Skip to main content

Low construction engine emissions project

The University of Hertfordshire is collaborating in a £9 million project aimed at reducing carbon emissions from off-highway machinery. The University of Hertfordshire’s School of Engineering and Technology is part of a specialist engineering consortium working on the project. Benefiting from more than £4 million in funding from the Advanced Propulsion Centre UK Limited (APC), the project includes companies such as Caterpillar subsidiary Turner Powertrain Systems and Torotrak, a developer and supplier o
October 18, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
The University of Hertfordshire is collaborating in a £9 million project aimed at reducing carbon emissions from off-highway machinery. The University of Hertfordshire’s School of Engineering and Technology is part of a specialist engineering consortium working on the project.

Benefiting from more than £4 million in funding from the Advanced Propulsion Centre UK Limited (APC), the project includes companies such as 178 Caterpillar subsidiary Turner Powertrain Systems and Torotrak, a developer and supplier of emissions reduction and fuel efficiency technology.

The aim of the project is to develop a new drivetrain system that will reduce carbon emissions and have better energy storage. This new drivetrain will be used for a range of off-highway equipment.

The three and half year project is expected to begin in December and will focus on developing and commercialising a leading edge hydrostatic, continuously variable transmission with a flywheel-based energy storage system. This is expected to deliver improved performance along with reduced fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. It should also allow manufacturers of off-highway equipment to downsize engines across a wide range of construction machines.

Flywheel-based energy storage technology is ideally suited to off-highway and construction equipment applications because it offers a robust, low-cost way to allow engine downsizing while improving machine productivity.

Staff from the School of Engineering and Technology will provide advanced simulation, modeling and design expertise in the area of computational fluid dynamics, rotadynamics and finite element analysis. The research will also benefit from the University’s High Performance Computing cluster.

Dr Rodney Day, Associate Dean (Research and Commercial) in the School of Engineering and Technology said: ‘This is a fantastic opportunity to collaborate with two leading companies to develop this novel technology for the off-highway market.’

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Compaction machine innovations available
    August 5, 2022
    Major manufacturers are offering a range of new compaction machines and technology to the market
  • Warm asphalt is a hot topic
    June 12, 2012
    Lower temperature mixes – a key advance in bitumen technology - Kristina Smith reports Warm and cold mix asphalts were not on the original agenda for this year’s Eurasphalt & Eurobitume Congress, being held in Istanbul in June. But when the organisers took a look through the papers submitted for their sustainability-themed event, they realised that this is one of the industry’s hottest topics. “We hadn’t quite anticipated the high level of research in this area,” says E&E’s technical programme committee c
  • Road Markings to reduce fatal wrong-way driving
    October 31, 2012
    The latest road marking systems have been used to reduce potentially fatal wrong-way driving and promote the recent EURO 2012 football tournament in Poland and Ukraine. Guy Woodford reports According to statistics quoted by leading road marking firm Geveko, a total of 1,753 people were killed in the United States in wrong-way driving accidents from1996-2000. Wrong-way driving is also a significant issue across Europe and other parts of the world. Work to combat the potentially lethal activity took place re
  • Zoomlion’s world record boom pump
    January 6, 2017
    Zoomlion has unveiled its innovative new truck-mounted concrete pump, which features a 101m boom. This innovative 101m unit is now a world record holder as the longest truck-mounted concrete boom pump. The machine was launched on the 20th anniversary of Zoomlion and is one of a new generation of products developed by Zoomlion and its Italian CIFA operation. The new machine has been developed from the existing 80m truck-mounted pumps, with its innovative lightweight composite boom being a key feature of the