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Not your everyday racecars…
Two student teams InMotion and Ecurie Aix set a fast pace in EV innovation
Student solar racecars zooming through the Australian Outback in the World Solar Challenge, hyperloop prototypes competing at European Hyperloop week, student rocket launching competitions at the Spaceport America Cup in the New Mexican desert…There certainly isn’t a lack of exciting opportunities when it comes to student competitions.
The popularity of student team experiences seems to be booming and rightfully so. Of course, there is the obvious fun factor. Who wouldn’t want to go on a trip to Australia to race solar car technology that could possibly save the planet? Or fulfill a childhood dream as you watch your team’s rocket soar off Spaceport America’s launch pad?
Unquestionably the student team experience is life-changing and provides the next-generation of engineers and entrepreneurs with a solid professional skillset and exposure to new technology and ideas. Two great examples of this are the InMotion student team, associated with Eindhoven University of Technology in The Netherlands, and Ecurie Aix, the Formula Student team from RWTH Aachen University in Germany. Both teams have gone above and beyond the call of duty, having designed and developed racing-on-the-edge-of-technology EVs in record time.
Record-breaking 12 minute fast-charging
Wouldn’t we all want to drive an EV if we could fast-charge it full in about the same time as it takes to fill a tank with petrol? This is the inspiration driving InMotion. Based on the Automotive Campus in Helmond, The Netherlands, InMotion is currently fine-tuning its latest car, the Revolution. The Revolution is an all-electric Le Mans car that showcases its innovative 12-minute fast-charging technology and demonstrates its next- generation battery packs.
“We really try to innovate on the mobility side,” says Martijn Scholtus, former account manager for InMotion. “We believe that fast charging is way too slow at this point and that might be a reason that people do not drive electrically. With the Revolution, we want to make the charging time as fast as possible. It is charging in 12 minutes. That’s a big leap. And it’s a Le Mans race car.”
A decade of winning innovation
The InMotion team, which is run as a foundation that rotates students annually, practices continuous innovation. Experienced former members meet weekly with the current team to share information and help them solve technical challenges. In over ten years, InMotion has built four successive innovative race cars including the bio-ethanol Ignition; the fastest student e-Formula 3 called the Fusion; the Vision, a more aerodynamic e-concept car; and the Revolution with its 12-minute e-charging time.
“Ten years of being a student team is quite amazing,” says Ewout Timmermans, former team manager, InMotion. “This is what makes InMotion special. The people that founded it ten years ago are still on the supervisory board. People that built the first electric race car, the Fusion, are still providing us with knowledge about the Revolution. That’s unique. It’s about moving forward, making progress and keeping continuity on the team.”
Using Siemens solutions to gain professional experience
One main focus for InMotion recently was to professionalize the team. The students wanted to take it up a notch and start performing like a real racing team. InMotion turned to Siemens Digital Industries Software to help make this a reality.
“Siemens is a key partner in making this happen as they provide us with all of the software to design, build and engineer the car,” Timmermans adds. “It is necessary to work with really good software. Siemens provides this same software suite to Formula One as well. So, at InMotion, we’re working with the same software as the pro teams and that is really allowing us to push our design to the limit. As a result, we have an amazing race car in the garage that is an enormous piece of engineering. This is really unique.”
An innovative mindset
The team built a comprehensive digital twin of the Revolution and its systems using Siemens NX software for detailed computer-aided design (CAD) work and various Simcenter software tools, like Simcenter STAR-CCM+ software and Simcenter 3D software for advanced engineering tasks. And with the team’s innovative mindset, it isn’t surprising that InMotion was one of the first student teams to fully integrate Teamcenter software into the process to leverage the right data from the digital thread of the Revolution.
“People think that we just start designing something, which is not true. We designed the Revolution as a team and this process comes with a lot of requirements, preferences, ideas and constraints,” says Thomas Kuijpers, former technical manager, InMotion.
Leveraging the digital thread
Working in a digital thread with a digital twin was a new concept for some of the engineers on the team. Old-school tactics, like prototyping and on-the-fly troubleshooting are now a thing of the past for the new generation of InMotion engineers.
“I think for most of the engineers, it was a true eye opener that you can work in this detail and represent advanced design and engineering performance this accurately in a virtual world,” explains Kuijpers.
The InMotion student team is quick to recognize that getting everyone up to speed on all the Siemens solutions was far from an out-of-the-box experience. They had help from cards PLM Solutions, a Siemens Platinum Smart Expert Partner, based in Best, the Netherlands.
“The consultants from cards PLM were always quick to respond and point us in the right direction when we got stuck,” explains Kuijpers. “Another bonus about Siemens, especially for students, is the Siemens Xcelerator Academy. Most of us had already followed courses online with the university, but once we started working as a new team, we had more access to specific material and tutorials. This was very useful for us.”
Concludes Scholtus, “The most prestigious race is the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Our entire team dreams of racing there with this technology. If it works at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, then it’s going to work everywhere.”
And down the street in Aachen, Germany
Head about 100 kilometers south from Helmond to Aachen, Germany, the home of RWTH Aachen University and one of its many university student teams, Ecurie Aix. Practically a pioneer in Formula Student racing, Ecurie Aix is named for the area’s racing heritage. Just across the border is the famous Belgian track, Spa-Francorchamps, home circuit to the Belgian Ecurie Francorchamps racing team, a mainstay in the early days of F1 and Le Mans in the 1950s. In honor of this, Ecurie Aix combines the French word for racing team, Ecurie, with Aix, as in Aix-la Chapelle, the French name for Aachen.
Formula Student is a worldwide competition with more than 500 academic teams designing and developing their own car according to Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) or the Formula Student Germany (FSG) regulations. The goal of the competition is to have the student teams design, manufacture and test a race car in one year. Like other teams, Ecurie Aix team has transitioned from the ICE engines it started with in 1999 to EVs. This past summer they raced with their 10th fully electric vehicle as well as taking baby steps into the world of AV with a brand-new vehicle, the eax01, better known as Aileen.
The secret is the battery
Of course, the trick to winning a race is all about the engine or, in the world of EV, the battery. Ecurie Aix wanted to improve the thermal and electric characterization of their battery packs. They understood they needed to combine several disciplines to manage the complexity and turned to their partner, Siemens, to help execute “Batterie Aix”, an engineering project which combined experiments, systems simulation and computational fluid dynamics to optimize the battery thermal management, taking into consideration scalability, re-usability and future enhancements.
Using Siemens solutions to gain insight into battery usage
During the Batterie Aix project, the students determined how to characterize the battery cells and optimally integrate the batteries into the vehicle to meet their performance expectations, range, and design requirements. They also needed to correctly dimension the cooling system so it would fit safely.
“We needed Siemens’ solutions for battery and thermal simulations; modeling the battery and its behavior was a new field for us,” states Thomas Nyhues, student engineer, Ecurie Aix.
Onwards to Batterie Aix
Instead of using a complex battery model to generate data, they conducted real-world experiments at the Institute for Power Electronics and Electrical Drives (ISEA) at the RWTH Aachen. Using a multi-disciplinary approach for the electrical and thermal simulation, the team combined experiments in systems simulation and CFD, co-simulating in Simcenter Amesim and Simcenter STAR-CCM+ respectively. This experimental simulation approach resulted in valuable insights into battery usage.
Success thanks to Siemens
The team is quick to credit the expert technical support provided by Siemens as a key success factor in this project. Like other Siemens-sponsored student teams, Ecurie Aix could access online learning material from the Siemens Xcelerator Academy and Siemens Support Center. This was enhanced by in-person expertise from the Siemens.
Nyhues adds, “We ran into some problems with coupling the software and using it for the first time, but Siemens’ support team always offered us a solution.”
Once the battery cooling system was correctly simulated, the team used the model during the vehicle development process. For example, reducing the size and weight of the cooling system gave Ecurie Aix an advantage over other teams.
“The battery identification tool in Simcenter Amesim saved us a lot of time,” continues Nyhues. “You just put your data into a toolbox and get an accurate battery model.”
Concludes Nyhues. “Siemens enabled us to get into the software and tackle any problems that arose during the project. I am still overwhelmed by the motivation of the Siemens team. It felt like they were part of our team and had the same goal.”
Following their most successful summer season to date in 2021, Ecurie Aix pushed the bar a step higher during the 2022 summer racing season and competed with a brand-new vehicle, the eax01, better known as Aileen. Aileen is an autonomous EV that can also be driven by an actual driver. Meeting the latest standards proved to be quite the challenge. Despite the fact that Ecurie Aix had to compete all season with only Aileen’s front-wheel-drive functional and had issues competing in the autonomous disciplines, the team was happy with the overall racing results, which included winning the Efficiency trophy in Hockenheim, Germany.
Both the InMotion and Ecurie Aix teams are looking forward to exciting EV racing experiences in the near future. And, at Siemens and Simcenter, we are just happy that we could help.