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Dream TTeam

The inside story of Kingston University's bid for TTXGP glory on the Isle of Man.

by James Gordon

On June 12, 2009, 19 drivers from 17 teams, traveling from six different countries, each boarded a zero-emissions bike – some powered by pneumatic engines, others by ammonia or hydrogen, and some charged by an electric battery – and battled it out in the TTXGP (see And the winner is… below). For Azhar Hussain, founder of the world’s first clean emissions grand prix, the race offered an exciting glimpse into the TT’s future. But for Paul Brandon, a professor of motorcycle engineering at London’s Kingston University, and his team of six students, the race represented much more.

For 41-year-old Brandon, whose team entered an electric bike that they nicknamed ‘the lean green machine’, the TT offered a window of opportunity for the team to showcase the technology and ultimately roll out the bikes on the world’s roads.

“Our ultimate goal is to expand the viability of ultra-low-emission bikes,” he says. “Having designed a solution for a course as demanding as the Isle of Man TT circuit, we have further increased the impetus to bring cost-effective, clean transport technologies to the general public.”

The bike cost a shade under US$29,000 to build. It runs off a custom-built battery pack that powers a brushless DC motor that Brandon says is “the kind of motor you find in a Scalextric car”. At 160kg, the bike is 30kg heavier than its petrol-powered rivals, but according to Brandon the electric-powered motor is capable of averaging 70mph throughout the 37.7-mile race course.

“We considered various carbon-free options before deciding to develop an electric bike,” explains the Kingston academic, whose team began working on their entry in October 2008. “We looked into installing a pneumatic engine driven by compressed air and also an engine powered by a hydrogen fuel cell. Unfortunately, these solutions weren’t cost-effective, nor could they be realized in the limited timeframe.”

Installing the battery, which was supplied by LiFeBATT Corporation, a global provider of LiFePO4 battery solutions (see page 102), and the team’s main sponsor, presented the University with its greatest challenge. Having taken delivery of the battery, Brandon et al quickly discovered that the packaging didn’t fit the bike chassis. “Standard battery packs are rectangular, but a bike frame is curved,” he says. “We realized that the packaging needed to be the diameter of a toilet roll tube for the bike to work.”

But there wasn’t time to construct a bespoke frame, and after much painstaking research, the team decided to use an old Honda production bike chassis to house the battery.

“We used the frame of a 20-year-old Honda NSR250 GP bike. It’s light – it weighs just 60kg – and most importantly it provided us with a platform to house the battery.” The team used a lithium-ion phosphate battery that weighs 92kg, cost US$20,000 to produce, and combines energy and power density in equal measure. The charge time is 40 minutes and when a road version is produced in 2010, the battery pack will charge from flat to full in 3.5 hours from a standard 230V 13A socket.

The battery is also one of the safest on the market today. It’s been designed in such a way that it’s not combustible and will not explode if overcharged, punctured, or crushed. But getting the best performance aspects out of it was far from easy, admits Brandon. “It is an extremely intricate system.

“It consists of 200 cells, which are monitored in groups of four on 50 circuit boards. For the bike to function at optimum capacity, the power must range from 2.5-3.5V.

“When we tested the bike, we really needed to focus efforts
on every cell, so we attached a monitoring control box to the rider’s back. After testing we plugged the control box into a computer and were able to make the final adjustments before the race.”

In Taiwan, Ian Goodman, managing director of LiFeBATT UK is also making technical adjustments. Not to a battery, but to a presentation that he hopes will convince a Taiwanese bike manufacturing company to produce affordable electric bikes for the masses. He says that if he can broker a deal, Kingston University will be responsible for providing the design solution, and the Taiwanese company will produce the bikes, which will have frames made of lightweight carbon composite materials. He says, “The bike could be put into production now. If the factory were to produce just 20,000 bikes a year, each one would cost less than US$25,000.”

But for Goodman, it’s the bike’s durability, range and low running cost that excites him most. “The top speed would be 60-70mph, and the range would be over 100 miles. So if the bike was used on a daily commute that didn’t exceed 40mph, it would be capable of traveling 108 miles before it needed to be recharged. With a lifetime of at least 3,000 cycles, the bike would exceed 300,000 miles. And best of all, the running cost would work out at less than US$0.10 per mile.” It’s hardly surprising that Goodman is excited about the future.
 

And the winner is…

Due to technical problems, the Kingston University entry failed to finish at the TTXGP. “Unfortunately, we had a motor failure during the race,” Brandon explains. “However, we were the only university team to officially qualify for the race, although the organizers allowed all teams with a running bike to take part.

“If we were to race a conventional internal combustion engine bike,” he continues, “we would strip down the engine before it was raced, and ‘blueprint’ it. This means that we would inspect every component and make sure every item was set to within its recommended tolerance. For the TTXGP, we took the motor on face value, mainly because we had not had enough experience with these items – remember, we are a group of mechanical engineers. In the future I would make sure the team gained the necessary product knowledge to enable us to critically examine and blueprint any equipment we bought in. Our gearbox, which was designed and built in-house, was a roaring success!”

The winning team was AGNI X01. Rider Rob Barber completed the course in a time of 25 minutes and 53 seconds. Second place was taken by Thomas Schoenfelder from XXL Racing Team, finishing over three minutes behind Barber. Completing the podium line-up was Brammo and rider Mark Buckley, who finished in just over 30 minutes. The highest placed academic entry was the Brunel X-team, which completed the course in 56 minutes 27 seconds.

In 2010, TTXGP will form the basis of a world series for zero-emissions bikes