Siemens is helping to prepare the next generation of engineering talent with Formula SAE students
Siemens PLM Software supports numerous competitions and provides curriculum to ensure that our academic partners have the power to transform students’ college educations and give them the real-world experience they need to succeed.
The SAE International Formula SAE program is an engineering design competition for undergraduate and graduate students. The competition provides participants with the opportunity to enhance their engineering design and project management skills by applying learned classroom theories in a challenging competition.
There were 116 teams at this year’s Formula Student (Combustion, gasoline engine class) May 9-12 in the premier Formula Student competition in North America for combustion engine racecars. Formula Electric is held in June. About a dozen teams came from schools as distant as Austria, Germany, India, Poland and Mexico. The event is held at the Michigan NASCAR racetrack facility west of Detroit, Michigan USA.
The teams compete not only on the track, but to win they must also score heavily weighted points for design presentations, business presentations, cost analysis and other disciplines intended to help the students become well-rounded engineers. To make the lessons both very real and practical though, they do race the cars on track one at a time in skid-pad, acceleration, autocross and endurance events, after first passing rigorous technical inspections.
Siemens had a booth in the sponsor main tent, and offered free in-kind software grants, online training and support to select teams.
Some Siemens sponsored teams did very well in the competition such as 4th place Technical University of Munich that uses both Siemens PLM tools, Technical University of Graz in 2nd place, and University of Stuttgart in 1st place that is also sponsored by Siemens.
We also put on a Skill-shop for about 65 students, introducing them to the breadth of Siemens’ automotive engineering software, with deeper presentations on Fibersim for composite parts design and STAR-CCM+ for Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software. STAR-CCM+ is very popular for analyzing and optimizing the downforce of their racecar’s aero wings. (Downforce adds significant grip for stronger cornering capability).For Fibersim, we showed a testimonial from Global Formula Racing from Oregon State University, that saved dramatic cost on materials, and let them produce more complex parts such as wheels and monocoque chassis parts.
The next Formula SAE event later in June in Nebraska, USA. This event features the Formula Electric class teams, who can take even more advantage of the electrical software tools that the Mentor merger brings to Siemens PLM offerings. The VeSys/Capital software for electrical system and wiring harness design is especially useful for their high-voltage, high-current electrical drivetrains.
Looking forward to supporting student competitions such as Formula Student Austria, Formula Student Germany, Formula Student Japan, and Formula Student China. Dont forget to check out our online forum for Formula Student & FSAE
