Dubble succes for DTU-students at Shell Eco-marathon

Written by Marie Dinesen (DTU journalist)

Translated by Erasmus Rothuizen

The DTU-Team FLSmidth Roadrunners can with 2 first places at the Shell Eco-marathon call them selves dubble unofficial world champions in fuel economi and world record holder.

FLSmidth Roadrunners with the two world champion cars

DTU team FLSmidth Roadrunners can with two first places at the Shell Eco-marathon 2009 call themselves twice unofficial World champions in fuel economy and world record holders.
Saturday 9th of May DTU's ecocarteam, FLSmidth Roadrunners, could twice celebrate the unofficial World championship in fuel economy. It happened at the Shell Eco-marathon, a competition for students from around the world, aimed at designing and building the car that can run as long as possible at the least possible amount of fuel. This year was the 25th edition of the competition and it was held from 7th to 9th of May at the Euro Speedway Lausitz-lane 100 km south of. DTU team FLSmidth Roadrunners competed with the ecocars Dynamo and Innovator, who both won in their respective category, and Dynamo even sat a new world record for urban concept combustion engine with impressive 589 km/l. 
  
The best year ever
Jesper Schramm, mentoring of the students and associate professor at DTU Mekanik had after the success a lot of praise to the students:
 
"It's the best year ever! The Students have in two years developed an impeccable fuel pump and an internal combustion engine with an unprecedented efficiency (to Dynamo, ed.). In the Prototype category, we committed ourselves three years ago and sat a goal to get among the top five and run over 3,000 km / l, this goal has now been achieved but much earlier than we expected. The only goal we have now is to beat the world record with Innovator. " 
  
3.549 km/l and 589 km/l 
Innovator competed in the classic Prototype category, where the primary focus is to optimize the cars aerodynamics. Within this category the cars are divided into subcategories according to their type of fuel - cars with internal combustion engines, hydrogen cars and solar cars. Innovator, which run on hydrogen obtained this year 3549 km / l and consequently won first place for hydrogen cars. The result was simultaneously DTU's best and a major improvement compared to last year's 2,328 km / l.  

The world champion car Innovator and the team behind it

DTU's second car, Dynamo which run on DME, competed in the newly Urban Concept category, which was first introduced in 2003. In this category there are certain requirements for the design of the cars that make them more similar to the cars we know from the urban. Again, cars are divided into subcategories according to their fuel, so there is a sub-category for cars with combustion engines and one for hydrogen cars. Dynamo won first place for internal combustion engines with an impressive 589 km/l and with a comfortable lead down to second place holder, who drove 343 km / l. While it was a substantial improvement of the DTU-old record of 306 km / l.

The team behind Dynamo who made new world record and won the world championship for UC combustion engines

Would like to have made it even better 
In the Dynamo camp the students were excited about the good result, but there were also disappointments to see. Urban Concept cars had three attempts to run their best result, but Dynamo had to arise from the last attempt because of a faulty electrical pump for the fuel system. The students thought they could have done even better in the last run, if the breakdown had no happened.
 
"We have run 589 km / l, which is a new world record, and we are obviously very happy. While we are disappointed because we think we could have done even better if we had not had to arise from the race. But we drove 265 km / l last year, so this result is more than twice as good, "said team leader Christoffer Hansson, who added with a smile that they had hoped to reach 686 km/l on the last drive, because they would have been twice as good as number two. 
  
Innovator in the fun part of the Rankings

In the adjacent Innovator camp there was more enthusiasm among the students, who a few years has advanced rapidly in the standings and now they were fighting against the large teams, which have been at the Shell Eco-marathon from the beginning.
  
"It's totally wild fat (It's so cool). It has gone beyond all expectations, "exclaimed Andreas Elkjær spontaneously. 
  

Dynamo on its way to break the world record

Innovator on it's way to win the world championship