TeXtreme® sponsored team wins Formula Student

The 2012 Formula Student UK competitions at the Silverstone race circuit took place 11-15 of July and resulted in a victory for the Chalmers Formula Student team from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. 

Formula Student is the world’s largest competition for engineers, and is described as:  “The competition challenges student engineers to design, build and race a single seat racing car in one year. The cars are then judged on their speed, acceleration, handling and endurance in a series of time-trial races, while the teams are tested on their design, costing and business presentation skills” 

TeXtreme® has been successfully used in Formula 1 for many years and almost as long teams in Formula Student has been using TeXtreme® Spread Tow Fabrics to save weight and improve mechanical performance.

Oxeon has supported the Chalmers Formula student team with TeXtreme® carbon reinforcements for many years and are glad to see results of the cooperation.

Jens Kjellerup, member of the Chalmers Formula Student team says: We have used TeXtreme® in basically all carbon composite parts on the car. The stiffness surpasses our demands which give an advantage regarding performance. The benefits of TeXtreme® is that it is light and strong, our composite parts weighs considerably less compared to if using other carbon materials. During the competition the officials and judges estimated our wing package to 17kg, but they were wrong, it weighs only 10kg, thanks to TeXtreme®.“

”Chalmers University’s car is a masterpiece of engineering that makes a worthy winner. As well as being one of the fastest cars, it also performed consistently and impressively in the static events.” Andrew Deakin, Formula Student Vice Chairman, comments.

Four of the top five teams in Formula Student UK 2012 are using TeXtreme® as their principal composite reinforcement, leading to notable results. TU Munich won the sprint event, and DUT Racing won the design event, to mention some other good performances from Silverstone.

TeXtreme® Spread Tow carbon fabrics reduce weight on composite parts by 20-30% compared to conventional fabrics. This is made possible due to Oxeon’s novel Spread Tow- and Tape Weaving Technologies; spreading yarns into thin tapes and spreading the tapes into a fabric. In any given area more fibers can be packed in tape form than in a yarn. A woven material comprising interlacing fibrous tapes, instead of yarns, displays a substantially reduced number of interstices/openings. This means that a tape woven structure presents less accumulation of matrix at the interstices and hence increased fiber volume fraction.

Selection of teams using TeXtreme® in Formula Student 2012:
• Chalmers Formula Student - Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden (1th place)
• DUT Racing – Delft University, Netherlands (2nd place)
• TU Munich – Technical University Munich, Germany (4th place)
• Rennteam Stuttgart – University of Stuttgart, Germany (5th place)

In total there are almost 20 Formula Student teams benefitting from TeXtreme® Spread Tow carbon reinforcements worldwide.

About Formula Student Formula Student is the most established educational motorsport competition. The competition aims to inspire and develop enterprising and innovative young engineers.  Universities from across the globe are challenged to design and build a single-seat racing car in order to compete in static and dynamic events, which demonstrate their understanding and test the performance of the vehicle. Students are to assume that a manufacturing firm has engaged them to produce a prototype car for evaluation. In addition to technical skills, students acquire management, marketing and people skills - so vital across all sectors of employment.