Battery development software company About:Energy has launched Formula Student: Drive to Recharge to help address the UK’s battery skills gap and support the development of 1,500 battery engineers by 2030.
As part of the initiative, About:Energy has sponsored five Formula Student teams from universities across the UK (Edinburgh, Oxford Brookes, Loughborough, Imperial College London and Birmingham). It will provide each team with simulation tools and education resources to enhance battery pack design.
Formula Student – one of Europe’s most established educational engineering competitions – is run by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE). Teams design, build, test and race small-scale formula-style racing cars, powered by gasoline engines or electric motors. However, with recent EV technology advances, many teams are now switching to fully electric.
According to About:Energy, battery simulation holds value in accelerating electric drivetrain development for Formula Student teams, but initial adoption into development programs is a barrier to entry that requires innovative lab facilities and months of battery testing.
Christian Pilling, battery simulation engineer at About:Energy, who is leading the initiative, said, “Drive to Recharge provides university students with the same modeling tools that are at the disposal of the largest companies in the world. This initiative enhances their engineering skills and tests their grasp of both theoretical and practical aspects.”
Jacob Haseldine, lead engineer of the University of Birmingham’s Formula Student team, UBRacing, added, “About:Energy has helped us understand how cell voltage response affects performance, and how we can adjust our control strategy to mitigate the risks of reaching voltage limits prematurely. The models enable us to accurately simulate battery behavior, driving key design decisions for the team.”
Following its successful launch in the UK, the initiative is expanding globally across Germany, the USA and India, with further growth expected.
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