The advanced metal and material supplier is supporting the challenge with its technical expertise as it looks to travel over 3000km – from Darwin to Adelaide – in a fully electric, solar powered car.
The car in question, the Lux025, will be capable of a top speed of 130km/hr, with the plan being to maintain a high average speed with limited battery storage. It’s currently located at The Technical University of Munich.
The engineering team turned to Goodfellow to source the polyaramid honeycomb that has been used to build the sandwich structure of the outer shell of the solar car. It’s highly important, because it provides high strength and stiffness while being lightweight.
“Motorsport and academia are two of our biggest markets and we have built up some very exciting relationships in these spaces,” said Dr Aphrodite Tomou, Technical Manager, Goodfellow. “That’s why we were so excited to be involved in TUfast Eco’s latest challenge to travel 3000km across the outback in Australia. We relish the opportunity to identify the right material and the right post processing options to deliver exactly what companies, universities and teams need to push the boundaries of innovation.
“Having spoken with engineers in the team, we ratified their decision to go for Polyaramid and were able to supply the material in the desired quantities and in the timeframe required.
“This is a real test of endurance, technology and teamwork and we wish them all the best for when the event kicks-off in August (24th-31st).”
TUfast Eco, which is located at The Technical University of Munich, is a cross-cultural and multi-disciplined team of motivated students. Together, they aim to push the boundaries of more sustainable transport through conceptualising, developing, and manufacturing a highly efficient solar car to compete in worldwide solar automotive competitions.
Although this is the first time it will be competing in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, TUfast Eco has already won two Guinness World Records, for ‘Most Efficient Electric Vehicle’ in 2016 and more recently, for ‘Greatest Distance Driven by an Electric Vehicle on a Single Charge (non-solar)’ which at 2573.79km destroyed the previous record of 1608.54km.
“We are really pleased to have Goodfellow as a critical material supplier and sponsor, joining the likes of Agile Robots, Audi and Solidworks,” said Vince Bartok, from the TUfast Eco team. “It has been very responsive to our requests and has delivered a lot of technical advice that has helped us make subtle changes that will improve performance and continue to set new records.”
