Overview
Formula SAE is a competition between university student teams, organized by the Society of
Automotive Engineers. Each student team has to design, build, test, and promote a prototype,
which is then evaluated in eight types of tests, ranging from pure performance and design
to advertising and presenting the vehicle. The worldwide competition takes place during
nine official events in four continents. All official events are subject to a single technical and
sporting regulation. The basic idea of the Formula SAE is that a fictional company engages
the team to realize a prototype with characteristics in accordance with the regulation, which
occupies the market segment dedicated to the non-professional races autocross.
One of the competing teams is SquadraCorse, the student team from the Politecnico di Torino,
Italy. In the development of their cars the team applies Altair‘s HyperWorks suite, in particular
HyperMesh for model creation as well as OptiStruct, the finite element solver and optimization
tool of the suite, which helps them to create better and lighter components.