£9m project to reduce vehicle carbon emissions

19th October 2016

Enaie Azambuja

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The University of Hertfordshire’s School of Engineering and Technology is part of specialist engineering consortium working on a new £9million project aimed at reducing carbon emissions from off road vehicles. The project, which is benefiting from more than £4 million in funding from the Advanced Propulsion Centre UK Limited (APC), includes engineering companies such as Turner Powertrain Systems Ltd (a wholly owned subsidiary of Caterpillar Inc.) and Torotrak.

The award is for the development and manufacture of a new drivetrain system that will reduce carbon emissions and have better energy storage. The new drivetrain will be used for a range of off-highway vehicles and machines.

The three and half year project is expected to begin in December and will focus on developing and commercialising a ‘leading edge hydrostatic continuously variable transmission with a flywheel-based energy storage system’.

Simply put, the venture will enable improved performance, significantly reduced fuel consumption and CO2 emissions and engine downsize across a wide range of off-highway machines and construction vehicles.

Flywheel-based energy storage technology is ideally suited to off-highway and construction equipment applications because it offers a robust, low-cost way to allow engine downsizing whilst improving machine productivity.

Staff from the School of Engineering and Technology will provide advanced simulation, modeling and design expertise in the area of computational fluid dynamics, rotadynamics and finite element analysis. The research will also benefit from the University’s High Performance Computing cluster.

Dr Rodney Day, Associate Dean (Research and Commercial) in the School of Engineering and Technology said: ‘This is a fantastic opportunity to collaborate with two leading companies to develop this novel technology for the off-highway market.’