The latest news from covaxe^®

Greenpower Resumes in 2021

The Greenpower electric car races resumed in the spring of 2021 after many cancellations due to Covid.

The Covaxe-sponsored Pod-6 car from Chipping Sodbury School raced at Aintree in September and came third. Ollie Cook won the trophy for Best in Class’

2020 Season Resumes after Covid

After the very successful simulated competition in which Olly Cook for Chipping Sodbury School took third place on the Podium, an uncertain start to the live season took place on the 13th September when the first races were ran at Castle Combe.  Covaxe-sponsored Olly came 8th out of 24 in Pod 6.

The next race is planned for Goodwood but there is uncertainty in the current Covid climate.

Olly Excels in Virtual Greenpower – Leads the Championship after first three races!

As a result of Covid-19 the Greenpower Challenge races have been cancelled until the autumn.

However the challenge remains unthwarted and has been supplanted by virtual races at simulated real Formula 1 circuits which are now available on Youtube.

The race is run in exacting simulations of real cars and the Covaxe-sponsored cars are driven by Olly of Chipping Sodbury School, who excelled in the first two races. He currently leads the championship having come third in the races on the Brands Hatch and Oulton Park circuits, despite failing to start in the third race owing to an electronics glitch.

Covaxe continues to support its green credentials and its objective of producing a clean, efficient compression-ignition engine.

Valuable results from our Collaboration with Southampton University!

As we move towards the first testing of our Demonstrator Engine, the results of our collaborative study with Southampton University have just been published. The paper, entitled  ‘A Numerical Study of a Compression Ignition Engine Operating with Constant Volume Combustion Phase: Effects of Constant Volume Phase on Combustion Performance and Emissions’, gives confidence that we are well on our way to achieving our objectives.

The study was carried out by PhD student Callum Ramsey under the supervision of Dr Kahanda Koralage Dinesh. It used computer fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling of the engine and examined the effects of varying the constant-volume duration, the fuel injection start time, and the effects of exhaust gas re-circulation.(EGR).

It showed that significant reductions in nitrogen oxides as well as virtual elimination of soot emissions could be achieved whilst still attaining the considerable improvement in specific fuel consumption offered by constant volume combustion.

Testing of the demonstrator engine is scheduled to start later in the summer with evaluation of the sliding and rotating bearing losses. This will be followed in the autumn with load tests on a dynamometer test cell in the premises of our sister company Covaxe GmbH in Aachen, Germany.

Further studies at Southampton of a more detailed multi-cylinder model of the engine is planned for 2021 and direct validation will follow from the testing.

Greenpower 2018 Season -POD-6 races towards the top!

POD-6, the re-vamped Greenpower car from Chipping Sodbury School, has had a very successful year. The reliability problems have been overcome and the car has climbed its way towards the top of the table.

At the penultimate heat at Castle Combe on 15th September the Covaxe-sponsored POD-6, which started the year in 93rd position, ended in ninth place out of seventy-two cars racing that day..

Chipping Sodbury’s Rotary Racer and Chain Reaction finished 3rd and 17th respectively.

All hangs now on the final race at Rockingham on 5th October!