SAE building supermileage LOUIS ROBINSON cnL:intvrinL! rito It is a car that gets insane gas mileage ranging from 200 to as high as 3000 miles per gallon. That is a super mileage car. The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) holds an in ternational competition every year to see what school can build the best supermileage car. Now, you're not going to see these cars driving out on the road. Schools from across the country meet in Mar shall, MI, at the Eaton Prov ing Grounds to compare gas mileage. What defines these cars is not only their gas mileage. Most cars are relatively small weigh ing in be- tween 80-150 4 44 rinner of the 2009 - 2010 Most Creative Program Award pounds, and they are not very big in length or width. The SAE provides every competitor with a Briggs & Stratton single-cylinder four cycle engine that the teams can modify however they choose. There are really no oth er big regulations besides the car must have at least 3 wheels and the driver must face forwards. The competition consists of 4 different parts. First, the car must pass the technical inspection before it can even do a run. The technical inspection is just a test to make sure the car meets the required crite ria and is safe enough to take a lap around the track. If the team fails the inspection then Artificial sniff research keen as canine Canines have one of the best senses of smell of all liv ing creatures. They have been used by police for years to help sniff out drugs, bombs, other peo ple, butts and so on. The canine nose can sniff out odors up to concentra tions of parts per trillion level. However, to train a dog to sniff out such stuff is time consuming and can be expen sive. Not to mention some of the environments are too dangerous of situations to put dogs in anyway. Have you ever wondered if humans will ever be able to smell the range of odors that canines do? Well, so did a few researchers at Penn State. Mechanical Engineering club visits LORD LORD Corporation has facilities here in Erie, Sae gertown, and around the world in Germany, Japan, and Brazil. Yet the plants located in Erie are special. It was here in Erie where it all began in 1924 Hugh Lord and six employees, made up the newly founded LORD Manufacturing Company. In 1927, General Electric became LORD's first cus tomer by purchasing LORD mounts for their trolley cars. From 1924 to the present, LORD has continued to ex- SCHOOL PAGES OF THE BEHREND BEACON LOUIS ROBINSON enpneenng vlitcv CHRIS HENLEY engineering writer they have until the competi tion ends to pass it before they can take the car for a run. After the inspection test is passed, the car can then take runs in the competition for best gas mileage. Each team gets as many runs as they can do in one day (usually up to eight) to try and get the best gas mileage. The track is an oval track with banked turns on the ends. The car must make it around the 1.6 mile track 6 times for a run. The car must also maintain an average speed of 15 mph or it will get penalized. Along with the runs, each team must also hand in a writ ten design report and give an oral report. The oral report is 100 points of the competition. The written report is another 300 The supermileage car that the SAE made for last year's competition So much so, that a re search development team got together to attempt to build a mechanical nose that closely resembles one of a dogs'. Eric Patterson, a senior research associate at Penn State's applied research lab and an associate professor of mechanical engineering, de cided to study the dog's sense of smell more in depth. He looked at the funda mental fluid mechanics and odorant transport of canines that gives them this strong sense of smell. "When a dog sniffs, odor ant-laden air passes through the nasal vestibule and then through a labyrinth of exqui site complexity," said Patter son. "This is nature's solution to packing a large surface area in a small volume-crucial for pand and create new prod ucts like those seen in the new OBS building. The new state-of-the-art chemistry labs were made possible by the donation Beh rend received from LORD Corporation this past sum mer. Of course, this is not the only role LORD plays with in Behrend. Behrend is one of the top 50 engineering schools in the nation and LORD is right in Behrend's back yard. Every year, new graduates being poured out of this cam pus into the job market and some of them have degrees in car Then the rest of the points is the best mpg number. Which ever team has the most points in the end will be crowned best supermileage car of the competition. Colleges from all over the world take their cars into the competition to compete. So of course, Penn State Erie has an SAE club that participates yearly. Taylor Pearson, and the secretary John Pearson ear lier this week to find out what defined Behrend's car from everyone else's. "Last year was the best that Behrend has ever done, with a fuel mileage of 777 mpg, breaking the old record of 630 mpg." Last year, the club tried to finish a new carbon fiber car, but they ran out of time and had to use the old car. How ever, after a year of designing it, they finally are progress ing towards their new design. This year their car is going to be made completely of car bon fiber with a frame made of house insulation wrapped in carbon fiber. As opposed to their 170 pound fiber glass car they had last year, this car is go ing to be about 80-90 lbs This is going delivering odors to millions of olfactory receptors." Brent Craven, an ARL research associate, helped Patterson out by creating a computational fluid dynamics model based on the equations of fluid motion and high-res olution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of an actual dog's airway. "One key finding," Patter son said, "was the explana tion of how odors were trans ported to the olfactory region within the nasal cavity, the air flow over the mucous-coat ed receptors is remarkably smooth, which maximizes ef ficient transport of odorants to the receptors." As a result of Craven's and Patterson's work, a team was chosen this past summer to participate in Real Nose, a multi-institutional project "Will what I learn in the classroom or lab really going to be applicable to my future career?" -MATTEW ADAMS PRESIDENT MECHANICAL ENGI NEERING CLUB engineering, chemistry, and physics. Logically LORD appears as a potential job opportunity for these new graduates. Not only do they offer employ ment opportunities to Beh- to make a big difference in gas mileage because weight of the vehicle is a big factor in determining the gas mile age of the car. Another change they made to improve weight is the type of starter motor and battery they are going to use. They are switching from the 12 pound stock starter motor and lead acid battery they used last year, to a two pound model airplane motor and lithium battery for this year. One modification they will have this year is a computer to install in the car. It is go ing to show the speed of the car and au- " * • at, 0 ." , .At IR) Photo Provided by Taylor Pearson sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) whose ob jective is to build a mechani cal nose that very closely sim ulates that of a dog. DARPA planned out four main elements of the research project that the team will fol low. The first phase involves developing an odorant-intake system that incorporates the earlier air flow and odorant transport that the human nose does not exhibit. The second phase involves developing an odorant detec tion system that incorporates canine olfactory receptors that will be engineered from actual canine cells. Patterson expects this to be the most challenging part of the project. "Work needs to be done rend graduates, they offer internships as well in which Behrend students readily par ticipate. Recently, Matthew Adams, a student and President of the Mechanical Engineering Club, toured the engineer ing lab at LORD's Grandview Boulevard facility. At this location, they devel op and test components used in aircraft applications. While on the tour, Adams says they were able to see their various testing rigs in action. According to Adams, what is being taught in the class room is valuable in an actual career setting. meerm Above is last years team that went to Michigan to showcase their supermileage car. tomatically shut the car down when it reaches the max speed to let the car just coast until it needs more speed. They are also program ming the computer to calcu late the drag force being ex erted on the car so they can test how aerodynamic it is. The computer screen is just a basic PSP screen to dis play the speed and other criti cal numbers. The four main factors in determining the gas mileage is the weight of the vehicle, the efficiency of the engine, the rolling resistance of the tires, and the air drag force exerted. the car to be up and running by December and invite any one of any year or major to come join them every Friday night at 6:30 to contribute to the making of the car. The SAE will be leaving for Michigan in June for the competition. to identify the receptors that respond to individual chemi cals" Patterson explains, "and then these receptors must be expressed in sufficient num bers to be used in an actual sensor." The project is a typical DARPA hard project with high risk and high payoff. It is going to take a lot of time and effort but results in the end could be optimal. It would be able to sniff out drugs, explosives, chemical and biological weapons, and even certain types of cancer. "This is the realm of dis covery and unsolved prob lems," Craven said, "plus there are practical applica tions that could positively im pact all of our lives." On top of viewing test rigs, Adams, and the other stu dents touring the engineer ing lab, received a presenta tion pertaining to what LORD does and various concepts that they have learned and how they use them for real applications. As a company that contin ues to expand and develop new products, LORD Corpo ration strives for continuing to be a worldwide leader in its two core businesses, mechan ical and chemical products. If you're curious to find out more of what LORD does visit their website at www lord. corn. The SAE club is working their hardest to minimize all of these and is aiming for a gas mileage of 1500, almost double of their car last year. Taylor and John aim for
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