A pertinent question for the modern automobile engineer is this: how does one fulfill the world’s growing demand for cars while ensuring environmental sustainability? Jim Kor, a design engineer from Winnipeg, puts this question into perspective. “There are 1 billion cars on the road now. In 35 years, there are going to be about 2.5 billion new cars, so it’s really about what they should look like”. This engineer’s vision to create the “greenest car in the world” is just as awe inspiring as the methods he has devised to manufacture it. Meet the Urbee 2 (abbreviation for Urban electric with ethanol), a three-wheeler that is powered by rooftop solar panels and ethanol crop. While the Urbee 2 joins the list of eco-cars already designed by the engineers of today, its uniqueness comes from two key aspects: its design and its manufacturing.
Jim Kor and his Urbee 2 design
Kor, and his nine-member team at Kor EcoLogic, designed the Urbee 2 in such a way that it is as aerodynamic as possible. To achieve this goal, they made specific choices pertaining to the car’s design. Firstly, they abandoned the traditional ‘arrowhead’ shape to the front and instead went with a “blunt nose with sharp edges” (illustrated below). Not only does this optimize air flow around the Urbee 2, it gives it an incredibly small frontal area of 14 square feet. As a result, the vehicle boasts a drag coefficient of 0.15, an exceptionally small number! In Kor’s words, “it looks like a torpedo with a round blunt nose then a tapering off to the pointed tail.”
Torpedo-like: the aerodynamics of the Urbee 2
But perhaps the most astounding aspect of the Urbee 2 is the way it is manufactured. The first step was to create a CAD model of the Urbee 2. What followed next was the adoption of a highly unconventional method in the automobile manufacturing industry: 3-D printing! Instead of building the vehicle using a conventional assembly line consisting of robotic arms and machinery, Kor turned to RedEye, a 3-D printing firm. Believe it or not, Kor simply uploaded the CAD data for a part and after a few hundred hours, the 3-D printer produces it using a process called Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), which involves spraying molten polymers that build layer after layer.
3-D printed body of the Urbee 2
The positive of this method is that a higher degree of maneuverability and precision is achieved as the whole process is computer automated as opposed to working manually with sheet metal. In addition, it is a highly cost-effective method. A possible trade off is that FDM works only with few plastics and ceramics, which might compromise the sturdiness that the Urbee requires. As Kor aptly puts it: “Our goal with the final production Urbee is to exceed most, if not all, current automotive safety standards.” If this happens, could this futuristic green car break into the automative scene? You just never know!
CAD model of the Urbee 2
References used:
http://korecologic.com/about/urbee_2/
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/02/3d-printed-car/
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rapidproto/students.98/susans/project2/pros.html
It goes up to 120 mph with only 5 hp. As good as your blog is there is more to say
we will do some 3D printing but not that nice