Lapping the field

The fiercest machines in competitive racing aren’t driving through Indianapolis or Monaco. They’re coming straight from Telford, England where UWR is redefining automobile performance. The team designs and assembles every component of their cars, then gets behind the wheel in professional races – including the F3 Cup Championship, where they were the first and only university-based team to enter.

Success on the track stems from UWR’s tech-heavy workshops. Relying on a wide range of Lenovo ThinkStations, the students:

• Run simulations with programs like MATLAB®, Simulink®, and the Lotus Suspension Analysis SHARK module to help them model the kinematic effects of changes in the chassis and suspension
• Design new parts that have never before seen a race track, using SOLIDWORKS®, ANSYS®, and Geomagic, then bring them to life with a 3D metal printer
• Analyze past race data using recording software built-in to every car – so they can improve in the future

UWR’s prowess has attracted the attention of industry leaders. Formula One teams have requested design and manufacturing help, and Rolls Royce and Aston Martin have come to recruit. And how’s this for a finish? Every UWR graduate has a real-world job in the automotive industry.

Innovation Doesn’t Take a Pit Stop

In the UWR labs, every workstation has to run every application, with no chance for downtime. Before, outdated computers meant breakdowns. Now, equipped with ThinkStations, UWR gains reliability, flexibility and ultimate compute performance. And with a failure rate of less than a quarter of a percent, ThinkStations make sure heavy data analysis and component design don’t send students into a tailspin.

To fuel race simulations and design-heavy workloads, UWR counts on the world-class graphics of the ThinkStation P900 series. As the only workstations able to accommodate three NVDIA Quadro P6000 cards, these ThinkStations keep ISV-certified apps like SOLIDWORKS, Geometric, and ANSYS running without a hitch.

Accelerated compute performance carries over to the track. During the race, UWR uses ThinkPad P70 Series mobile workstations to download and analyze scores of engine and suspension data so they can make real-time adjustments – shaving off fractions of a second to secure the win.

“There’s a whole range of analytical software we use. It requires the real power that Lenovo workstations provide to do those number-crunching parts.” – Matthew Fenton, UWR Race Engineer