00:00 Wide
– traffic on busy road
Medium
wide, cars
c.u.
exhaust pipe
Low
shot – cars
Wide
– traffic congestion
Walk
in – Professor Hawley entering Research Unit
Wide
– car on test (Chassis Dynamometer)
c.u.
wheels spinning
c.u.
brake lights
Wide
– Dr. Chris Brace approaches car
Dr.
Brace’s face in car window
Technician
at computer bank
Car
on test behind technician
Wide
– car on test
c.u.
– robot driving car
c.u.
– screen showing test
Guide Voice: Traffic – the great
“necessary evil” of our age. We all want improved
personal mobility but we worry about car emissions and the problems
of global warming.
Where is our automotive industry going and how are we preparing
our cars for an uncertain future?
One solution would seem to be the new generation of diesel
engines. At the University of Bath’s Powertrain and Vehicle
Research Unit, in the southwest of England, research is being
carried out into the production of cleaner, greener and smarter
diesel engines to power the next generation of motor vehicles.
Diesel’s reputation as a dirty, messy fuel is a thing of
the past. Current diesel engines record just 50% of the emissions
that engines produced only 7 years ago – and diesel engines
have lower fuel consumption than those driven by petrol.
They’re now directly competitive with their petrol driven
cousins and, in Europe half of all new cars sold are now
diesel-driven vehicles.
00:57 SOT: Prof. Gary Hawley, Professor of
Automotive Engineering, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, University
of Bath – “Diesel engines these days are
far more refined than they were 5 or 6 years ago to such a point
that they've actually become such fuel misers. The miles per gallon
that you can actually get from a diesel engine now, while still
retaining good power and still retaining good drivability which is
what the public wants, have put it in a possition where it can
compete with the gas engine on many fronts. They used to be
thought of as dirty and smelly and particularly loud but that's not
so any more, they're actually very refined complex
machines”.
01:38 Tilt
down – engine dynamometer
Wide
– Dr. Kevin Robinson and Prof. Hawley
c.u.
computer screen
Reverse
– Dr. Robinson & Prof. Hawley
Wide
– Dr Robinson and Prof. Hawley
Wide
– researcher and engine dynamometer
c.u.
– adjusting thermocouplings
c.u.
– thermocouplings and engine
c.u
– “engine out” cable
Wide
– engine
c.u
– engine detail
Wide
– researcher at computer; test area in background
Dr.
Sam Akehurst and engine
Dr
Akehurst seen through cabling
Wide
– test area
Guide Voice: Research at the University is
focused on the development of diesel engine technology. Here they
are looking at heat flow inside a diesel engine – for every
kilowatt of power produced by modern diesel engines some 2
kilowatts are thrown away. With 110 thermocouplings embedded in
this engines cylinder walls this research has been described as the
engineering equivalent of neurosurgery, tracking the intimate
detail of heat flow in the engine and the variation of heat flux in
the cylinders. This will improve modelling accuracy which, in turn,
will help the design of more efficient engines.
It’s because of this detailed, practical approach to their
research that the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research
Council have recently awarded the team a five year project to
investigate the future of powertrain systems
02:24 Wide
– Dr. Stuart Shales approaching minibus
c.u.
– opening fuel cap
Wide
– pouring fuel into tank
c.u.
fuel spout
Wide
– canteen and fryer
c.u.
chips in vegetable oil
c.u.-
chef
Wide
– researcher in laboratory
c.u.
– bio fuel flowing into container
Wide
– researcher at apparatus
c.u.
researcher
Medium
shot – rapeseed oil and biodiesel flowing through
pipettes
Guide Voice: At the neighbouring University of
the West of England they’re putting some of their diesel
research to very practical use.
Their researchers have been experimenting with the production of
biodiesel fuel from recovered vegetable oil – in this case,
recovered from their own canteen. By removing impurities through
filtration and adding methanol and sodium hydroxide they’ve
produced a bio-diesel fuel that, they hope, will eventually be used
to run the Universities fleet of vehicles.
This is more than a simple exercise in recycling. Bio-fuel may
well have a major role to play in the future and research here is
equally concerned with processing fuel from plant sources such as
rapeseed.
03:04 SOT: Dr. Stuart Shales, Senior Lecturer in
Environmental Biotechnology, Faculty of Applied Sciences,
University of the West of England - “The problem
with recycled oil is there’s only a finite amount in the
environment that we can get hold of. We only eat so many chips in
our lives! Whereas with pure oil we’ve got extensive
agricultural land, some of which is currently in set-aside, which
could then be devoted to growing crops for fuels”.
03:26 c.u.
– pure oil in beaker
Wide
– Dr Shales at laboratory desk
c.u.
– hand on dial
c.u.
oil being magnetically stirred
wide,
Dr Shales adding glycerine to vegetable oil
c.u.
glycerine pouring
c.u.
glycerine and oil mixing
c.u.
Dr Shales
c.u.
Mixture seperating
Guide Voice: The oil will burn in a similar way
to fossil fuels and contains similar amounts of energy, but the
thickness of untreated oils would normally cause damage in diesel
engines. By chemically breaking down the triglycerides into
glycerol and fatty acid esters, the viscosity is greatly reduced
while retaining the energy content.
So, is biodiesel a fuel for the future?
03:48 SOT: Dr. Shales -
“It’s going to help to solve our fuel problems and
there’s a very important aspect of this and that’s
called “peak oil”. In the next few years world
production of crude oil is going to peak and then it’s going
to start dropping, at the same time we’re going to have
increased demand from countries such as India and China and
that’s going to create a great pressure on us –
bio-fuels will be part of the answer”.
04:13 Wide
– shot of recycled oil, vegetable oil and biodiesel
Wide
– diesel engine on test
Guide Voice: Biodiesel may well be part of the
answer to the future of our fuels. What is beyond doubt is the
value that University research brings to the future of the
automotive industry.
04:24 SOT: Prof.
Hawley – “Industry is constrained by
having to get products to market as quick as possible, to meet
customer perception and also to be in line with their competitors.
now some of the products that get to market are probably not as
refined as they would like but they haven't got the time to take
them offline to work in a focused research area in order to make
the improvements that feedback into product development and that's
where we come in because that is what we do”.
04:55 End
of cut
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