Mechatronics team wins Innovate BC award for tech that improves efficiency of light electric vehicles
Innovate BC awarded a team of researchers, led by mechatronic systems engineering professor Majid Bahrami, for their next-generation ‘passive’ cooling solutions to improve the efficiency of battery chargers of light electric vehicles (LEV). The team is one of four to share $1 million from Innovate BC’s Ignite program, and will use the award to further their collaboration with Burnaby-based Delta-Q Technologies. To advance the technology the team is using graphite, a material that is relatively inexpensive but that is also more effective at controlling heat, to develop a 1200W passively air-cooled LEV charger.
“A major challenge to efficiently cooling components, which is critical for the reliable function of the power electronics, is the packed arrangement of components and limited available surface area for heat transfer,” says Bahrami, who also holds a Canada Research Chair in Alternative Energy Conversion Systems.