Oxford Brookes Racing
Suspension Member

I joined the Oxford Brookes Racing suspension team alongside my MSc in Motorsport Engineering, working on the OBR26 electric Formula Student car.

In-hub motor upright redesign
I led the redesign of the front and rear aluminium uprights, which house the gearbox, with the motor mounted to the inboard face. Working around the carried-over gearbox internals and a proven external profile, I reworked the upper and lower ball joint, steering linkage, and brake caliper mounting geometry. I directed the members working on each upright and produced the manufacturing drawings with feedback from the section leads. The redesigned uprights came in about 40 g lighter each, with no structural failures across the competition season.

Gearbox seal fix
A recurring gearbox oil leak had put the team at risk of disqualification in previous seasons. I traced the cause through installation methods, chamfer geometry, and tolerance stacks, then corrected the critical dimensions and tolerances on three static O-ring interfaces and one dynamic lip seal interface, making sure they were specified on the drawings. On the lip seal, I also increased the circlip retaining lip diameter and added a chamfer. No leaks were found across the full operating season.

Mentoring
I mentored junior members in SolidWorks design for manufacture, parametric modelling, and top-down CAD within the master assembly, and developed training materials on design standards, drawing standards, and tolerance stack-up analysis.

Images: machined uprights, assembled corner, car at competition