Electric cars are taking the automotive industry by storm, but the typical bulky connectors and heavy duty wires needed to charge the vehicle can make owning one very frustrating.
Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a solution to this problem, a wireless power transfer that makes charging electric cars safe, convenient, and efficient.
Omer Onar, an Alvin M. Weinberg Fellow at ORNL, will talk about the world’s first dynamic wireless charging system without coils at this week’s Science Forum. His lecture, titled “Electric Vehicles Without Plugging In,” begins at noon on Friday, November 7, in Room C-D of Thompson-Boling Arena.
The Science Forum is a weekly lunchtime series that allows professors and area scientists to discuss their research with the general public in a conversational presentation.
Free and open to the public, each Science Forum consists of a forty-minute presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. Attendees are encouraged to bring their own lunch or purchase it at the cafe in Thompson-Boling Arena. The Science Forum is sponsored by the UT Office of Research and Quest, an initiative to raise awareness of the research, scholarship, and creative activity happening on campus.
Onar present an overview of the wireless power transfer systems and the vehicle charging applications. He also will cover ORNL’s three programs on wireless power along with technology descriptions and experimental results.
Onar received his doctorate from Illinois Institute of Technology in electrical engineering in 2010. He began working for ORNL after obtaining his doctorate. He researches advanced power electronics, renewable energies, wireless power transfer systems, and smart grids.
The weekly Science Forum continues through the semester:
November 14—Tim Isbel, Anderson County Commissioner, “A Vision for Rocky Top’s Coal Creek Miners Museum.”
November 21—Steven Ripp, research associate professor at the Center for Environmental Biotechnology, “Catch of the Day: Tiny Zebrafish in the Big Pharmaceutical Pond.”
For more about the UT Science Forum, visit the website.
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C O N T A C T :
Amy Blakely (865-974-5034, ablakely@utk.edu)