petrol using the fuel cell set-up (The hydrogen consumption of the fuel cell is monitored carefully by race officials and then converted to the equivalent of a liter of Shell 95 standard fuel using specific combustion heat of both substances). This was despite a hastily repaired and therefore very poorly working cruise control - a feature essential for keeping all of the components at their point of maximum efficiency. The Eco-Runner H2 holds the Dutch fuel efficiency record to this day.
The Ecorunner 3
The third generation of the Eco-Runner participated in the Eco-marathon of 2011, and major improvements over the old vehicle include the aerodynamics and fuel cell efficiency, while the weight of the vehicle has dropped significantly. Almost no part of the Eco-Runner 3 were off-the-shelf: 95% of all components are of an in-house design or at the very least modified to suite the team's specific needs.