In a bid to help meet requirements for lower fuel consumption and CO2 emissions, micro hybrid cars may soon benefit from a new 48Volt version of the Controlled Power Technologies 12Volt electric supercharger.
Based on its variable torque enhancement system, known as VTES, the variant will transform 7kW of battery power into a highly boosted charge of air for downsized petrol and diesel engines. As the supercharger is mechanically decoupled from the engine, it delivers air almost instantaneously into the engine – spinning as much as 70,000rpm in less than a third of a second.
According to Guy Morris, Controlled Power Technologies’ engineering director and chief technical officer, the instant additional torque when the driver needs to accelerate these small powertrains from low engine speeds is already beneficial at 12Volts.
Now he suggests that electric supercharging at 48Volts will extend that envelope of torque enhancement and is an efficient way of using 7kW of stored electric power to deliver at least six times that at the crankshaft. Depending on the turbocharged engine system, optimisation could even be as much as 70kW or 10 times the power extracted from the batteries and supercapacitors.
