PRE sponsors charger Formula Student Team Delft

Since a couple of years PRE sponsors the Formula Student Team Delft (DUT). This year PRE supports the team again in building the electrical racing car. Support they can use well! The team has aimed high this year by completely changing the car, wanting to become world champion and also develop a driverless car as well (more about this later). PRE spoke with team manager Jelmer Blom.

The goal for 2019
This year about 75-80 students are invested in the team. Every year the most important goal of the Formula Student team Delft is to educate these students to become better engineers, but eventually, they just want to win. Jelmer Blom: “As a team we want to achieve the highest possible outcome and that is becoming world champion. We are participating in three competitions and the last one of the season (July 28th – August 1st on the Red Bull Ring in Austria) is the most important. This is the officious World Championship and we aim to win this one.”

Completely new design
However, becoming world champion is certainly not a settled matter. The team has been one of the best in the world for years and has one of the best cars. Because the competition is getting closer, the team decided to create a completely new design. Jelmer Blom: “In recent years we worked with a baseline approach. This meant that the current design was the basis of the car. Some elements were highlighted and only when it was shown that the new design was better, the adjustment was implemented. This year we chose a completely new design, starting from the best aerodynamics. In theory this should yield a profit of 20%.  To create more space for the wings, we have changed the complete chassis. By adjusting the measurements everything else in the car changes too, including the battery and all the electronics.

PRE sponsors charger
PRE supplies the charger for the car. Joshua Jones, graduate student at PRE power developers and former member of the Formula Student Team is responsible for engineering the charger. Joshua explains: “The charger needs to be able to recharge the 600V battery within the hour. The team, and not in the least the organization [of the driverless competition, edt.] sets high demands for the charger. It has to be communicating with the Battery Management System (BMS) through the CANBus. The BMS balances the cells internally and conveys how much power should be delivered and what the state-of-charge is. The charger also has to comply with the safety norms. An integrated system makes sure that everything comes to a halt when there is an error message. Also, the charger should be able to monitor the electrical separation between the power lines in the chassis continually. And, of course, a very practical demand: the charger should fit on the car.

Perfect charger
The Formula Student Team and PRE power developers are working together for several years now and this cooperation is a good match. Jelmer Blom: “The charger has been a crucial part. PRE thinks along with us and supplies quality. Before we race, we do extensive security checks, so-called ‘Scrutineering’. We never found any problems with the battery and the charger.”