How To Build A Solar Powered Car?
Solar cars are the recent innovations in the field of automobile industry that has not come to lime light yet. These vehicles harness the nature-given renewable source of solar energy, which drives an electric motor and makes the vehicle move. These cars are not manufactured on a large-scale, due to several factors. However, it could prove to be a best seller if those factors are over-come through proper design, as it uses a cheap and freely available energy. To come up with a refreshed version of the solar car that is user-friendly, the first thing to be done is to understand the basic design concepts of a solar car.
Materials Needed To Build A Solar Car
A solar car can be built easily with the availability of the following basic components and materials.
- The Frame, of the car should satisfy certain important design features, which mainly decides the efficiency of the solar car.
- The Solar panel is an array of solar cells, which are also called the photovoltaic cell.
- The Power trackers are used to convert the electricity produced by the solar cells into usable form of electricity.
- The battery - stores up the energy that is harnessed from the sun to be used at times when the sun’s energy is not available, i.e., at night or on a cloudy day.
- The motor and its controllers, which make the vehicle, move by providing the rotational motion to the wheels of the car.
- The car accessories like the seats, front panel glass, the wipers and others required.
Design Criteria
The efficiency of the solar car depends on how good the design criterions are met. The first design condition to build a solar car is that it must be light-weighted. The light-weighted design of the car is required to get a good Power efficiency which means is the electricity obtained is used to produce maximum rotations of the wheel or long distance traveled. So the frame material should be light weighted usually light metal alloys are installed. The body of the solar car has to be designed in such a way that it would provide space for the solar panel and also give the aesthetic look for the vehicle.
The solar panel should be installed in such a way that maximum amount of sun’s rays can be captured. In some designs, the panel could be either automatically or manually rotated to face the sun as the vehicle moves, to obtain maximum efficiency. A simple electrical circuit, which is used to convert the energy output from the solar cells into usable form of electricity, is installed in the motor side, called the power trackers.
The battery is attached to directly to the output of the power trackers. This is usually a normal backup battery that is used in the regular rechargeable gadgets. The output of the battery is used to drive the motor, which is normally a 3-phase AC motor, which demands the need of the chopper to convert DC battery power to AC power. There is no transmission unit involved as in the case of fuel driven vehicles here, a simple belt is used to transmit the energy to the wheels from the motor.
The other automobile design concepts apply to the solar car too, except for the special focus on aerodynamic design and less friction design are given more stress on.
Apart from this, depending upon the scalability and use of the vehicle, the brake and suspension system can be designed. Thus, a solar car is a simple scientific concept, when implacable to be used to by common Joe will be a dream come true project for the whole of the automobile industry.
November 29th, 2008
good idea for earth