Students Optimizing the Future of Mobility with Topology-Driven Design

Presentation by Luca Sutton, Head of Running Gear, TUfast Eco at TU Munich as part of Altair's Future.Industry 2025 conference.

Luca is part of the TUfast ECO team from the Technical University of Munich, where students are building a solar-powered race car for the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge 2025. Driving 3,000 km powered only by the sun isn’t science fiction—it’s a reality they are creating. Every design choice aims to prove that sustainable mobility isn’t just possible but practical, efficient, and exciting. Every 500g saved increases the car's average speed by 0.18 km/h, making lightweight design essential. Using Altair HyperMesh, Luca optimized the front uprights, and with Altair Inspire, the team refined all mechanical parts. In this presentation, Luca will demonstrate how their design process starts with topology optimization (TO) to inspire solutions, followed by validation through static and non-static FEA methods in Inspire to ensure safety and performance.