Solar Cars: BatteriesDAJ Rand,CSIRO Energy Technology, Clayton, VIC, Australia & 2009 Elsevier B.V.. With the assistance of fellow Australian Larry Perkins, an engineer and an ac-complis
Trang 1Solar Cars: Batteries
DAJ Rand,CSIRO Energy Technology, Clayton, VIC, Australia
& 2009 Elsevier B.V All rights reserved.
In the Beginning
On 19 December 1982, the Australian adventurer Hans
Tholstrup manoeuvred the idea of a solar-powered land
vehicle from concept to reality With the assistance of
fellow Australian Larry Perkins, an engineer and an
ac-complished race driver, Tholstrup set out from Perth on
the west coast of Australia in the fragile Quiet Achiever
(Figure 1(a)) – now widely acknowledged to be the
world’s first solar car An immediate target was to beat the
28 days set by Francis Birtles in 1912 in the first motor
vehicle to cross the Continent (Figure 1(b))
The Quiet Achiever weighed 125 kg and consisted of a
tubular steel frame, four bicycle wheels, two 12-V lead–
acid batteries, two simple power switches, and an electric
motor Twenty photovoltaic panels were placed across
the top of the vehicle to form a horizontal roof The
chassis could be lifted out of the body quite easily and the
car could be reassembled in 5 min
Tholstrup and Perkins arrived at the Sydney Opera
House on 7 January 1983 The 4052-km transcontinental
crossing had been completed at an average speed of
23 km h 1 in just 20 days, thus easily beating Birtles’s
record Moreover, the car had shown surprising
reliabil-ity; there was not one breakdown during the long and
arduous journey The success of their epic energy-saving
voyage ignited worldwide interest in solar cars and gave
rise to the ‘brain sport’ of solar car racing The first event
was the Tour de Sol held in Switzerland in 1985 and over
the years similar races have taken place at frequent
intervals in Europe, Japan, Taiwan, and the United States
of America (USA) Such competitions champion the
creative integration of personal development with
en-gineering and scientific expertise across a wide range of
disciplines
Meanwhile, back in Australia, Tholstrup revealed the prime reason for his earlier adventure His mission was to focus international attention on dwindling oil reserves and the environmental consequences of the profligate consumption of petroleum and, thereby, stimulate the development of sustainable road transportation for future generations The solar car races taking place elsewhere were rally or track competitions Tholstrup, however, considered that a gruelling, long-distance contest would provide a more realistic showcase and developmental tool for the latest in solar-powered transportation technology Eventually, the lessons from such a ‘live laboratory’ would hopefully find their way into new automobile designs that would place lesser demands on the Earth’s environment and resources And so the World Solar Challenge was born in 1987 It was dubbed the ‘Race for the Future’ and has become the international ‘green prix’ for solar cars During the course of its nine meetings (1987–2007), the event has provided a remarkable record
of the progress that has been made in rechargeable bat-tery technology, especially in terms of specific energy and reliability Accordingly, this review of batteries for solar cars draws exclusively upon the experience gained from the World Solar Challenge
The World Solar Challenge The Stuart Highway – the course taken by solar cars in the World Solar Challenge – stretches some 3000 km, from Darwin in the north of Australia to Adelaide in the south; see Figure 2 The highway is named after John McDouall Stuart who, in 1862, and after five previous attempts, was the first to cross the continent from sea to sea His journey took exactly 9 months The first
Figure 1 (a) The Quiet Achiever demonstrating that it was possible to cross a continent using only the power of the sun (b) Francis Birtles on his journey from Perth to Sydney in 1912.
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