Aeolus is a unique international competition for vehicles powered by wind turbines and is aimed at inspiring interest in wind energy both amongst engineers and the wider general public. During the competition, the vehicles are raced under a variety of conditions to determine which can harness the energy of the wind most efficiently.

• A land vehicle on wheels, steered by a driver.
• Powered by a device with spinning blades which must extract energy only from the wind.
• Temporary storage of energy is allowed during the race but the storage device (e.g. battery) must be empty at the start.

The competition takes place annually, bringing together teams from across the globe to race their custom designed vehicles. Bristol University have now entered both the 2010 race in Denmark and more recently, the 2011 race in Holland, and we remain the only UK team to have participated in the competition.

Our involvement in the competition dates back to 2009, when a multi-disciplinary team of students and academics from across the Faculty of Engineering completed the preliminary design of the Bristol entry. Detailed design and development of the vehicle has since been divided into three main work packages; Motive Power, Energy Capture and Lofting & Structures. Team meetings are held on a weekly basis to ensure clear communication between work packages and a range of undergraduate research projects have been optimising specific aspects of the vehicle’s design such as the turbines, electrical transmission system and chassis structure. At the 2010 race in Denmark, Bristol became the only team ever to complete the race using an electrical drive-train to transfer energy from the turbines to the vehicle’s wheels (all other entries used purely mechanical drive-trains).

Eager to build on this initial success, a number of projects were undertaken to develop an improved entry for the August 2011 race in Holland. These included the manufacture of new blades and pitch control mechanism for the vehicle’s two turbines and an updated electrical control system. A final push was made over the 2011 summer vacation to finish all of the modifications in time for the race, but on this occasion, the risk of sacrificing time for fully testing the vehicle wasn’t to pay off. Despite the immense efforts of the Bristol team, last-minute technical problems in Holland proved too difficult to overcome and we were unable to get the vehicle working during the competition. Although everyone felt extremely frustrated, we are now completely committed to getting things right for the next race in 2012.

Aeolus provides an ideal platform for a range of research and design projects throughout the Faculty of Engineering. It has also sparked interest amongst the wider general public through public displays, outreach events, news articles and even a BBC TV documentary, which followed the team’s experience at the 2010 race. For these reasons, it is hoped that Aeolus will remain a flagship project at Bristol for many years to come, of which the University can be truly proud.

The project has been undertaken in collaboration with the leading renewable energy consultancy Garrad Hassan & Partners Ltd and it is one of many new initiatives being promoted through the University’s Cabot Institute, a multidisciplinary research hub dedicated to tackling the challenges of environmental change. Aeolus Power (Wind-Energy) Ltd, The Bristol Port Company, Boeing UK, Aviation Enterprises Ltd and the University’s Alumni Foundation have also generously supported vehicle development and race travel costs.

Teams competing at the inaugural Aeolus competition in 2008