Design Engineering – March-April 2019

March/April | 2019 http://www.design-engineering.com

8

UofW-developed

wheel units to slash

EV development costs

R

esearchers at the University of Waterloo announced they

have developed a modular wheel unit that’s affordable

to produce and removes much of the complication associated

with electric vehicle design.

The self-contained unit combines a wheel and an electric

motor, along with braking, suspension, steering and control

assemblies to form a modular unit that can be bolted to any

vehicle frame.

“The idea is modularity and plug-and-play control capa-

bility,” said Amir Khajepour, a mechanical and mechatron-

ics engineering professor at Waterloo. “Our wheel unit, in a

sense, is a full vehicle with only one wheel. All that’s missing

is a body.”

According to Khajepour, a mass-produced wheel unit, or

corner module, would significantly reduce production costs

while also opening up space for passengers that would oth-

erwise be devoted to mechanical components. At present,

the prototyped units weigh about 40 kilograms, have about

25 horsepower and feature active wheel cambering.

The next step, Khajepour said, is to scale wheel unit for

Prof. Amir Khajepour stands next to a vehicle containing his new

wheel unit. (PHOTO CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO)

large utility and commercial vehicles. That would pave the

way for more cost-effective production of low-volume, spe-

cialized vehicles with customized bodies in fields including

mining, forestry and rescue operations.

“It’s an economy of scale problem,” said Khajepour, who

serves as director of the university’s Mechatronic Vehicle

Systems Lab. “Corner modules would allow us, without

enormous development costs, to make vehicles that are spe-

cific for each application, for each function, by concentrating

only on the design of the body and the user interface.”

https://uwaterloo.ca/waterloo-engineering-research

DesignNews

1 NEW! “DR-2” Miniature Precision Regulators

2 NEW! Pinch & PTFE Media Isolation Valves

3 NEW! Pneumatic Pinch Valves

4 NEW! 7 mm SubMiniature Electronic Valves

5 Next Gen Electronic Valves with Flows

to 100 L/min!

6 NEW! 8 mm SubMiniature Electronic Valves

7 Universal Compact Extruded Cylinders

8 Value-Added Oxygen Clean Valves Assembly

1

4

Introducing

new products new solutions

7

5

3

222

CINCINNATI • BRUSSELS • SHANGHAI

Innovative Precision Flow Control Products

http://www.clippard.com • http://www.wainbee.com

1

Repeatability of ±0.15 psi!

44

5555

66

3

888

DES_MarApr_Clippard.indd 1 2018-03-21 2:54 PM

U

.S. Army researchers are looking into metal additive man-

ufacturing to create steel alloy as a way to transform

combat logistics. At the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Devel-

opment Command’s Army Research Laboratory, materials

manufacturing scientists say this technology may change

everything, although readily printed reliable 3D parts are still

in the future.

“You can really reduce your logistics footprint,” said Dr.

Brandon McWilliams, a team lead in the lab’s manufacturing

science and technology branch. “Instead of worrying about

carrying a whole truckload, or convoys loads of spares, as long

as you have raw materials and a printer, you can potentially

make anything you need.”

Using powder bed fusion, the Army researchers are building

parts from an alloy, called AF96, in powder form. The Air Force

initially developed AF96 as an economical yet high-strength

and hardness alloy for bunker-busting bomb applications. The

resulting steel alloy parts are approximately 50 percent stronger

than those commercially available, McWilliams said, but they

have yet to be battlefield tested.

“We’ve printed some empeller fans for the M1 Abrams [Main

Battle Tank] turbine engine and we can deliver that part—they

can use it, and it works,” McWilliams said. “But it’s not a qual-

ified part. In terms of a battlefield scenario, that may be good

enough to be able to get your tank running again for hours or

days if that’s important to the mission, but on the other hand,

we still need to be able to answer, does this perform as good as

the OEM part? Does this perform better?”

Currently, McWilliams said the laboratory is working with

industry and academic researchers to model new alloy designs

and perform computational thermodynamics.

http://www.arl.army.mil

Army researchers foresee AM as

transformative for battlefield logistics

DES_MARCHAPRIL2019_LAZ.indd 8 2019-04-10 1:56 PM