Students to run racing car on bioethanol
21 December 2007 by TNWToday | M&CThe Delft Formula Student team is building its first racing car to be fuelled by bioethanol. The new vehicle is due to take part in the Formula Student competition in July 2008, at which it will be pitted against entries from 400 universities throughout the world. For this event, student teams conceive, design, built and race small formula-type cars. The Delft entry will be the first in competition’s history to run on bioethanol.
The new car is the eighth to be built for this contest by the TU Delft Racing team. But the decision to adopt bioethanol has stretched the 60 students involved more than ever before, says team manager Henk Wapstra. “We are doing a lot of optimisation research on the use of bioethanol in partnership with several faculties. That takes the form of thesis projects at the BSc and MSc levels. The cars which currently run on this fuel do not use it as effectively as they could. But a racing car has to. There are also new challenges involved in the research we carry out every year into the use of lightweight materials. They are currently focusing upon new solutions for the fuel tank and feeds. Aluminium tanks are unsuitable for bioethanol, and we also had find a way to fit bigger tanks to the car.” Fortunately, a solution to that problem had been found by the time the team presented its design for the new Delft University of Technology racing car (DUT08) to family, friends and supporters on 19 December. The car itself will not be ready until next summer.
The TU Delft Racing team consists of 60 enthusiastic students from the faculties of Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical, Maritime & Materials Engineering, Industrial Design Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics & Computer Science and Applied Sciences.
The team’s performance in the Formula Student competition has improved steadily over the past seven years, with the high point being its second place at Silverstone in summer 2007. This year it is pulling out all the stops to make DUT08 the best car in the contest. To help achieve that, development work is continuing on last year’s DUT07 to provide a testbed for new techniques being considered for incorporation in this year’s model.
Note to editors
The DUT Racing team cordially invites you to the design presentation on 19 December. For details of this event, please visit www.dutracing,nl.
For more information, please contact:
Sander van der Burg
DUT Racing PR
Tel.: +31 614 162701
E-mail: pr@dutracing.nl
