As levels of air pollution rise, a group of four students from Dr BR Ambedkar Institute of Technology here have developed a solar-powered cart or the Solar Electric Road Vehicle to encourage people to go green.
The team from the Mechanical Department of the institute spent around five months on the project, starting at the beginning of November last year to develop the solar-powered environmentally-friendly auto with a speed of up to 25 kilometres per hour.
Students of the diploma in mechanical course of the institute Sanjay Sarkar, S. Siva, P Anil Kumar and G Prem, under the guidance of Mr BK Jena invested several hours over the past five months including holidays to develop the green vehicle.
The overall design of body and chassis frame was done in AutoCAD in the earlier days followed by collection of scrap materials in and around the campus. Other components were procured from Kolkata at extremely low prices. In all, the overall cost of the vehicle is less than Rs 1 lakh, informed a member of the team.
The solar power cart has a rear live axle with Benjo type differential mounted on leaf springs which receives the input torque by a 60 V/1200W motor powered by 5 Nos of 12V /100Ah Battery. The battery gets charged by the Solar Panel and charger of 300W/70V and 60V/10 Amp respectively.
The electric 3 wheeler is capable of running up to 4 to 5 hours in a single charge with forward and reverse gear transmission, said the students adding that support from the faculty members of the Mechanical department and the entire institution helped us execute the project in a record period.
By Baishakhi Dutta
