Work has begun on a unique £2.28m Vehicle Energy Facility for the Midlands which will be the UK’s only purpose built hybrid powertrain testing facility not owned and operated by an individual automotive company.
The facility is being built in WMG at the University of Warwick and will be ready for a formal launch just before Christmas.
The new labs, which are being funded by Advantage West Midlands (AWM), the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the University of Warwick as part of the Birmingham Science City initiative, will provide the region with a state of the art test and characterisation facility for hybrid vehicle powertrains.
Much of the new Vehicle Energy Facility (VEF) is being constructed by specialist powertrain test equipment manufacturers Froude Hofmann. Their UK headquarters is in Worcester and they are particularly expert in the construction of dynamometers. The new facility will use two dynamometers to allow the testing of different hybrid powertrain designs. The two dynamometers are being installed in parallel the first to test electric motors and the second to test Gasoline, Diesel, ethanol, and Bio-fuels based engines.
When complete the VEF equipments will also include: a battery simulation, and battery test station, full exhaust emissions measurement capability and a robot driven car facility that will simulate and test how a car’s power system will operate over the full lifetime of a car.
Mark Amor-Segan from WMG (Warwick Manufacturing Group) at the University of Warwick said:
“The Vehicle Energy Facility (VEF) has been designed with the aim of servicing the automotive industry – ranging from small vehicle up to large truck and lorry manufacturers - but its usage is not limited to this sector. The VEF will be of interest to companies in all sectors with a requirement to test the performance of internal combustion engines or electric machines. For example, the facility can be used to characterise the performance of electrical generators for the wind turbine industry.”
The University of Warwick WMG Hybrid Vehicle Research Group already works with a range of industrial partners and is looking forward to the opportunities the VEF will bring to form new partnerships and collaborations, particularly with businesses based in the West Midlands.”
Professor Paul Jennings from WMG said:
“The VEF builds on the research work of WMG’s Hybrid Vehicle Research Group which, alongside its industrial partners, has created technical and cost modelling tools for hybrid vehicle development. These include WARPSTAR (WARwick Powertrain Simulation Tool for ARchitectures) which can be used to model the performance of any hybrid vehicle architecture, and is currently being enhanced to include real world driver behaviour through an EPSRC supported project as part of Warwick’s Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre”
Rebecca Garrod-Waters, Director of Innovation at regional development agency Advantage West Midlands, said: “This investment is key for Birmingham Science City, which supports and showcases the global strengths of industry and the knowledge base in the West Midlands.
“60 per cent of the UK's automotive R&D investment is in this Region, so we are thrilled to be funding and supporting the Vehicle Engineering Facility, which will catalyse knowledge transfer and effective collaboration between industry and universities, as well as contributing to the low carbon future of both the automotive and energy industries.
“This builds on the West Midlands’ strong business base, manufacturing strengths and world leading low carbon engineering expertise.”
The creation of this new facility is part of the £10.5m Energy Efficiency & Demand Project, funded by AWM and ERDF under the Birmingham Science City initiative. It is a key part of a larger investment in the research infrastructure of the West Midlands region, which unites the Universities of Warwick and Birmingham in a newly-formed Science City Research Alliance (SCRA). The Energy Efficiency and Demand project is led by the University of Warwick.
There will be a formal launch of the VEF in December once all the equipment has been installed and tested but the facility is already listed as one of the top 15 projects in Europe that delegates to the Engine Expo event in Stuttgart ( 22-24 June ) should familiarise themselves with.