Abstract:
The fuel consumption associated with transportation needs is clearly an issue known throughout the world. The world's dependence on petroleum/diesel based fuels needs to undergo a transformation to alternative fuel sources and a new means of transportation itself. This paper delineates the design, fabrication and testing of an efficient human powered vehicle as a potential answer to this need. The primary purpose of this vehicle is to transport its rider from one location to other in a safe and comfortable manner. A human powered ground vehicle, in its most simple sense, is the traditional bicycle. However, rider comfort, stability, safety, aerodynamic drag and mechanical advantage are some of the issues associated with the traditional upright bicycle. Consideration of these factors led us to design a recumbent tricycle. This Human Powered Vehicle is a partially faired, recumbent type tricycle using the tadpole (two front wheels and one wheel in the back) configuration. Advanced techniques of Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and Computational Fluid
Dynamics (CFD) have been used to test the design of this model. A physical prototype was fabricated and tested to ensure the safety of the rider as well as pedestrians around the vehicle .
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