Solar Car

Antakari Solar Team designed and built this stunning solar powered car as part of the World Solar Challenge. Being seasoned designers, this design was extensively refined through fluid dynamic simulations to ensure the design was as efficient as it could be in aerodynamic terms.

The car was then constructed using a variety of composite materials. The mould was fabricated from fibreglass based materials ready for the monocoque to be constructed in an upper and bottom halves. Extensive use was made of Spread Tow Carbon Fibre fabrics due to the fact they sit flatter and will give a smoother finish compared to a typical cloth. This helps with the aerodynamic efficiency of the car.

The two halves were hand laid up and wetted out with resin by hand before being vacuum bagged to help with consolidation and also to remove excess resin. The finished parts were going to be painted, so the benefits in terms of cosmetic finish from doing a more advanced process such as infusion were not relevant here so wet lay vacuum bagging was considered good enough for this project.

Once the parts had cured, they were trimmed, sanded smooth then assembled to make the finished solar car.