Mercedes-Benz Special Trucks and Mörtlbauer Baumaschinen Vertriebs have developed two hydrogen combustion prototypes. These form part of the ‘WaVe’ project to research this powertrain solution for specialist vehicles.
The vehicles were displayed in action at Mörtlbauer’s factory in Fürstenzell, Bavaria. The hydrogen Unimog and crawler projects received funding from Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action and the vehicles were developed alongside 16 other consortium partners.
Franziska Cusumano, head of Mercedes-Benz special trucks, said: "The final event held together with our partner Mörtlbauer on their premises once again demonstrated that both vehicles have reached a development status that we can be very satisfied with, even though this project has run for just three years. After numerous test deployments, emission measurements, and technical fine tuning, we are convinced that hydrogen combustion for work machines with high power requirements, both for driving and for powering auxiliary drives, is worthwhile, practical, and very low in emissions.”
The Unimog’s drive system has been in operation for more than a year during which time it underwent various tests. Since spring this year, the dump truck crawler has been used in initial application-specific tests.
Armin Mörtlbauer, managing director of Mörtlbauer Baumaschinen Vertriebs GmbH, said: "The fact that our crawler and the Mercedes-Benz Special Trucks Unimog can be easily refueled with gaseous hydrogen and that these vehicles also work reliably when using implements is the result of the outstanding cooperation in this research partnership. We have researched and understood this technology. We now have the corresponding experience and data. However, to apply these in series production, we have to go even further on this path. If the government and society choose to follow the path toward hydrogen combustion engines, we are ready to go."
The vehicles feature medium-duty engines which were converted to run on hydrogen. The engines feature customised pistons, an optimised intake system, and hydrogen-suited ignition system. Water is the result of the combustion process and this is emitted as steam from the exhaust system.
