Solar Car Charging Station-Learn
Solar Car Charging Station-Learn from Brandon Kiel
Solar Car Charging Station-Learn

This project was completed and inspired by the all the oil that gets used in today's world. People are starting to use electric vehicles to get around, however they still use coal to get power. We wanted a sustainable source of energy, so we decided to use a solar array you can plug your car into. After looking through the project, it soon became more and more difficult due to life cycle analysis. That made us thing about before, during, and after the use phase of any product. This made use learn that nothing can truly be sustainable, because it uses energy to make. Overall we determined over the course of ten years, this would save money for the university if it was in place for their current electric vehicle fleet. This project was worked on in ME479X with Evan Stumpges, Luan Fontenello, and Mariangela Lundquist.

This picture was the motivating point for this project. The goal was to create a sustainable source of energy, for cars that produce no pollution as they drive. This picture is of an oil rig that exploded, spewing oil and pollution into the environment. By having more electric vehicles we can hopefully reduce the need for oil, and the chance something like this can happen again.
This is a Tesla Roadster, a fully electric vehicle. This demonstrates that electric vehicles don't need to be slow or boring, but they can be sports cars. This is important to realize, because some of the sportiest cars, also burn the most gasoline. There are a wide variety of electric vehicles to choose from, which will help more people get involved.
This picture shows the support for the solar panel array. There are nine panels, each connected via two supports and cross bars. This was needed because of high wind gusts that can occur in Iowa. We determined an 80 MPH wind against this would give us a factor of safety of around 3.
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Solar Car Charging Station-Learn

This project was completed and inspired by the all the oil that gets used in today's world. People are starting to use electric vehicles to get around, however they still use coal to get power. We wanted a sustainable source of energy, so we decided to use a solar array you can plug your car into. After looking through the project, it soon became more and more difficult due to life cycle analysis. That made us thing about before, during, and after the use phase of any product. This made use learn that nothing can truly be sustainable, because it uses energy to make. Overall we determined over the course of ten years, this would save money for the university if it was in place for their current electric vehicle fleet. This project was worked on in ME479X with Evan Stumpges, Luan Fontenello, and Mariangela Lundquist.

Brandon Kiel
Mechanical Engineering Student Ames, IA