Odisha’s VSSUT students win natl level awards for off-road vehicle

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Feb 14:

Students of Odisha’s Vir Surendra Sai University of Technology (VSSUT) have won two national level awards for designing an off-road vehicle.

The students won big in the cost effective design category and in the endurance test category in the national-level event on vehicle design held recently at Buddh International Circuit (BIC) at Noida.

“We won the awards in two different categories – the cost effective design category and the endurance test category. Under endurance test, each vehicle has to complete four hours of continuous race. We won the second prize in this category,” said P Purushottam, a final year Mechanical Engineering student of VSSUT and the team leader of the project.

Providing more information about the vehicle, he added that the vehicle has a 305cc engine that produces 10 HP power. It offers a mileage of 17 km per litre and accelerates from 0 to 40 km in five seconds. The top speed of the vehicle is 70 kmph and can take the inclination up to 30 degree in hilly terrain. The vehicle is an off-road and all-terrain vehicle that can be driven over surfaces such as sand, mud and hilly roads.

“This project was built at an estimated cost of Rs 7 lakh. We have had certain issues pertaining to funding this year. However, the reaction has been fantastic and we hope we will get the additional funding we need for the international event which will be held at Indore next year. We are going to start our work soon on the new model,” added Sekhar Suman Behera, a third year student and a member of the team.

“After design and manufacturing processes are complete, we test the vehicle extensively to ensure that it faces no issues or develops mechanical snags during the test. While most of the vehicles had problems during the test at the competition at BIC, our vehicle successfully went through the endurance test,” he added.

Overall, a 30-member team from the Mechanical, Production and Electrical Engineering Departments were involved in designing the vehicle. While the team procured the engine and CVT parts from abroad, they manufactured the hub, chassis, gear box and knuckles in the institute itself.