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Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology is one of 16 universities that competed in EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge, a three year international competition where teams were challenged to design, build, and test a hybrid vehicle architecture utilizing alternative fuels to decrease the energy consumption and emissions production of a 2009 production GM vehicle on a well-to-wheels basis [1]. A hybrid-electric vehicle is a complex system of subsystems requiring the use of advanced modeling tools, distributed control, and rapid-prototyping. The main goal of the competition is to expose students to the tools, methodologies, and development processes of the automotive industry and to give them a running start if they choose to enter that field. Consequently, the goals of the Rose-Hulman team are to learn the use of these advanced tools, apply these tools to design and realize a hybrid-electric vehicle, and then translate that knowledge into general courses offered to all students at Rose-Hulman.

One of the deliverables for the GM/DOE sponsored EcoCAR2 competition involved the design and validation of an energy storage system (ESS) that could withstand 20g of acceleration in the longitudinal direction, 20g of acceleration in the lateral direction, and 8g of acceleration in the vertical direction with a minimum safety factor of 2, in the event of a crash. Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (RHIT) elected to base their energy storage system off of A123 battery modules (7×15s2p) and components. The design included a thermal analysis for various drive cycles and a mechanical analysis of the enclosure built to support and protect the battery modules. The thermal analysis investigated passive cooling versus active cooling and, after identifying active cooling as the best strategy, an appropriately sized cooling loop was developed. The mechanical analysis involved the use of Siemens NX7.5 to develop CAD models for the ESS enclosure components.