Calculating max velocity of car

[Bindle]

Hey! I have a project where I'm building a car running from direct sun-light only using solar-panels and bike hub motors.

I would like to determine max velocity before cashing out on motors and panels. I have some numbers from the panels and motors I looked on, how do I turn them into the max velocity of my vehicle?

Mass: 200 kg
Tire diameter: 12" or 30.48 cm
Rolling resistance: 13.748

Torque: 33 N.m
RPM: 120 or 240
Gear ratio: Not sure if it's necessary since there is no gears and the wheel is running directly on the motors axis.
Diff ratio: I guess it's 1 since there is no gears.

Some of the numbers like the torque may be inaccurate since I have got it from some calculators in the internet.

Thanks

//Bindle

 

[Andrew Mason]

Hey! I have a project where I'm building a car running from direct sun-light only using solar-panels and bike hub motors.

I would like to determine max velocity before cashing out on motors and panels. I have some numbers from the panels and motors I looked on, how do I turn them into the max velocity of my vehicle?

Mass: 200 kg
Tire diameter: 12" or 30.48 cm
Rolling resistance: 13.748

units?

Torque: 33 N.m

At what speed?

RPM: 120 or 240
Gear ratio: Not sure if it's necessary since there is no gears and the wheel is running directly on the motors axis.
Diff ratio: I guess it's 1 since there is no gears.

Some of the numbers like the torque may be inaccurate since I have got it from some calculators in the internet.

Thanks

//Bindle

The maximum speed will depend on the aerodynamics of the body of your car as well as the rolling resistance. You will find that the torque produced by the electric motors depends on their speed and load. I would suggest that you work on making the car as aerodynamic as possible first. You will need enough surface area to generate the power you will need and you need to incorporate those panels into your car while maintaining an aerodynamic shape.

AM

 

[Bindle]

The rolling resistance is in N so only 13 Newtons.

Aerodynamics will not be so much of a problem I think, because it will have two panels as a roof and light-weight steel frame with four wheels, a steering-wheel and a seat.

I have some diagrams which maybe can be of help:

http://www.electro-mobile.se/uploaded/project/documents/281/Datablad 4033.jpg This is a 12" wheel which uses a hubmotor.

http://www.electro-mobile.se/uploaded/project/documents/282/Pie48V.pdf This is a 16" hub motor with a wheel attached.

And this is the last one, a 12" hub motor with a wheel attached: http://www.electro-mobile.se/uploaded/project/documents/359/E4037-211data_a.pdf

The wattage my panels will generate is 820 watts and max amp of 16, and 48 volts.

 

[Philip Wood]

Just wondering about one of your figures: 820 W is quite high. The best commercial panels produce about 175 W per exposed square metre in sunshine. This would suggest that you have a panel area of over 4 square metres (that is over 40 square feet).

The car's maximum speed is the power output from the motor (which will be somewhat less than the power from the panels) divided by the resistive force, Fres, on the car. Fres: is partly made up of rolling resistance (roughly constant) and partly of air resistance of various sorts, which increases with the car's speed. Unfortunately, it's quite difficult to estimate how large the air resistance will be at different speeds, but you've got to have some sort of estimate in order to find the maximum speed of the car!

Sorry not to be more helpful.

 

[Bindle]

Every bit helps. Thanks for replying. Alright, well I used a physics program called Algoodo and I used the numbers 18 Nm as torque and 240 rpm to the wheel-axis and it did a speed of 7 m/s or 35 km/h, 21 miles/h and that program has air-resistance built in and rolling resistance. Is those numbers reasonable? I had 200 kg as load and 16" wheels.

I know the panels will be big. I have two 410 watt panels which is 2 x 1,64 m each. So the roof will be 6 square meters approximately, big roof!

 

[russ_watters]

With such a low motor rpm, you may not have to consider anything else! Just multiply it by tire circumference to find speed.

 

[Bindle]

Sweet, I used this calculator:

http://www.csgnetwork.com/tiresizescalc.html

and came up with: 51.365 in tire circumference.

Tire width: 44.45 mm

Tire Height Factor: 10 , Using this as reference: http://www.bicycletires.com/pch16i/cheng_shin_general_style_16x175_tire/pp.htm

Rim diameter: 16"

So multiply 240 * 51.365 = 12327.6

Is that 12.3 m/s or is there numbers which are wrong?

Maybe I have misunderstood it some.

 

[russ_watters]

That's revolutions per MINUTE, right? So your answer can't be in m/s...

 

[Bindle]

Right! So 240 RPM is 4 Revolutions per second if divided by 60.

However let's say we have 240 RPM and 51.365 and it turns to 12327.6 m/m that would be

12327/60 = 205.45 m/s Can't be right.

But if it would be every hour then it would be:

(12327/60)/60 which is 3.42 m/s

But this can't be right either.

 

[russ_watters]

Somehow when you found your minutes, you lost your millimeters:

12,237 mm/min / 60 sec/min = 0.20 m/sec.

Still, not sure how you found circumference. Converting diameter to circumference just requires multiplying by pi. So I get 30.5*3.14=95.7 cm. So 95.7/100*240/60= 3.8 m/sec.

 

[Bindle]

Ah, circumference it's just the length around the circle, didn't know that word in english. Sweet. That seems like an ok velocity, not looking for high speed.

Thanks!