{"id":558,"date":"2016-11-17T18:38:30","date_gmt":"2016-11-17T18:38:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/headlines\/?p=558"},"modified":"2023-12-22T13:30:39","modified_gmt":"2023-12-22T18:30:39","slug":"faster-than-a-speeding-bullet-takes-on-new-meaning-with-this-all-electric-car","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/headlines\/2016\/11\/17\/faster-than-a-speeding-bullet-takes-on-new-meaning-with-this-all-electric-car\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cFaster than a Speeding Bullet\u201d takes on new meaning with this all-electric car"},"content":{"rendered":"

Engineering students from the\u00a0Ohio State University<\/a> Center for Automotive Research (CAR) recently set a world record with their all-electric vehicle. While this is a tremendous achievement, this was far from a first for the CAR engineers: This was their fifth\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>world record.<\/p>\n

The students and faculty at CAR, with corporate sponsor Monaco-based Venturi Automobiles, spent six years updating and perfecting their design for the Venturi Buckeye Bullet 3 (VBB-3). This streamlined vehicle went through a radical redesign from the previous VBB version, enabling it to\u00a0set a new land speed record (LSR) of 341 miles per hour (548km\/h)\u00a0at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah in September.<\/p>\n

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Image credit: Ohio State University<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n

As reported by Fox Sports<\/em><\/a>, this beat the previous record of 307 mph the same team had set with an earlier version of the VBB in 2010. According to CNN<\/a><\/em>, the VBB-3 \u201crecorded a top speed of 358 mph, propelled by a 3,000-horsepower engine that Venturi says makes it the world’s most powerful electric car.\u201d<\/p>\n

How the LSR is determined<\/h2>\n

The record was confirmed by the F\u00e9d\u00e9ration Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA<\/a>). The FIA considers the speed recorded in the middle mile of an eleven-mile run. The record is based on the average time for two runs in opposite directions on the same track. These runs must be completed within one hour of each other.<\/p>\n

The VBB-3<\/h2>\n

The record-setting VBB-3 is propelled by two custom electric motors, powered by over two megawatts of lithium-ion batteries. It is an all-electric vehicle, and in this iteration of the design, the team switched to a 4-wheel drive version. The car is 11.3 meters long and weighs 7,700 pounds. The car has a drag coefficient of only 0.13, much less than the 0.30 to 0.35 drag coefficient for a typical production car.<\/p>\n

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Image credit: Venturi Automobiles<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n

Getting the design right<\/h2>\n

How do you design a 3,000 horsepower all-electric car that is shaped like an airplane fuselage and requires 3,500 pounds of lithium-ion batteries? The team from Ohio State started with simulation. Model-Based Design <\/a>has been critical for the design and execution of the Buckeye Bullet. The Buckeye Bullet project used MATLAB and Simulink for system-level modeling to design the earliest version of the VBB and has continued to use this approach to improve the design throughout the VBB program.<\/p>\n

After the 2010 record-setting run, the team revamped the design and built the VBB-3 vehicle from the ground up, spending nearly two years running simulations and refining component-level design before creating the physical prototype. The changes were significant: The 2010 VBB-2.5 weighed 0.4 tons to the VBB-3\u2019s 1.6 tons. The horsepower was increased from 800 to 3,000, and the total torque increased over 500% to 2,800 Nm.<\/p>\n

Modeling and simulation<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

Since the VBB-3 project began in 2011, modeling and simulation played a key role in the design and development of the vehicle. A vehicle simulator was created in Simulink. It enabled the team to quickly understand and optimize parameters such as:<\/p>\n