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We spoke with team member Jort Simons about the Nuna 12. Watch the video here.
Under the banner of "PROMOTING SUSTAINABILITY THROUGH INNOVATION," the Brunel Solar Team is all about crafting sustainable solar cars. Their aim? To amplify global awareness about the potency of sustainable energy through innovation. That just happens to sync perfectly with our mission: eco-friendly cloud services through innovation.
So, it's fantastic that for their new Nuna 12 solar car, they've utilized our servers to compute the most optimal design. This move makes the design phase far more sustainable. Considering the substantial computing power involved, it's an extremely energy-gobbling endeavor. Doing those calculations on Leafcloud's carbon-negative servers, though, yields a massive impact. This blog delves into what it takes to challenge for victory while making sustainability gains at every turn.
Note: Since the first release of this blog, the team has completed the challenge, finishing in just over four days and securing an impressive third place.
Winning as a Fresh Face
Inspired by the movie 'Race the Sun,' in which high school students built a solar-powered car, a group of students from Delft decided to build their own solar car for the 2001 World Solar Challenge. They sought out Wubbo Ockels, the first Dutch astronaut and a professor at TU Delft, to coach their team. He agreed on one condition: they had to win. The bar was set high. Never before had newcomers clinched victory. After months of building and racing, they fulfilled their promise to Wubbo by winning the race. Since then, the Brunel Solar Team has been participating in solar races worldwide, showcasing solar energy's potential and pushing technological boundaries. Their latest version, Nuna 11S, which triumphed at the 2022 Sasol Solar Challenge in South Africa, hits speeds of 130 kilometers per hour. At 90 kilometers per hour, it can run energy-neutral for hours during the day without using the battery.
Eco-Friendly Computing Power for Optimal Aerodynamic Design
Every two years, the team crafts a new car, aiming to surpass the previous version's performance. This year, they crafted Nuna 12, to traverse 3000 kilometers (about 1864.11 mi) from North to South Australia in the 2023 Bridgestone Solar Challenge.
We caught up with team member Jort Simons to discuss Nuna 12. Watch the video here.
To minimize battery use and maximize efficiency while driving, an optimal aerodynamic design is imperative. This demands intricate calculations requiring significant computing power. Previously, the team conducted these computations on on-premises computers. However, after encountering Leafcloud, they became enthusiastic about our unique sustainable cloud concept. Subsequently, they shifted their calculations to Leafcloud's platform, adopting a sustainable cloud for a sustainable car.
Understanding Calculations in Solar Car Design
To compute the optimal aerodynamic design, the team performs Fluid Dynamics calculations. For a solar car, understanding airflow dynamics is crucial. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFDs) enable them to approximate the airflow around the car and modify the design accordingly. These CFDs demand substantial computing power. Before Leafcloud, the team hadn't found a sustainable alternative for these calculations. Upon meeting Leafcloud, they realized that opting for a green cloud could further enhance their sustainability during the design process.
Though some designers in the team were new to cloud services, with Leafcloud's support, they quickly adapted. Their request to run more CFDs in the final design phase was gladly accommodated, allowing them to run twice as many CFDs as previous teams.
The result? They managed to further reduce aerodynamic resistance by a few percentage points. While seemingly small, in a race lasting 30 to 35 hours, this difference can be the difference between winning or losing.
Thanks to Leafcloud, the Brunel Solar Team doubled their CFD computations and decreased aerodynamic resistance, potentially tipping the outcome of a 3000 km race in their favor.
Benefits of Sustainable Cloud for Compute-Intensive Sectors
The alignment of vision between the Brunel Solar Team and Leafcloud regarding innovation and sustainability is evident. We're a cloud provider committed to making IT use climate-neutral – even CO2-negative – by situating our servers in buildings with central hot water systems and a year-round need for heat. Reusing server-generated heat reduces the need for fossil fuels in these buildings. For instance, someone can shower using the heat generated to run a CFD workload. Running such intensive computations on our servers makes a substantial difference. Thus, we extend an invitation to other heavy cloud users.
It's not just boundary pushing solar teams; the automotive, aviation, and aerospace industries conduct thousands of similar calculations. These results offer significant advantages to all of us, but all that computational power consumes energy. A conservative estimate suggests that these calculations demand as much energy as a medium-sized country consumes in a year. Collectively, data centers worldwide already account for 4% of the total energy consumption.
Innovate Without CO2 Emissions
Given the energy-intensive nature and heat emissions of these calculations, executing them on Leafcloud's servers yields a more significant impact. Hence, we hope for more innovative and environmentally conscious heavy IT users. Innovate but without CO2 emissions – that's what we (and the Brunel Solar Team) strive for every day. How about your IT consumption? Have you ever considered the environmental impact of your IT use and whether it could be improved? Sustainability is probably part of your business strategy, but is it integrated into your cloud strategy? If you'd like to explore this further, feel free to reach out to us.
To read more about the Brunel Solar Team, click here.
