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Richard Harrington, chief executive officer for Buckinghamshire Local Enterprise Partnership, will officially open Silverstone Sports Engineering Hub (SSEH) on 10th September.
“We are delighted to be supporting this exciting innovation hub at the heart of the Silverstone High Performance Technology Cluster, to fire innovation, business productivity and growth for the local economy,” Harrington said.
SSEH was awarded £2 million of local growth funds in 2018 to develop a new 26,000 square foot sports engineering innovation centre at Silverstone Park. Situated within the Aylesbury Vale Enterprise Zone, SSEH is a research, development and business incubation centre for high-performance cycling and sports.
The facilities within the Hub are:
– Sports Performance Wind Tunnel, suitable for full-scale testing of many sports including cycling, winter and para-sports
– Fabric Development Wind Tunnel, designed to allow testing of fabrics in a highly controlled and repeatable environment to test performances including drag
– 3D scanning, with access to the latest 3D scanning tools to help capture equipment and athletes geometries quickly and accurately
– Offices and workshop spaces available to rent on a mid to long term basis
The Hub was created by the Aerodynamics and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) experts TotalSim. Through its experience working with Team GB and other elite athletes, it discovered a need for affordable, bespoke sports engineering tools.
TotalSim and SSEH Director Rob Lewis said: “Tapping into the world-class high-tech skills pool around Silverstone enables us to create a unique innovation incubator for companies in sports engineering and services which we predict will have global appeal.”
He added: “If we can pool the right things together then we believe that organisations will come from around the world to take advantage of the facility – thereby helping to put the UK at the forefront of the development of aerodynamic technologies.
“In fact, this could be the start of a whole series of ventures around Silverstone to do with sports science, engineering and education.”
The official opening will be followed by an Open Day Event, 2.30pm-6.30pm. To find out more or to register interest in attending please contact openday@silverstonesportshub.co.uk.
