ACES Profile: From fast cars to side skirts

Developing aerodynamic side skirts for truck trailers wasn’t exactly what the two young Belgians, Gandert van Raemdonck and his younger brother Hjalmar, had in mind when they decided to study aerospace engineering: it was building fast cars.

“Our dream was to design a Formula One racing car,” says 25-year-old Hjalmar, who designed a vehicle that raced in the 2007 World Solar Challenge in Australia during his engineering studies at the Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands. “That’s why we decided to study aerospace engineering, which focuses on aerodynamics and lightweight materials – two big aspects of fast cars.”

Last year, Hjalmar completed his master’s degree at TU Delft. Gandert, who turns 27 in February, also designed parts for another car entered by the university in the 2004 Formula Student competition in the UK, and he is currently researching flow behaviour around bluff bodies for his PhD.

In July 2008, with help from the university, some government funds and private money, the two students and Hessel Jongebreur, a 35-year-old entrepreneur with startup experience, launched Ephicas BV in the Netherlands to develop aerodynamic systems for the transport sector.

This year, the academic entrepreneurs and their partner hope to win customers for their first product, the Ephicas SideWing, designed to reduce drag caused by the underside of truck trailers and lower fuel consumption by up to 15 per cent. The team promises fuel savings of between €2,000 and €6,000 per trailer.

In December, Gandert and Hjalmar Van Raemdonk won the ACES Academic Enterprise Award 2008 in the category “Fast Start”. The award in this category is given to individuals who have created a promising but still unproven spin-out based on ideas developed at universities or public research institutes in Europe.

Support from a professor

So what prompted the two brothers, who look and sound alike, to shift their focus from Ferraris to Freightliners? The answer lies not only in their gung-ho attitude but also in the entrepreneurial spirit of their university and, in particular, the huge support from their professor and mentor Michel van Tooren from the aerospace engineering faculty. “Professor van Tooren, who had his own company before joining the university, was and still is a very crucial factor in our academic and entrepreneurial development,” says Gandert. Adds Hjalmar: “I knew it could be difficult juggling both my studies and the startup but Professor van Tooren said I just have to do it. And he gave me all the freedom I needed.”

The aerospace engineering department had been approached in 2006 by the manufacturer Kees Mulder Carrosserrieën, which was interested in designing an aerodynamic trailer but needed help with research. Van Tooren passed on the request to Gandert, who was looking for a thesis at the time. To jump-start research, the professor helped launch the Platform for Aerodynamic Road Transport (PART), a public–private initiative that includes TU Delft, Kees Mulder Carrosserrieën and several other companies involved with transportation vehicles. Gandert took over as the group’s chief researcher, with Hjalmar later joining after the launch of Ephicas.

In the wind tunnel at the TU Delft, Gandert tested more than 100 different aerodynamic configurations, revealing in some cases a drag reduction of 18 per cent under laboratory conditions. His fundamental research led to the development of a full-scale prototype side skirt, which in road tests cut fuel consumption by 5 per cent with a tail wind and 15 with a head wind or an average 7 per cent at a cruising speed of 85 kilometres per hour with combined tail and head winds.

Research work continues

From the start, TU Delft has also been instrumental in helping the Van Raemdonck brothers make the leap into business, according to Gandert. For instance, the university, which owns the patent for the aerodynamic side skirts, is paying the PhD student to pursue research and providing lab facilities while giving him time to get Ephicas up and running. “I work around two days a week for the company and the rest of the time on my research,” he says.

A big pillar of support is the university’s incubator YES! Delft (Young Entrepreneurs Society Delft), where Ephicas and around 30 other start-ups are currently located. “We rent rooms and other facilities,” Gandert says. “There are plenty of people to help with all sorts of things, like writing business plans. It’s a great place for networking.”

The goal is to have the company’s first commercial product, the Ephicas SideWing, available in July, according to Hjalmar, who as Chief Operating Officer of Ephicas is responsible for materials and production. He is currently in talks with four manufacturers. TNT Express, a member of PART, which provided equipment for the road tests, is negotiating with Ephicas to equip its fleet with the SideWing.

Over the next three years, Ephicas aims to launch a new SideWings product that will reduce fuel consumption by an additional 5 per cent to 10 per cent, according to Gandert, the start-up’s Chief Technical Officer. The company, he says, also plans to look at other aerodynamic and lightweight material technologies that can be used to lower the fuel consumption and CO2 emissions of large vehicles.

As for working with each other, the brothers who spent most of their childhood playing together and also helping out in their parents’ funeral home see themselves as ideal partners. “Sometimes we fight but we forget quickly and move on,” says Gandert, who can’t wait to see his invention commercialised into products on the road. “It’s really perfect.”

Whether the Van Raemdonck brothers will ever fulfil their dream of building a fast car someday remains to be seen. But they shouldn’t rule out the possibility – their work on trucks is already steering them down a pretty fast track.