We like to change every now and then. This year, as usual, we took part in the famous HillClimb Race Cesana Sestriere, but instead of using a real racing car, we opted for a pure sports car, the fantastic Porsche Gt3.
The Porsche 911 GT3 is a high-performance homologation model of the Porsche 911 sports car. It is a line of high-performance models, which began with the 1973 911 Carrera RS. The GT3 has had a successful racing career in the one-make national and regional Porsche Carrera Cup and GT3 Cup Challenge series, as well as the international Porsche Supercup supporting the FIA Formula 1 World Championship. The car used in the climb has a 4.0 liter engine, 510 hp at 9000 rpm, an incredible sound and a racing car setup.
Driving impression
The first thing that you appreciate in the GT3 is the perfect seat position and alignment with the driving wheel. The driver position is comfortable and permit to concentrate on the driving.
Being a ‘almost’ racing test, first thing to appreciate is the launch control, that permit to leave the start line in a very effective way despite the still cold tyres. The rear tyres are kept by the electronic at the adherence limit to the ground and some skids happens but easy to control. At the first U-turn you understand that the brakes must be pressed with a lot of energy, but they are very effective, and the ABS intervention is very rare on the clean asphalt. The suspensions are very effective and the car does not show any disturbing roll and pitch.
The steering is direct and precise, very effective both on the slow and fast turn. Personally I would have keep a bit more distance, ergonomically speaking, between the gear pads and the other commands (turn lights and wipers). In fact, if you have big hands or wearing gloves the space is not enough.
The suspensions are excellent, in particular on this type of roads, used everyday by the normal traffic, so a bit bumpy and irregular.
The engine is powerful and very effective, specifically at high revs, over 5000 rpm. Personally I prefer to change manually the gears with the paddles shift, and i prefer to do it earlier than the 9000 rpm limit, to preserve a bit the stress on the mechanic. But this is the typical engineers paranoia :-). Sound is beautiful, metallic, very aggressive. And you can reach high speed very quickly.
Despite the test was carried out at high altitude, between 1000 and 2050 m over the sea level, the engine, atmospheric, was still pushing quite good. Of course the turbo version like the Porsche GT2 or Turbo are practically not affected by the altitude.
In conclusion a fantastic car, fast, very fast and pleasant to drive. Very similar to a race car, and very effective. In a timed test I think that can leave behind a lot of race cars.
New clusters of projects for sustainable energy production
New clusters of projects for sustainable energy production
Dr. Eng. Sergio Durante announced the new clusters of projects for sustainable clean energy production, from nuclear fusion to wind power
25 April 2022
The EU aims to become climate neutral by 2050, and to achieve this goal, wind energy technologies will need to unlock their full potential for affordable and reliable clean energy production.
Today the energy crisis related to the current complex political situation in the East of Europe is pushing even more the needs to migrate to alternative sustainable energy.
The wind
The next generation of wind farms will be much more powerful and need to be supported with an even more innovative set of physical and digital tools, as well as operational controls, collectively referred to as wind farm control, to improve overall farm power generation and improve the overall reliability. The wind park is growing from year to year (for example, in 2021, more than 80% of new electrical capacity was renewable), while solar and wind energy accounted for 91% of new renewable energy sources. We proposes to use the latest developments in the field of artificial intelligence AI, offering obvious advantages through Big Data management and machine learning strategies, bringing to significant impacts on the overall reliability and efficiency of the complex electro mechanical system of the wind turbine. New IPR protected ideas are on the lab development.
The Nuclear Fusion
Nuclear fusion can become a promising option to replace fossil fuels as the world’s primary energy source and can have an important role to play in addressing the climate change. Benefits to society from fusion include: the abundance and accessibility of fuel, the carbon free footprint, the absence of high-level radioactive waste.
We are investigating a new way to improve the control of the thermonuclear plasma with the ultimate goal to generate electricity at commercial scale.
Our internal project aims at bringing into the reality an innovative Fusion Nuclear Plasma containment system based on AC and fully controlled by AI based efficiency management, predictive maintenance, stability and fluctuation compensating unit. The system is based on AI electronic controller of a new AC managed plasma nuclear reactor power unit (HW and SW) to be integrated into the nuclear power generator, reducing as much as possible installation issues further enhancing their acceptance on the market enabling to operate at zero emissions, respecting the environment and complying with all upcoming nuclear safety legislations. This is expected to have a huge impact initially in the power energy industry.
New clusters of projects for sustainable energy production
New concept of hybrid hypercar 2100 HP
Dr. Eng. Sergio Durante announced the project on a new astonishing 2100 HP hybrid car
15 December 2021
The project upscale and integrate a new concept of Artificial Intelligence into a human interface and total management of a super efficient, high performance green Hybrid powertrain based car, in two market sectors: the high-exigent market of the daily life utility cars, using as commercialisation strategy the penetration in the hand made ‘a la carte’ exclusive cars market and then in the everyday car through supporting OEM.
The concept of the car proposes a integrated customised self learning interface avatar (with specific features, among the others: face recognition, health check of the driver and passengers, transferability of the virtual assistant to other platform like the phone or other devices of the user), block chain system to encrypt all the access to the car, innovative token on the value of the car and for the investors in the startup company. The technologies explored are the extended use of Energy Harvesters, a new concept of axial flux electric engine, new high performance batteries and revolutionary management and interface. The activity approach will keep into the account from the critical rare materials savings to the test on the road for final homologation to the commercialisation of the concept and the product.
Mazzanti Automobili and Dr. Eng. Sergio Durante announced a collaboration agreement on new hybrid powertrain and innovative light materials structures for chassis
12 May 2020
Mazzanti Automobili and Dr. Eng. Sergio Durante presented a new innovation collaboration programs to develop and test a super powerful hybrid powertrain capable to sport about 2000 HP. The vehicles powertrain electrification is one of the main answers to the problem of the growing greenhouse gases and the reduction of noxious emissions. So Mazzanti and Durante accepted the challenge and decided to develop together an impressive technical solutions that will be the reference of the state of the art in the automotive panorama in the next years.
The project overall concept is to integrate a new property concept of super-high performance green powertrain in a Mazzanti Evantra car to improve the performance on one hand and, on the other hand, to widely disseminate a serious solution for the human health and the environment preservation. The activity approach will keep into the account from the critical rare materials savings to the test on the road for final homologation to the commercialisation of the concept and the product. Objective is to develop and integrate the best hybrid powertrain technology, patented, with the energy harvester systems, into the Mazzanti emblematic high performances hyper car.
This impressive applications will push the dissemination at the level never seen before, showing the path how to dramatically accelerate the exploitation to the every day car application. Dr. Eng. Sergio Durante, in the Motorsport field, already anticipated the planning of the FIA (International Automobile Federation) of 5 years building in 2017 the first hybrid rally race car for Ice racing in the World, which was the most extreme bench test for the electric technology.
The car, despite races carried out at the critical temperatures of -25ºC for the electric powertrain, won immediately the 2018 championship ICE CHALLENGE in the innovative powertrain category, showing performances and reliability never seen for a brand new concept of car. The race car was equipped with a V6 3lt engine characterised by 340HP and an electric unit sporting 200kW. The total power of the car was 610HP, 960kg of weight with an overall consumption reduction of 15% and pollution reduction of 23%, in comparison with the best in class competitors. Mazzanti will exploit the Durante experience and also the new innovations in the energy harvesters, that permit to recover energy from the delta temperatures: the harvested electric energy will be then straight used or stocked in batteries for the electric unit. This activity will imply a revision of the mechanical, thermal, electric and electronic architecture of the traction line. The electronic and power electric circuit will be correctly dimensioned in order to manage with the best efficiency the flux of energies. All this activity will take also into the account the Life Cycle Engineering approach.You may also like
The short to medium automotive future is Hybrid, not electric
Why Full Electric Cars are not competitive at all with conventional thermal engines, and in particular with diesel? Full Electric car are the latest innovation in the transport market.
✓ They are fantastically promoted by any kind of media and politic speech,
✓ They are indicated like the technology answer to the problem of the greenhouse gases and noxious emissions.
✓ They are contributing even in reducing the effect of the viruses: the last discovers proves that the viruses like COVID19 are spread much more easily in presence of fine powders in the air (PM10), as known, generated by combustion of diesel, gasoline engines (in reality PM10 are mainly generated by road surfaces scratch by the heavy cars use).
✓ They have beautiful names like Tesla (exploiting the name of the genius Nikola Tesla), Taycan, i3 (like intelligent 3), etc….
✓ They have fantastic acceleration (really!!)
✓ They are perfect in the sprint races
BUT as cars of everyday use, I think they are not encountering the expected success. We are sorry to be out of the mainstream opinion, but really, full electric car are and will be a huge flop.
WHY??? Because…. have you ever seen a Full Electric car always on the fast line in the highway in Italy or Germany? No? Maybe there is a reason for that…
To be clear: 30 minutes of refuelling in super charger is simply too much, moreover you will not get 100% of battery but more or less half of the maximum range.
Professionals travelling on the highway have to run to work and doing businesses, they cannot waste 30 minutes of precious time at the recharging station every 150-200km.
Moreover imagine you arrive home after a busy day and your brand new 100.000 euros Full Electric SUV is empty. You attach your car to the charger in garage and suddenly you realize that you forget too buy something (or, even worst, you have an emergency) … then? What are you doing?
YOU CALL A TAXI!!! Because your brand new SUV is like a useless furniture.
We have driven and used several times Teslas, BMW i3, Porsche Taycan, so we exactly know what we are writing: the currently produced full electric cars are extremely performant in term of acceleration, reduction of local emissions and noise, but these electric cars are still ages far away from the freedom of use and practicality of a diesel car, that you can refuel everywhere, in 5 minutes, every 1000km.
This fact happens for two main reasons:
1- the energy density in the best battery in the market is 20 times lower then fossil fuel. It means that at 130 km/h in normal traffic driving conditions, with a kg of fully charged battery you drive for 1km, while with a kg of diesel you drive for 20km
2- the recharging time are sooooo long, and the fast charge at supercharger is not giving you the same autonomy of the 9 hours recharging at home (exactly like your iphone).
3- the infrastructure and manufacturing of the cars are all but green and not yet enough developed in terms of efficiency and sustainability
Batteries do not produce electricity – they store electricity, which is produced elsewhere, especially by coal, uranium, ground-gas-powered power plants or diesel-powered generators. So the claim that an electric car is a zero-emission vehicle is not at all true and, if the 40% of the electricity is produced from coal power plants (USA, UK, EU), is like 40% of cars are running on coal.
A typical electric car battery weighs a 500kg, about the size of a travel suitcase. It contains about 13kg of lithium, 30kg of nickel, 23kg of manganese, 15kg of cobalt, 100kg of copper and 200 kg of aluminum, steel and plastic. There are over 6,000 individual lithium-ion cells inside.
This means that FOR EACH BEV battery, you need to process 12.500 kg of sole for lithium, 15.000 kg of resin for the cobalt, 2.500 kg of resin for nickel and 13.000kg of copper for the copper. All in all you need to dig 250.000 kg of the earth crust for a battery. “
Then let’s speak about solar energy to produce ‘green energy’…The main problem with solar systems is the chemicals used to convert silicon into the silicon used for the panels. In order to produce sufficient pure silicon, it must be processed with salic acid, sulfur acid, salpetic acid, fluoride hydrogen, trichlorethane and acetone.
In addition rare materials like gallium, arsenide, copper indium gallium dieselenide and cadmium telluride are needed, which are also highly toxic. Silicone dust poses a threat to workers, and the plates cannot be recycled.
And wind energy?? Wind turbines are the nonplusultra in terms of costs and environmental destruction. Each windwheel weighs 1688 tons (which is equivalent to 23 houses) and contains 1300 tons of concrete, 295 tons of steel, 48 tons of iron, 24 tons of glass fiber, and the hard-to-earth rare earth neodym, praseodym and dysprosium. Each of the three shovels weighs 40.000 kg and has a life span of 15 to 20 years, then they must be replaced. We can’t yet recycle efficiently used rotor leaves.This is why we are really focus on the wind power generation efficiency and reliability using AI based systems.
Coming back to the car, the problem is that the tests on road of range are always made in the perfect condition to show off performances difficult to reproduce in the real conditions. In fact serious on-road tests are highlighting the criticality of the FEV (full electric vehicle) range in real use conditions. Imagine: you are stuck in a queue on the highway, it is raining and you have air conditioning on (conditions quite typical in Europe), you are really in the nightmare worst condition for your battery.
Despite the fact that the industry is working to improve the battery packs efficiency and the EVs performances and, in the meantime, the charging infrastructures are increasing, still medium-long distances are difficult to cover, and even the latest rapid charge time are not fast enough for an efficient and convenient use of the car.
Furthermore, beside the real potential EVs performances, the range anxiety is a factor which cannot be ignored, and surely negatively influences the EVs market penetration. A lot of promotion is currently bombarding users about the advantages of the use of a full electric car, but in reality only users living in big towns and having an urban profile use could benefit from a full electric car, without a lot of stress. But for the users that need flexibility and urban and both extra urban profile use the full electric is not yet viable at all.
This is why our effort are mainly focused on two directions:
The short to medium terms efforts are targeted on the hybrid technology, Hydrogen and sustainable fuels. These solutions are merging together the advantages of the conventional thermal engines, the next generation of electric motors, the energy harvesting systems.
The medium to long term mass commercialisation for the full electric cars is totally relied on the application of the principle of Life Cycle Engineering specifically on batteries and energy production and infrastructures.
This seems to be the correct answer for the today and incoming future of the cars. With the hybrid engine you can run in the highway as usual, you refuel your car in 3 minutes, you drive in the center of the town in full electric mode, you can use your air conditioning, and, if you want, you can also listen to…. the engine sound!!!
Our first worldwide hybrid rally car for Ice Racing, 2017. 630 HP combined, 0-100 in 1.5s, almost same weight of thermal car. Winner of the Ice Challenge International Championship 2018
This year we had the best result at the international Championship Ice Challenge 2018, bringing two cars at the highest place in the podium.
The Citroen DS3 Proto by D4S gained the overall championship, driven by our driver/engineer Sergio Durante.
The D4S HybridSport gained the championship dedicated to the alternative/innovative energy cars, the series 10.
So, following the company philosophy we decided to push ahead with the development of the Hybrid Technology for extreme race applications.
The Porsche Proto represent a good base for development of high efficient and powerful hybrid solution. The idea is to use a small and light pack of battery to boost the power of the car in specific point of the race. The energy is recovered during the braking and released in the acceleration where the extra torque is necessary. A specific electronic manage the boost, avoiding useless skidding but pushing hard on the straight lines to gain maximum speed.
Moreover innovative materials, like Gamma Titanium, are used in the hot part of the engine, like exhaust and turbo components. This permit t reduce the weight and inertia of some components, with improvement in the efficiency and performances of the car.
Saturday, 17, January, 2018 – Pragelato, Torino (IT)
Sergio Durante during tests and various pics of the car
The racing car D4S HybridSport build by D4SMotorsport, in collaboration with the French companies EFESTO and 3Y Technology, Innovation Department, represent the first hybrid car in the world for rally on ice, putting a milestone in the use of electric powertrain in extreme weather and temperature conditions, like the ones meet in the Ice Challenge 2018 Championship.
The powertrain is based on a racing V6 3.0l internal combustion engine (ICE) with an output of 340HP, torque of 370Nm, integrated with a innovative electric unit, weighting 20Kg with 200kW of power (270 HP and 500Nm). So the car sports a spectacular power of 610 HP and 870Nm of torque, that is transmitted to the ground through a reinforced six speed sequential transmission.
The electric motor is boosted by a Ion Litium battery pack, that, with only 60Kg can push the car for the entire race with a tension of 400V.
The powertrain, constituted by the ICE engine, motor, the inverter, the battery pack, the vehicle control unit and the sequential gearbox has been studied and integrated with the ICE in strict collaboration with Efesto, European partner of DIAD Group ES.
This project represent a important step in the reduction of the environmental impact, through a more efficient use of the energy. In fact the system permits to recover energy in the braking phase, to be used in the acceleration phases. Moreover the sophisticated electronics permits numerous strategies to improve the performances during races.
The racing hybrid engines are currently used in the circuit in F1, in the Le Mans Series and few rare applications, like the Pikes Peak race. The extreme environment of the ice racing is perfect to test the performances of the systems in very low temperature and in conditions really at the limit of the current technology.
The hybrid powertrain present numerous advantages respect both to the thermal engine and the full electric solutions. With respect the conventional ICE thermal engine alone, the HybridSport shows a huge advantage in term of power and reduced consumption.
With respect to full electric solution the HybridSport can count on a weight to range advantage, that permit to face both sprint but also endurance races.
The D4S HybridSport technology, developed and tested in the prestigious Ice Challenge 2018 will bring important applications on the car of every day use.
Finished the project of a new astonishing hypercar
Sergio Durante at the starting grid D4S Motorsport is setting up new technologies to be applied to race cars bodies and powertrains . In fact the 2017 is definitely the year of the tests for advanced components for these kind of components.
As already mentioned in another press release, in the project MICROFAST Dr. Eng. Sergio Durante was developing a revolutionary ultralight titanium water pump to keep the racing engine at super-stable temperature even in extreme and/or fast variable weather conditions.
At the same time new gamma titanium part, under development for turboicompressor and high temperature parts, are under testing in the extreme conditions of the race to measure the performance gain in comparison with several more traditional solutions.</p>
It is the first time that Dr. Eng. Sergio Durante is applying F1 and Le Mans Series technologies into hill climb races.
As it happened last year, Dr. Eng. Sergio Durante is the chief test driver for these technologies and he is personally participating to the races of the European Championship, like the Cesana Sestriere of these pictures where he gain the first position in his category.
Finished the project of a new astonishing hypercar
Dr. Eng. Sergio Durante announced the successful conclusion of the project of a revolutionary Hypercar
15 December 2021
Dr. Eng. Sergio Durante presented the result of a new innovation collaboration programs to develop and test a super powerful hypercar.
The project overall concept was the integration of a new property concept of super-high performance powertrain and race chassis in am astonishing design car to build a reference in the hyper sport sector. The target was to show the reference in sport handling and aggressive design, targeting also both the performance on one hand and, on the other hand, to widely disseminate a serious solution for the human health and the environment preservation. The activity approach, as in all our creations, was to kept into the account from the critical rare materials savings to the test on the road for final homologation to the commercialisation of the concept and the product.
The Team was based on key technicians with long crosssectorial experiences in the automotive and motorsport fields.
Dr. Eng. Sergio Durante, automotive mechanical engineer from Politecnico of Torino, 25 years of experience in the aerospace and motorsport sectors, developing advanced powertrain solutions, materials and technologies for military and race applications. From 12 years in FIAT Research Center, to active partnership with the main OEM like Ferrari F1, Porsche, BMW, Mercedes, McLaren, Nissan in the Board of AMRC with Boeing, Airbus and other prestigious R&D Institutions all around the World.
Dr. Eng. Marco Muzio, automotive mechanical engineer, 30 years experience in Motorsport, spacing from Rally World Championship with Lancia, Ford, Kia, Citroen, to Formula1 with Ferrari, to motorbike with Ducati and Yamaha, official teams. www.marcomuzio.it
Dr. Christian Crocco, entrepreneur, start-ups and technology companies in the world of artificial intelligence and blockchain.
Dr. Eng. Sergio Durante, in the Motorsport field, already anticipated the planning of the FIA (International Automobile Federation) of 5 years building in 2017, in collaboration with EFESTO, the first hybrid rally race car for Ice racing in the World, which was the most extreme bench test for the electric technology. The car, despite races carried out at the critical temperatures of -25ºC for the electric powertrain, won immediately the 2018 championship ICE CHALLENGE in the innovative powertrain category, showing performances and reliability never seen for a brand new concept of car. The race car was equipped with a V6 3lt engine characterised by 340HP and an electric unit sporting 200kW. The total power of the car was 610HP, 960kg of weight with an overall consumption reduction of 15% and pollution reduction of 23%, in comparison with the best in class competitors.
The expected car targeted performances:
V8 bi-turbo engine, capable of 1100 hp and of a torque of 1300 Nm directly to the rear wheels through a specifically developed six-speed sequential gearbox and a (optional) future generation integrated electric engine, inverter, batteries and complex electronic management that will push extra 1000 HP and 1000Nm to the front wheels.The Hypercar will destroy the 0-60 mph in only 1,5s seconds, reaching the speed of 250 mph (400km/h auto limited), also thanks to the four wheel drive traction and thekerb weight of just 1350 kg. These performances will be achieved using aerospace light materials and technology and will permit to reduce the environmental impact of 35%.
The incredible power will be controlled by brand new carbon-ceramic brakes concept, that, in collaboration with the electric engine, specifically developed, exploiting Motorsport technology, will permit to stop from 300 km/h to 0 in only 6 seconds and recover a big amount of energy that will be used to accelerate the car to the next turn, like it is happening in Formula 1 hers.
The car will also sport a range of 70 km in the centre of the cities in full electric mode, zero emissions.
