Browsing by Subject "Fuel conservation"

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    Reducing Winter Maintenance Equipment Fuel Consumption Using Advanced Vehicle Data Analytics
    (Minnesota Department of Transportation, 2023-01) Northrop, William; Challa, Dinesh Reddy; Eagon, Matthew; Wringa, Peter
    This project analyzes the impact that idling and snowfall have on the fuel consumed by MnDOT's snowplow fleet, with the underlying objective to determine and advise MnDOT on ways to reduce fuel usage of the fleet using vehicle telematics data. This is a significant problem to solve as fuel use reduction contributes to MnDOT?s sustainability goals of achieving a 30% reduction in fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from 2005 levels by 2025. Furthermore, rising fuel costs are a future cause for concern due to an increase in business operational costs that increases the burden on taxpayers to keep roads safe in winter. This problem is challenging because existing on-board diagnostics (OBD) data do not contain mass information for the trucks' fuel use, which can fluctuate significantly when they are applying deicing substances to the road. Taking a mean value for the vehicle mass, we observe a clear positive correlation between snowfall and average fuel use. For days with snowfall totaling 4 inches or more, fuel use rises more than 25% on average compared to days without snowfall. In addition, the results from the idling analysis indicate that the idling time associated with the fleet is about 23% of total recorded hours and constitutes about 4.3% of the total fuel used. Daily idling activity reports containing information about idling events and fuel economy are generated for the sampled vehicles and shared with MnDOT.
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    Superbus Phase I: Accessory Loads Onboard a Parallel Hybrid- Electric City Bus
    (Center for Transportation Studies, University of Minnesota, 2009-08) Campbell, Jeffrey; Kittelson, David
    This paper describes the results from the first phase of the Superbus Project, which explores the input power trends and dependencies of the major accessories on a parallel hybrid urban transit bus. More specifically, this paper examines the elimination of both “accessory overdrive”, where more power is delivered to an accessory than is required by the function, and “parasitic loading”, where the accessory consumes power with no useful output. The bus was equipped with an array of sensors and a programmable data acquisition system (DAQ), and was driven on routes in Minneapolis during August and September, 2008. The accessories analyzed were the hydraulic pumps, the air compressor, the alternator, and the air conditioning system. Collection and processing methods are described, and the influence of accessory overdrive and parasitic loading are demonstrated. The average input power to the accessories was 11.0 kW when the air conditioning was off and 19.3 kW when the air conditioning was on. By removing the effects of accessory overdrive and parasitic loading, it is estimated that replacing mechanically driven accessories with their electrically driven counterparts would reduce the accessory power demand by 34% (no air conditioning) and 31% (with air conditioning). Under the somewhat conservative assumption that with the air conditioning on, 50% of the bus’ fuel is consumed by its accessories, it is estimated that accessory electrification would result in a 13-15% improvement in overall fuel economy.