Solar Race Car Utilizes Siemens Digital Software Solutions

Siemens Digital Industries Software is sponsoring Team Sonnenwagen Aachen– a German student initiative focused on developing new sustainable mobility concepts – in the design and development process of the Sonnenwagen 3 solar race car. Sonnenwagen leverages Siemens’ Teamcenter software to address their challenge of coordinating and optimizing the interdependent areas of aerodynamics, mechanical and electrical systems, and vehicle structure on a tight schedule. By streamlining the exchange between NX software and Simcenter software including Simcenter STAR-CCM+ software and Simcenter Amesim software, Teamcenter allows Sonnenwagen to exchange design models across applications more easily and efficiently. 

Sonnenwagen is using Teamcenter, a tool within Siemens’ Xcelerator portfolio of integrated software and services, to speed up their design process and limit the additional need for planning and coordination. Designing a solar car like the Sonnenwagen 3 requires a team to handle many different parts that need to be integrated into the main assembly. By using Teamcenter as a data management tool, Sonnenwagen has been able to accelerate iteration loops and design a better Sonnenwagen 3.

“In past product development phases, we regularly ran into issues transferring models and data between different software solutions. This slows our designing process down and creates an additional need for planning and coordination,” says Simon Quinker, vice chairman and head of marketing at Team Sonnenwagen. “The pivotal point of our development came from Teamcenter. In addition to software, Siemens has been very supportive with their know-how expertise and helped us overcome hurdles and get the best out of the software."

Sonnenwagen has benefitted largely from the highly integrated software portfolio in combination with powerful simulation tools. Siemens’ NX software allowed Sonnenwagen to design a new outer shell of the Sonnenwagen 3 solar car, where they were able to transfer it to Simcenter STAR CCM+ and assess its aerodynamic efficiency. With Teamcenter allowing for efficient exchange of models across applications, the team can then take those results back to Siemens’ NX software to optimize the design and initiate the iteration loop once again. Additionally, by utilizing Siemens Amesim, the team can quickly simulate components designed in NX according to their functionality and use the results for the optimization of the component in NX.

“We are very pleased with the developments Sonnenwagen has been able to make by utilizing Siemens’ software solutions as a whole,” said Naz Aydemir, academic business development consultant for Siemens Digital Industries Software. “By working closely with the Siemens software product family throughout the development process, it’s great to see the Sonnenwagen overcome challenges and allow us as a proud sponsor to offer solutions that they can benefit from.”