Case Study: KU Leuven achieves lightweight, high-performance battery pack for World Solar Challenge with Materialise

A Lightweight Battery Structure Born to Race

KU Leuven’s Punch Powertrain Solar Team needed a compact, lightweight and porous battery structure to improve aerodynamics and heat dissipation for the 3,021 km World Solar Challenge. To meet these constraints they turned to Materialise, using Materialise 3-matic for design enhancement, Materialise Magics for printability checks and file prep, and the Materialise Build Processor to handle the complex, large files for production.

Materialise applied a porous lattice to minimize material while maintaining strength, verified wall thickness and printability, and enabled successful laser-sintered production of both the battery pack and the BMS pack. The resulting car averaged 90 km/h (peaking at 110 km/h), finished fifth overall, and reduced its gap to the winner from seven hours in 2013 to just 1 hour 23 minutes—demonstrating clear, measurable performance gains thanks to Materialise.

KU Leuven