RSE Supporting Heriot-Watt Team for Formula Student 2023

Heriot-Watt University’s Formula Student Team, HW Racing, designed a single seat open wheel racing car to enter into the Institute of Mechanical Engineers Formula Student competition held annually at Silverstone. 

Formula Student is an educational engineering competition with student teams from around the world entering by designing, building, testing and racing a small-scale formula style racing car. The cars are judged on several criteria using the same rules as the original Formula SAE supplementary regulations.

Founded in 2009, HWRacing is a small team consisting of 16 dedicated team members studying across a range of engineering disciplines including Mechanical, Chemical, Electrical Engineering and Robotics. This year, the team focused on maintaining the reliability of their previous car while performing design optimisation on key areas such as suspension, engine and drivetrain. The team were confronted with a range of challenges throughout delivering the HWR-12 project for the competition, including switching an internal combustion engine to an electronic powertrain. The team were also tasked with repackaging the rear of the car to bring a more responsive powertrain.

The Formula Student project usually forms part of a degree-level project and is viewed by the motorsport industry as the standard for engineering graduates to meet, as part of transitioning them from university to the workplace. The competition is a kite-mark for the real-world engineering experience, combining practical engineering experience with soft skills including business planning and project management.

RSE provided support to HWRacing by supplying and manufacturing the cell holders for HWR-12’s high voltage accumulator. The team of talented student engineers visited our Dalgety Bay facility to see the cell holders being expertly fabricated from fire-retardant ABS plastic using a CNC machine, to provide a robust mounting system for all 864 of the accumulator lithium-ion cells, capable of 400V and 200A output.

The battery packs were one of the challenging design components for the team, due to the high voltage safety requirements. The packs are designed to be fire-retardant to UL94V-0 rating, completely electrically insulating and capable of withstanding a 40G loading in all directions, whilst also maintaining incredibly tight spacing between the individual cells and allowing for sense and monitoring of the pack.

Due to the requirements for precision, and fire-retardant insulating materials, HWRacing was unable to manufacture these packs in-house and RSE was delighted to provide the support which was critical in ensuring these elements were delivered for the HWR-12 project.  

Well done to the HWRacing team for successfully entering HWR-12 for Formula Student 2023, we hope the experience gained has made for an invaluable and rewarding project which will assist you as your launch your career in the engineering industry.