Qilu Evening News Qilu one-point reporter Wei Xiaoxian
There are still more than 20 days to go before the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, Qilu Evening News Qilu One Point reporter learned that there will be a lot of "Weifang manufacturing" in this Winter Olympics. The hydrogen fuel cell and the hybrid engine with a thermal efficiency of 50% on the snow wax vehicle independently developed by China at the Winter Olympics were developed by Weichai. On January 13, Qilu Evening News Qilu OnePoint reporter interviewed Weichai researchers who developed this "green heart" to uncover the story behind this "Weifang heart".
This domestic snow wax car has completely independent intellectual property rights, filling the domestic gap. The effective use area of the snow wax carriage body after full deployment is about 92.5 square meters, with a work area of six snowboard waxing tables, as well as a snowboard snow wax storage area, a rest area, a warm-up area for athletes, a toilet, a shower room, etc., and is equipped with photovoltaic power generation energy storage, face recognition, intelligent environmental monitoring and other technologies. (Source: Xinhua News Agency)
The first domestic snow wax car "heart" came from Weichai
On October 27, 2021, China's first intelligent snow wax car with completely independent intellectual property rights was delivered at the State General Administration of Sport, creating a new height of "China's first, world-class, and completely domestic production" and filling the gap in domestic snow wax vehicles. The intelligent snow wax vehicle delivered this time, including the Yellow River hydrogen fuel cell and the hybrid two tractors, matching trailers. One of the biggest highlights of its hydrogen energy model is the use of hydrogen fuel cell engine as a power source, supported by Weichai Power, rated at up to 162kW, zero emissions throughout the process, in addition to the model is also equipped with a 360kW high-power motor, the power is very strong, and can ensure a low temperature cold start.
According to reports, in recent years, Weichai Group has successively broken through key technologies such as hydrogen fuel cells and solid oxide fuel cells, and mastered the three technical routes of "pure electric, hybrid and fuel cells". At present, 20,000 sets of fuel cell engine and stack production lines with a production capacity of 20,000 sets have been built, forming a complete industrial chain inspection and testing capability covering hydrogen fuel cells "basic materials - single batteries - stacks - key components - engines - power systems - vehicles". In 2021, the National Fuel Cell Technology Innovation Center led by Weichai was officially approved, and relying on the innovation center, it undertook the "Hydrogen into Ten Thousand Homes" science and technology demonstration project of the Ministry of Science and Technology.
In order to fill the gap in China's snow wax vehicle equipment and improve the service guarantee level of the national team of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, in November 2020, the State General Administration of Sport entrusted Shandong to carry out the development of snow wax vehicles. Weichai took on the responsibility of powering the first snow wax car.
Functional area inside the snow wax car
Night and day to build a snow wax car "green heart"
Liu Xuhai, project manager of the hydrogen fuel cell system development of Weichai snow wax car, introduced that in order to meet the special use and assembly requirements of the snow wax car, the project team quickly carried out system integration work from the aspects of parts, system matching, vehicle application, etc., and decided to use the 162kW fuel cell complete system bench test scheme for the first time.
The project cycle is tight, the task is heavy, the team has formulated an efficient and careful plan, from morning to the next morning, the team members are not afraid of hardship, and stay up late for many days in a row. In particular, with less than a month left before the customer's delivery date, the project team, with the belief of victory, overcame one difficulty after another, who was tired and rested on the folding bed for a while, woke up and continued to fight.
Because the snow wax car needs to reserve sufficient functional areas, the space left for the whole vehicle layout of the fuel cell engine is extremely limited, and the automaker requires that all the components related to the fuel cell be integrated together and placed in one position. People in the industry know that fuel cell systems include fuel cell engines, radiators, booster DC/DC and other components, these guys are not small, if you want to "plug" together, you have to work hard. After the project team took over the task, they brainstormed, innovated and experimented, and finally decided to adopt the TOP-DOWN design concept. This is a kind of "top-down, step-by-step refinement" approach. It is like building a house, no longer building a layer of upwards, but first building the overall framework, gradually filling the components, and then according to the different requirements of each household, targeted design and development, and finally overcome the problem of insufficient space.
In order to ensure the normal use of the hydrogen fuel cell power system in a cold environment, before the official application, engineers went to Hulunbuir at minus 34 °C for testing.
At 3 a.m., we went to Hulunbuir at -34 °C for the Test
In order to ensure the normal use of hydrogen fuel cell power systems in cold environments, engineers must conduct extremely harsh cold zone tests on them before they are officially applied. Hulunbuir's cold winter low temperature reached -34 ° C, in order to verify the low temperature starting ability of the fuel cell engine, obtain the best data, and ensure the reliability of the fuel cell snow wax vehicle, engineers set off from the hotel at 3:30 a.m. every day to the test site. The young engineers were shuttling back and forth in the snow at minus 34°C, freezing their masks with frost and their eyelashes frosted, but everyone was so busy that they forgot about hunger and cold.
Weichai hydrogen fuel vehicle test engineer Wang Kangan introduced that during the cold area test, there was a failure of a fuel cell cold start, and after analysis, it was found that there was a certain deviation in the installation of the hydrogen discharge valve of the fuel cell engine, resulting in water storage in the pipeline, so that the hydrogen discharge valve could not work. The technical team has improved the installation structure, further optimized the purge strategy of the fuel cell, and finally solved the technical problem through multiple low temperature cold start verifications, and also has a deeper understanding of the requirements for the use of fuel cell engines in low temperature environments.
In order to ensure that the snow wax vehicle can successfully pass the acceptance of the State General Administration of Sport and ensure the efficient operation of the fuel cell system throughout the process, Weichai Group has also set up a vehicle reliability test team to carry out multi-working and multi-scenario vehicle road tests according to the actual use characteristics of the Winter Olympic site. The road test adopts a three-shift system of 24 hours a day, and people do not stop, and truly achieve the integration of people and vehicles.
After unremitting efforts, the researchers of Weichai Snow Wax Vehicle Hydrogen Fuel Cell System Development Project lived up to their mission and installed a clean and efficient "green heart" for the first domestic snow wax vehicle, which became another heavy scientific research achievement of Weichai's new energy business. It is understood that the fuel cell system of Weichai Power is equipped with The first hydrogen snow wax vehicle of Sinotruk, which is a major breakthrough in the application of hydrogen fuel cells in special vehicles. In the future, in the context of global double carbon emission reduction, hydrogen energy will play a greater role in heavy commercial vehicles.