Left to right: Drs. H. Hohyun Sun, Bharat Balasubramanian, Paul Puzinauskas, Joshua Bittle, Jaber Abu-Qahouq and Hwan-Sik Yoon.
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Researchers from The University of Alabama’s Center for Advanced Vehicle Technologies in the College of Engineering received $3.07 million from the U.S. Department of Defense in September for their research in powertrain hybridization.
This project is phase five of an ongoing collaboration since 2019 with the DOD and its ground vehicles manufacturer. Phase five involves researching powertrain hybridization and electrification strategies. These strategies will analyze three main applications: exporting electrical power from the vehicle at standstill, driving in pure electric mode and further improving the efficiency of the diesel engine in hybrid mode.
Dr. Joshua Bittle of the Department of Mechanical Engineering will serve as the technical lead, with team members including Drs. Ajay Agrawal, Hwan-Sik Yoon, and Paul Puzinauskas of the Department of Mechanical Engineering; H. Hohyun Sun of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering; Bharat Balasubramanian and Jaber Abu-Qahouq of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
The past four phases, led by Agrawal, were funded by $9.3 million in grants. During past phases, UA faculty successfully redesigned the mechanical fuel injection diesel engine into an electronic, direct injection diesel engine with increased efficiency.
The faculty working on past phases of this project included Drs. Kalyan Srinivasan and Sundar Krishnan of the Department of Mechanical Engineering; Andy Lemmon of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; as well as Bittle, Agrawal, Balasubramanian and Puzinauskas.