Continued Development and Improvement of Pneumatic Heavy Vehicles

THE NNSA Service Center in Oakland intends to issue a change order to increase the value of the current contract with additional work scope in continuing tasks under Phase VI, Tasks 3 and 4. NNSA awarded Contact Number DE-AC03-02EE50691 to Georgia Technical Reseach Institute (GTRI), on a sole source basis, to perform research and development by creating pneumatic aerodynamic devices to improve the performance of economics, stability, and safety of heavy vehicles and sports utility vehicles. This change order will be for Phase VI, Task 3, where there will be a redesign of the full scale PHV test vehicle. Work will continue form results based on Tasks 1 and 2 and lessons learned from the FY02 tests of the revised PHV tunnel model.Team members will include GTRI and Novatek Inc who developed and built the initial test blown trailer. It willl be necessary to acquire equipment and material. This will be followed by modifications on the test trailer to adapt to the new configuration. For Task 4, modificaition of the PHV trailer and associated test equipment and instrumentation will be completed, and all systems will be checked and confirmed. Preliminary on-road tests of this new PHV configuration, similar to tuning tests 1 and 2 previously conducted at the Volvo facility in previous tasks, will employ on-board digital fuel consumption equipment in the Volvo tractor for indicating fuel economy. Longer runs over less traveled highwayw will be used to more reliably indicate the modifed vehicle's fuel econonomy. Georgia Technical Research Institute (GTRI) is uniquely qualified to perform this work as they are the only organization that has the patented device to carry out the investigation