The car built at the Silesian University of Technology among the winners of international competition

During the race in London the car called HydroGENIUS - designed and built by the team Smart Power - drove 281 km on one cubic meter of hydrogen.

In the 31st edition of the Shell Eco-marathon Europe - the biggest, most prestigious and innovative competition of energy efficient vehicles - competed more than 200 teams of universities, companies and associations from all over Europe and Africa. The race also attracted top teams from the American and Asian editions of the competition. Among the teams that independently design, build and test the most energy efficient vehicles, was also the team Smart Power, representing the Silesian University of Technology.

Enthusiasts from the Machine Design Modeling scientific club, who are students of the Faculties of Mechanical Engineering, Automation, Electronics and Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, competed in the category of urban vehicles powered by hydrogen. The participants of the race, organized for the first time in the UK, had a specific task - drive the longest possible distance, having at their disposal only one litre bottle of hydrogen.

The route led around the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London and was planned to faithfully replicate the conditions of city driving. During the race, the car HydroGENIUS achieved the result of 281 km/m3 of hydrogen. Thus it took the second place, beaten only by a French car.

"Second place in Shell Eco-marathon Europe is an impressive result. Achieving such a high place was possible thanks to a new drive system and optimised operation of the hydrogen cell, as well involvement of PhD students in the race, who - then still as students - participated in previous editions of the competition. The support of the university authorities, faculties and sponsors should not be underestimated either" - said the team supervisor Prof. Wojciech Skarka of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Silesian University of Technology.

The team Smart Power competes in Shell Eco-marathon Europe since 2012. Starting first in the category of prototypes, last year for the first time they tried their hand in the urban concept hydrogen category. Smart Power team is Polish record holder in energy-saving driving in all categories in which they have competed to date.

In this year\'s edition of the race, the members of Smart Power were: Roman Kotysz, Aleksandra Musiol, Mateusz Smarduch (driver), Maciej Kolbe (driver), Aleksandra Kusz, Mateusz Mertin, Michał Olszewski, Sebastian Siekiera, Kamil Grylewicz, Maciej Malinowski, Krzysztof Słocki, Grzegorz Zieliński, Monika Stasicka, Tomasz Chromik and Sebastian Gleń. The science club supervisors are: Prof. Wojciech Skarka, MSc. Mateusz Wasik, MSc. Mateusz Tyczka and MSc. Ryszard Skoberla.

PAP - Science and Scholarship in Poland

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