Tecnico Solar Boat - a passion for sustainable engineering

‘Técnico Solar Boat’ is a university project which consists of engineering students from the Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal. They work together on the development of a manned competition vessel having now produced three prototypes powered exclusively by solar energy and most recently by hydrogen. The team’s latest solar prototype revealed in June 2021, the SR03, is stronger, lighter, more efficient than previous ones and features a new foiling system, with foils and struts being built in carbon fibre instead of aluminium. SR03 has a dual motor system, with 10kW and 5kW, for high and low power respectively, able to propel the boat to speeds of up to 20 knots. This summer, they also revealed their first hydrogen powered boat, São Miguel (SM) 01.

SR03’s foil, made from Gurit SE 84LV carbon prepreg

Courtesy of Tecnico Solar Boat

Successful prepreg solution

Gurit sponsored the team with its SE 84LV carbon prepreg,typically used for high performance, lightweight marinestructures, alongside SA 80 toughened adhesive film, whichwas used to build the hull, deck, internal structure and also the hydrofoils and struts on SR03 as well as technical support, with pleasing results. “We loved working with your products and have achieved great results in our prepreg parts. We couldn’t have done this without Gurit’s support! We are looking forward to the future and continuing to work with Gurit products”. said Maria Portijo, Design and Composites Technical Director for the team.

Over the summer, the team travelled to Madeira for “Odisseia 2021” a series of crossings, to put the SR03 through its paces and showcase all the improvements made to this latest prototype.

Making sustainable technology available

Although the team participates in worldwide engineeringcompetitions, they feel that their main responsibility is topromote renewable energies, sustainability and electricmobility. In order to help push this sustainable technologyforward, the team have adopted an ‘open source’ ethos,whereby they share all of their information on their buildsonline, including source code and 3D models.

For the latest updates and more information, visit: https://tecnicosolarboat.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/

SR03 - Técnico Solar Boat latest solar powered prototype