Vehicle Dynamics Engineer

As a Vehicle Dynamics Engineer of Solar Team Twente, you are responsible for how the car behaves in all conditions. This includes its handling, stability, traction, ride comfort and overall predictability during the extreme stages of the rally. You translate performance goals into a vehicle that is controllable, efficient, and safe at high speeds and over rough terrain.

You will design and optimize the suspension system and wheel hubs, and work closely with the mechanical engineer and drivetrain engineer to integrate steering, braking and drivetrain systems into one vehicle concept.

Your task is to develop a suspension setup that offers strong performance and stability, while remaining robust, serviceable, and reliable under the immense forces, vibrations and impacts. You perform calculations and simulations to validate suspension kinematics, loads and dynamics behavior and translate these into detailed CAD designs. From concept development and optimization to assembly, testing and fine-tuning, you will be involved throughout the entire process.

The experience of Bas

My name is Bas Huttenhuis, and I joined Solar Team Twente as a mechanical engineer.

In the design phase, as a mechanical engineer you optimized every single component down to the smallest detail. I was specifically responsible for the suspension and the vehicle dynamics of the car, ensuring that the setup and calculations would allow the car to perform at its absolute best.

During the production phase, building the car truly began. Every day, we worked tirelessly to finish all the carbon parts. In the assembly phase, the car really started to come to life, and the day it stood on its wheels was magical. There it was, the car we had been dreaming about all that time. Not long after came the first test days. That’s when we were faced with the question of whether all the edge-of-the-limit calculations we had made were actually correct. Of course, it didn’t go flawlessly, but every setback was a celebration in its own way. The car became more reliable and therefore faster.

And suddenly, we were already in Australia. During qualification on the circuit, it was incredible to see how well the improvements I had made to the vehicle dynamics translated into performance, and achieving an amazing result in qualifying was a truly rewarding moment. The fact that our car completed the race flawlessly was the ultimate confirmation of all the hard work.