Speeding toward greatness
Being part of the project not only gave Maley a hands-on engineering experience like no other, it also cemented his decision to become a mechanical engineer. He’ll graduate in December with his second Ohio State degree, a master’s in mechanical engineering.
“Within two weeks of being on the project it was a sealed deal that I wanted to be a mechanical engineer and it really directed the path that I’m going down now,” he said.
Maley’s reign as team leader coincides with the group’s most ambitious effort yet. Only a few internal combustion vehicles have ever surpassed 400 mph. To get there, the team will have to blast past the international record for the world’s fastest electric vehicle—which they set in 2010—of 307.6 miles per hour.
Designed and built over the past five years by undergraduate and graduate Ohio State students at the Center of Automotive Research, the team’s all-new Venturi Buckeye Bullet 3 (VBB-3) is their biggest and most powerful vehicle yet. Developed in partnership with Monaco-based electric vehicle manufacturer Venturi Automobiles, the four-wheel drive VBB-3 is nearly 38 feet long, weighs almost double that of the average consumer car at 8,000 pounds and features up to 3,000 horse power.
Perhaps most impressive is the small but dedicated group of volunteer student engineers who fuel this massive undertaking.
“The experience and knowledge gained has been the best part,” Maley explained. “To learn how to look at things, figure out how they were assembled and go from a component’s design concept to actually making the physical part are great experiences to have to be a well-rounded engineer.”
Energizing experience
“I liked the uniqueness of this program. It’s something that I couldn’t be a part of anywhere else in the world,” said Johnstal, who signed on as a sophomore.
Like any new member, Johnstal first had to show his dedication by completing simple jobs such as cleaning, organizing supplies and taking inventory. After a few months, he was asked to learn everything he could about the vehicle’s batteries so he could take over for a graduating student.
“I spent a couple months learning how to maintain and fix the batteries, charge them, diagnose and troubleshoot problems, basically everything that needs to happen with them in order for the car to work,” Johnstal said. “From there, I was deemed the new guy in charge of batteries.”
Soon after he became electrical team leader, responsible for all of the vehicle’s electrical components, including the batteries, power electronics that drive the motors, as well as the wiring harnesses, sensors and data.
U-turn, then Utah
Following his internship experience, Maley left the team to enroll at a smaller, private college that he thought would be a better fit. It wasn’t.
“After seeing what we had available at Ohio State, nothing could compare. I ended up coming back after one year,” he explained. “The passion that the college has to push research and allow students to explore is a great opportunity.”
Once he returned, Maley began taking on bigger projects, from working on a dynamometer stand for motor testing to packaging power electronics. During the design and build phase of VBB-3, he and another student engineer devised the suspension, mechanical design and layout of the entire vehicle. After leading the mechanical team for a few years, Maley became team leader last summer.
Summer is the team’s busiest and most exhilarating time, with long hours spent preparing, racing and tweaking the car to perform at its best. Each August they head to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah—imagine a flat, barren dessert filled with a layer of white salt instead of sand—for their yearly opportunity to race at higher speeds and attempt to set records. It’s one of very few places in the world with enough flat, long track—14 miles is preferred—for the electric streamliner to race.
In Utah the team works long hours to complete as many high-speed runs as possible, making any necessary adjustments to push the car to go faster, Johnstal said, from tweaking settings and changing control code to rewiring sensors to reduce signal noise. Spare components of nearly everything in the vehicle are brought along so that if something breaks or needs to be replaced they can fix it and continue to race.
In recent years, weather has been the biggest factor affecting the team’s racing attempts. Heavy rains made the Salt Flats wet and muddy in 2014 and 2015, wasting valuable race days while it dried. Yet despite a shorter viable track and an extremely bumpy surface, veteran team driver Roger Schroer piloted VBB-3 to a new FIA world record in 2015 of 240.320 miles per hour in Category A Group VIII Class 8.
Now with the VBB-3 built and performing reliably, the team has set their sights on optimizing it to gain power and reach higher speeds. Refining shifting in the two-speed transmission, which hits second gear at around 270 miles per hour, is key. Speeding up the battery-charging system and improving the safety of the vehicle are two other major areas the team wants to tackle before next August.
Steering careers
Besides the experience and bragging rights, being part of the Venturi Buckeye Bullet team provides invaluable networking opportunities with industry contacts, which can pay off big after graduation. Alumni are sought after by organizations like Apple, Caterpillar, Cummins, Ford Motor Company, Honda R&D Americas, Lockheed Martin, Mercedes AMG Formula 1 and Northrup Grumman.
“I’ve gotten to work with a lot of intelligent engineers, not only here at Ohio State, but also in industry,” Maley said. “Though my parents disliked my decision to take extra time to get through my undergraduate degree program, now with the job offers that are coming in, they’re like ‘Wow, this has absolutely been worth it and it’s paying off.’”
Venturi Buckeye Bullet alum Cary Bork agrees. A member of the team for approximately seven years while he completed a bachelor’s and master’s in mechanical engineering, Bork rose to the position of chief engineer and determined the shape of VBB-3. Being part of the team also provided key experience working with international companies, he said, which continues to benefit him in his current position as an aerodynamics stability and control engineer for Boeing.
Plus, few answers to interview questions are as compelling as recounting your work on one of the world’s fastest electric vehicles.
“Being able to go to an interview and talk about my experience on the Bullet landed me probably every job I’ve ever gotten, from my first internship at Honda to my position at Rolls Royce to my current position at Boeing,” said Bork.
Under the hood: Venturi Buckeye Bullet 3
- Weight: 8,000 pounds
- Measures: 38 feet long and a little over 3 feet wide
- Body: Carbon fiber skin
- Ground clearance: Approximately 1.5 inches
- Total power: up to 3,000 hp (up to 2,000kW)
- Batteries: 8 battery packs of lithium ion batteries produced by A123 Systems
- Motors: Two custom electric motors supplied and developed by Venturi Automobiles in collaboration with student engineers
- Cockpit: Prepeg carbon fiber/aluminum honeycomb composite tub (previous Indy car chassis)
- Suspension: Fully independent suspension front and rear with 3 inches of total travel
- Steering: 14 degrees of steering from lock to lock
- Transmission/Gearbox: Four-wheel drive, custom 2-speed transaxle from Hewland Engineering Ltd.
- Braking: Parachutes slow down and stop the vehicle, while aircraft brakes from a smaller commercial jet are integrated for safety
Written by Candi Clevenger, College of Engineering Communications, clevenger.87@osu.edu
