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Small but efficient, the new engine presented at UMinho Back

Monday, 9/5/2016   
UMotor-Hélio
This innovation was a research object for the Integrated Master Programme in Mechanical Engineering student, Hélio Silva, during his masters dissertation with the theme “UMotor: manufacture completion of an engine with over expansion”. The project was supervised by Jorge Martins, Associate Professor from the Department of Mechanical Engineering (DEM) of the EEUM. The innovation will be presented on Monday, the 5th September, 10.30 AM, at the B1.10 auditorium, Campus of Azurém, Guimarães. The presentation is a public session and will be followed by a visit to the Engine Laboratory.
UMotor: a small and very efficient motor
At the University of Minho, several students from different nationalities have designed and developed a small engine to participate in the Shell Eco-marathon, an ultra-energy-efficient vehicles competition. The project was supervised by Professor Jorge Martins, responsible for the Engines and Applied Thermodynamics Laboratory (LaMoTA) at the Department of Mechanical Engineering (DEM) of the School of Engineering of the University of Minho (EEUM). The engine’s completion, final assembly and initial trials were executed by Hélio Silva, student from the Integrated Master Programme in Mechanical Engineering of the EEUM. Hélio Silva presented the engine’s prototype on the 5th September, during his masters dissertation presentation.

The engine was designed as a small and light piece, achieving the required power for the competition (around 2 hp). The Shell Eco-marathon consists of a 30km course at a medium speed of 30km/h, spending the least possible fuel. At the end of the competition, the final classification is given in km/litre equivalent to fuel (the competition includes vehicles running on hydrogen, LPG, petrol, biofuel or solar energy).

Several concepts related to performance optimisation (consumption reduction) were included in the UMotor’s first drafts, such as, among others, over expansion, which has been studied by UMinho’s researchers for more than 15 years, particularly by professor Jorge Martins. The engine also includes concepts such turbulence optimisation, attrition reduction, combustion optimisation and rapid prototyping manufacturing. Initially, the researchers built the system creating over expansion. In order to do so, the UMotor uses a hypotrocoidal system, which allows the piston to take in a certain air volume, which will be doubled during the expansion (hence the name over expansion). The aforementioned over expansion allows a larger exploitation of the fuel’s energy (the energy loss through the exhaust pipe is reduced) and an engine’s higher performance. The engine was designed to work “full throttle”, thus eliminating pumping losses.

In previous events, the best results achieved by EconomicUM, University of Minho’s car developed for Shell Eco-marathon, passed 1500km/L (0.066 L/100km).

According to Jorge Martins, “this engine aims at showcasing some of the principles related to highly efficient engine production, such as over expansion and turbulence optimisation and combustion”. “Apart from the obvious application in transportation, this type of engine may also be used in several other applications such as electrical generators, in which efficiency (low fuel consumption) is important. Other application area is co-generation, as it allows producing electricity and heat with a fairly high ratio (electricity/heat), given its high performance”, the professor refers.

The UMotor is currently up for voting "Create the Future Design Contest", in the category “Sustainable Technologies”. This competition was launched in 2002 by the publishers of NASA Tech Briefs magazine to help stimulate and reward engineering innovation. Researchers from the Engines and Applied Thermodynamics Laboratory (LaMoTA) had already submitted another project to the same competition, the Hyper4 High Efficiency Engine, a revolutionary engine which allows the recovery of the energy losses at several levels by using a mechanism which allows free control of the piston movements.

Votes can be sumitted until the 9th September on: http://contest.techbriefs.com/2016/entries/sustainable-technologies/7088

Coordinated by Jorge Martins, the UMotor project counted on the collaboration of students André Silva (Portugal), Angel Bolado (Spain), Benjamim Tiercelin (France), Carlos Lourenço (Portugal), Chanchal Pandey (India), David Krenovsky (Poland), Guilherme Capela (Portugal), Hélio Silva (Portugal), Hugo Dourado (Portugal), Jonathan Vanhaelst (Belgium), Jorge Pinto (Portugal), Ondrej Jasansky (Poland), Pedro Lopes (Portugal), Rodrigo Melo (Portugal), Stijn Coene (Belgium) and Tiago Costa (Portugal).

The team prepared a video presenting the engine’s operation method, available in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylwrHYwEZqo
Contacts:
Jorge Martins
jmartins@dem.uminho.pt
Department of Mechanical Engineering
School of Engineering of the University of Minho
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