Imagine yourself seated snuggly in a single-seater racing car designed and built by university student engineers. You can feel the engines vibration, the smell of burning tires from the previous race and the anticipation builds as you know you are about to start your race. Now pause for a moment and think: What type of shock and impact protection would you like in your headrest?
Trelleborg’s applied technologies operation recently sponsored over 50 Formula Student racing teams, in 19 different countries with headrest protection materials specified by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) to ensure driver safety.
Formula Student challenges university teams from across the world to design, build and race a single-seater racing car in one year. The cars are then judged on their speed, acceleration and endurance, while the teams are tested on their design, costing and business presentation skills. Formula Student endeavours to support the motorsport industry by addressing the skills gap and providing mechanical engineering students with the opportunity for real-world experience of integrated electronics, software and systems engineering.
Terry Cooper, Managing Director at Trelleborg’s applied technologies operation, states: “This year, our Confor® Foam was specified by FIA to be used by all the teams as part of their headrest protection. Since we have a long history of supplying Confor® Foam to professional race teams throughout the world, it only made since to sponsor the teams with a material donation as they typically have limited budgets to work with.”
Trelleborg Confor® Foam is a high performance open celled urethane foam that offers a unique combination of properties that are ideal for high energy-absorption applications, enabling them to absorb and dissipate shock and impact.
“At Trelleborg, we are proud to support learning and development activities for young engineers. Through the Formula Student challenge, we were able to introduce the next generation of engineers to innovative polymer solutions that can improve passenger safety and comfort while optimizing vehicle performance.
“By sponsoring the Formula Student racing teams, we were able share our industry and product knowledge with students to ignite the next generation’s interest in automotive engineering.”
About Formula Student
Formula Student is Europe's most established educational engineering competition that aims to develop enterprising and innovative young engineers and encourage more young people to take up a career in engineering. The format of the event provides an ideal opportunity for students to test, demonstrate and improve their capabilities to deliver a complex and integrated product in the demanding environment of a motorsport competition. The project usually forms part of a degree-level project and is viewed by the motorsport industry as the standard for engineering graduates to meet, transitioning them from university to the workplace.
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