COMPOSITES EUROPE Blog

The Bodensee Racing Team, or in short BRT, is sponsored amongst others by Harke Chemicals this year. It is one of the teams that takes part in this year’s Formula Student, a competition where students from all over the world compete against each other in self-constructed racing cars. “The contact to the Bodensee Racing Team was established during a booth conversation at the Composites Europe 2009 in Stuttgart, on which we presented epoxy resin systems. After the students from Konstanz had introduced us to the project we immediately decided to sponsor the team with our epoxy resins”, says Dirk Forler, Managing
Director of Harke Chemicals GmbH.

The “Formula1” of the student world takes place in different countries. In this year the BRT participate in Formula Student Races in Austria, Hungary and Italy with its ‘Iltis10’, which is the name of the racing car. The team has put an entire year’s passion and sweat into this car. To start with there was the designprocess, further the physical construction, then the testing – everything was realized by the students on their own. Racing is a costly affair, therefore the teams depend on the support of the economy. This year Harke Chemicals sponsors the team of 54 members with epoxy resins of their supply program, which are used to build the covering of the racing car in weight-saving construction in order to improve the speed.

So the fibre-glass frame of the covering was laminated and cured at room temperature in a vacuum process. The approach is called RIM technique (Resin Infusion Molding) or, in general, infusion technique. The principle is to inject liquid resin of low viscosity (under 500 mPas) at low pressure in only one working process into the mold, which is filled with reinforcing agents as for instance glass-fibre. Thereby the mold is covered with a flexible membrane and is thus used as a counterblock. Simultaneously the resin is pressed into the mold at low pressure. Through this procedure the epoxy resin can disperse among the reinforcing agents in an optimal way and cure in the mold by beeing heated afterwards.

The Bodensee Racing Team has constructed a racing car and organized a racing team for the 5th time already – always aiming at improving their results of the previous year. Students of different disciplines like engineering, economy and art at Konstanz University are the team members, which is a perfect precondition for this interdisciplinary task. The competition isn’t only about being the fastest car on the road but about being top in the overall standings. There are two disciplines. One discipline evaluates the static performance, like the presentation of the business plan, the design, the construction and the cost optimization of the components. The other one is the dynamic discipline. Here the focus is on acceleration, speed, brake ability, bank, reliability, dynamics and fuel economy. A jury of experts in motorsports, the automotive industry and its suppliers evaluate every racing car in the different disciplines. If everything goes well the BRT can improve last years results. And because of the fact that cool-down after one is the warm-up for the next race, the Bodensee Racing Team can expect support of Harke Chemicals next year.

Dates:
Formula Student Austria (11.08.-14.08.2010)
Formula Student Hungary (19.08.-22.8.2010)
Formula Student Italy (03.09.-06.09.2010)

Information on the company
Harke Chemicals GmbH has supplied chemicals for different applications for almost 45 years and has built up a comprehensive expertise in this field. The diversified portfolio ranges from, amongst others, basic chemicals, further pure chemicals for the electronic industry up to customized epoxy resin systems. The Managing Director of Harke Chemicals is Dirk Forler. The company belongs to the Harke Group, which – as an internationally acting marketer and distributor – opens industrial sales and supply markets for their customers and suppliers in the fields of chemicals, plastics, pharma and food in Europe and worldwide. Moreover, the group of companies offers affiliated services like e.g. contract packing, contract manufacturing and business-specific legal advice. Founded in 1965 as SYNTANA Handelsgesellschaft E. Harke GmbH & Co. KG, the trading house has expanded to a worldwide-acting group of companies, as a result of its steady growth and its consistent development of their business segments. Today HARKE Group has a turnover of 80 Mio. Euros and 140 employees. Thorsten Harke has been leading the family business in second generation for nearly 20 years today.

Source of supply:
HARKE Composites BU of HARKE Chemicals GmbH, Xantener Straße 1,
45479 Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany, phone +49 (0) 208/3069-0, fax +49 (0) 208/3069-1111, e-mail: composites@harke.com, website: www.harke.com/composites

PR contact HARKE Group:
Simone Drott, HARKE Services GmbH, Xantener Straße 1, 45479 Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany, phone +49 (0) 208/3069-2570, e-mail: sdr@harke.com

Website Bodensee Racing Team: www.brt-konstanz.de

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