ELECTRIC VEHICLE EVALUATION LABORATORY

The equipment in the electric vehicle laboratory is designed to test complete electric vehicle battery packs with voltages up to 300 volts. Battery chargers and other electric components can also be evaluated. Stand-alone and computer-controlled sources and loads are included. Three Solectria Force electric vehicles are available for testing batteries and other vehicle sub-systems. The Director of the Center drives a Solectria Geo Metro conversion electric car. The facility has a garage, which can accomodate two cars. Two 400 Volt, 20 Amp regulated power supplies with current and voltage control are available for battery charging. Fast charging capabilities can be provided from the many batteries owned by the Center as part of a DC charging station. Photovoltaic panels rated at 7.5kW are also available for battery charging. A 12.8 kW adjustable resistive load is available for battery pack discharge. Two test stations are set up for use with 110 V and 240 V single phase AC powered battery chargers. Individual battery data and bulk system data may be stored. The testing station is equipped with a data acquisition system which includes: 

• 38 Analog input channels per station
• 24 Digital input/output channels per station

Each panel displays the following variables:
AC Variables:

• AC supply voltage
• AC supply current
• AC supply power
• AC supply V.A
• AC amp-hours
• AC supply single test watt-hours
• AC supply total watt-hours
• AC current distortion 

DC Variables:

• Charger output ripple current
• Battery pack voltage 
• Charger output current 
• Charger output power 
• Charger output amp-hours 
• Charger output watt-hours

Realistic road tests of a electric vehicles can be studied with the battery evaluation lab equipment using data collected from mobile lap-top data acquisition systems installed in the Solectria electric cars.

Courses Offered:

• Electric Vehicle Technology
• Power Electronics
• Capstone Projects
• solid state drives
• Electromechanics
• Advanced Machine Design

Research Activities
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