The Umicore Solar Car from Tgroep (Leuven) has finished 2 out of 20 in the Panasonic World Solar Challenge in Australia. The race was from Darwin to Adelaide (3000km) with a stop in Alice Spring.
The overall winner of the race is the Nuon Solar Team from the University of Delft. The Umicore Solar Car was the fastest car in the second leg from Alice Spring to Adelaide. VKI, together with students from TGROEP, has been involved since the beginning in the aerodynamic design and study of the car: The CFD simulations have been performed under the guidance of VKI for the initial design of the car. Afterwards, scale models of different configurations have been tested and compared in our wind tunnel (L1B) during January and February. Finally, tests with the real car were performed beginning of September (L1A). Very useful information was gathered during these tests for the optimisation of the aerodynamic design.
