FEV North America Inc. (FEV) has announced the recipients of the 2016 FEV Powertrain Development Awards. The awards were presented to three collegiate teams that designed, developed and demonstrated exemplary powertrain solutions in the 2016 Formula SAE (FSAE) competition held May 11-14 at Michigan International Speedway (MIS) near Brooklyn, Michigan. The awards were presented on Saturday, May 14 during a ceremony at the conclusion of the competition. This year’s competition drew 128 entries from around the world.
The Powertrain Development Award considers critical powertrain-relevant aspects, including performance, fuel economy, endurance and cost, in determining a winner. The award uses a quantitative scoring system as a metric for the success of the optimization process that the student teams go through as they develop solutions, much like the work that a professional engineer might perform on a day-to-day basis. There are multiple solution paths that a team can employ to win.
The 2016 FEV Powertrain Award winners were:
- First place – FH Joanneum University, Graz, Austria (842.3 points) $2,000 award
- Second place – University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany (801.2 points) $1,000 award
- Third place – Graz Technical University, Graz, Austria (774.3 points) $500 award
Notably, in the FEV Powertrain Award competition, the Michigan State University placed seventh, and the University of Michigan – Dearborn finished in the ninth position. The University of Toledo also fared well, finishing in the 10th position. Fourteen of the top 20 finishers were from U.S. and Canadian Universities.
“The technologies and skill set that the students develop for the FSAE competition reflect the type of projects and activities that automotive engineers perform daily,” said Robert Last, vice president of communications, marketing and compliance at FEV and current member of the SAE Foundation board of trustees. “Similar to the engineers that are working in the industry, these teams understand that both high-performance and optimal fuel economy are important to both current and future powertrains. The FEV Powertrain Development Award rewards excellence in these areas by adapting an objective, equation-based approach that can be optimized by the FSAE team. FEV congratulates the winners and recognizes their efforts.”
Student teams must adhere to the rules specified by the SAE. “The rules for the Formula SAE competition are continuously evolving. As a result, today’s FSAE teams need to develop new, or at least refine their solutions each year,” said Last, “but the level of creativity and energy that is on display here at MIS for this event is palpable. It’s always one of my favorite weekends of the year to be here for this event.”
“The Collegiate Design Series provides students with an opportunity to experience the complete engineering and business project cycle, including fundraising, design, simulation, prototyping, costing, development testing and continuous refinement of nearly every component on the vehicle, as well as defending their project in a detailed presentation. These are essential skills that engineering students need to acquire to be successful in the industry,” said Last.
