Member Article

Huddersfield component supplier donates parts to Oxford Brookes Racing to support young engineers’ careers

Huddersfield component supplier, Accu, has chosen to continue its support of young British engineers with the donation of £1,200 worth of components to Oxford Brookes Racing (OBR) for use in the Formula Student 2021 Competition, organised by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

Formula Student is Europe’s biggest educational motorsport event. Backed by industry and high profile engineers such as its patron Ross Brawn, the competition aims to inspire and develop enterprising and innovative young engineers.

Accu will be pledging a range of precision components for the creation of an innovative new electric vehicle concept.

Universities from across the globe are challenged to design and build a single-seat racing car in order to compete in static and dynamic events, which demonstrate their understanding and test the performance of the vehicle.

OBR has a long tradition of being the #1 team in this competition, enabling them to form close partnerships with F1 teams many of whom have ex-OBR team members among their staff.

Its model will be based on a 4-wheel drive in-hub motor configuration. It has AMK AC servo motors mated to a compact epicyclic gearbox, which is capable of producing over 300 N-m of torque at each wheel. Energy is supplied from a 600 V, 6.6 kW-hr battery pack using LCO pouch cells with a peak output of over 130 kW. All of this is managed through an open controls platform ideal for implementing torque vectoring and advanced vehicle controls to unleash the full performance potential electric vehicles allow.

Martin Ackroyd, co-founder of Accu said: “We are incredibly proud to support OBR within this competition. Not only is it important for us to support young engineers, but we have close links with auto racing, as we supply components to F1 teams, and it is these grassroots projects which will fuel the future of the industry. Good luck to the team!”

The 2021 event will be a story of redemption after a scaled back virtual competition was held in 2020 due to COVID restrictions. The global pandemic hit engineering students hard but OBR has taken adversity as a motivator of success, and each individual has embraced the team’s mission to unite to become part of this ever-growing multi-year legacy.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Amy Byram .