Rear Wheel Steering System for Racing Solar Cars

Some of our students study energy by producing racing solar cars. Of course, they are concerned with solar energy and how to use it efficiently, however they must also study total energy system for making good solar cars. In solar education we try to provide them with an opportunity for learning engineering technologies around the solar energy to realize that solar power is related to other fields and branches. For example, it is important to reduce resistance to motion of a car to save the energy. So they designed a rear wheel steering system and a narrow spat in order to make the drag force he small. The spat is a kind of cover for a tire. They showed the rear wheel steering caused the width of the spat to be more narrow. The drag force, which is a part of the resistance to motion, on two front spat was estimated. From the result, they calculated the total energy saving-over the route of the 2013 World Solar Challenge. It is recognized that adding the rear steering system to the car is useful for the race.