Attack on the Belgians
After a few years, TU Delft’s Bruel Solar Team is once again heading for Australia for the World Solar Challenge with a solar car that is as flat as it is efficient. The student team naturally hopes to regain the world title and is bringing a new solar car with it. This is the Nuna 12.
The TU Delft Solar Team has won the World Solar Racing World Championship in Australia several times, but in recent years things have been less sunny. During the last World Solar Challenge in Australia in 2019, the team’s current solar car – the Nuna X – went up in flames. Our southern neighbors won the trophy during that last championship. But: behind the clouds the sun shines. At least, that is what the Brunel Solar Team hopes. With a new solar car, the student team will soon return to Australia in the hope of bringing the world title back to the Netherlands.
Lennart Hessels, team captain of the Brunel Solar Team, says it has never had as much competition as last year. “We never raced against so many other teams,” adds the team captain. “We are not only competing against the world title holders, the Belgians, but also against two other Dutch teams and about thirty other teams from all over the world.” The Brunel Solar Team is also not that big with eighteen team members. “The team from Michigan in the United States has a hundred team members”, says the captain of the Delft student team. “The Japanese team also performs better every year and after four years they may be at the starting line with a brand new concept. The bar gets higher every year.”
The new solar car is traditionally called Nuna again, this time followed by the number 12. According to Hessels, the Nuna 12 partly uses technology that is not yet commercially available. The Nuna 12 has a battery with a 50 percent higher energy density than that of the team’s previous solar car. The solar panel is also different this year. “It consists of several layers of materials. They ensure that the sunlight can reflect in the cells, which increases efficiency. By also partly overlapping the cells, we can generate even more energy per square meter.” The team captain is hopeful. “If we manage to make a little profit each time through all these innovations, we will become world champions.”
The World Solar Challenge starts on October 22 in Australia. In the run-up to the start of the time race – which lasts about five days and covers a distance of 3,000 kilometers through the desert from Darwin to Adelaide – the car will be extensively tested. AutoWeek naturally wishes the Brunel Solar Team success.
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– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl