About Me, My Degree and Motorsport Zone

Name: Adam Feneley

Born: Leicester, England

Currently Residing: London, England

Job: Realization Engineer at BMW Plant Oxford (Now back at University)

Study: Brunel University, London, England

Degree: Masters of Engineering (MEng) Motorsport Engineering

Biography:

I was born in Leicester, England in October 1990 and have spent most of my life living in Nottinghamshire. I attended college in Bingham, Nottinghamshire and achieved A levels in Mathematics (A), Physics (A) and Economics (B). My interest in engineering stems from a rich family history in the area, both of my great grandfathers were great engineers of their day, my grandfather himself was a draughtsman and my father a designer.

My mother’s grandfather, Samuel Lee, was an engineer at the birth of the partnership of Rolls and Royce. In the early 1900's he was the chief engineer to Henry Royce before and after the merger with Charles Rolls.

Rolls was introduced to Henry Royce by a friend at the Automobile Club, Henry Edmunds, who was also a director of Royce Ltd. Edmunds showed him Royce's car and arranged the historic meeting between Rolls and Royce at the Midland Hotel, Manchester on 4 May 1904. In spite of his preference for three or four cylinder cars, Rolls was impressed with the two-cylinder Royce 10 and in a subsequent agreement of 23 December 1904 agreed to take all the cars Royce could make. These would be of two, three, four and six cylinders and would be badged as Rolls-Royces.

My Fathers grandfather was a senior engineer during the First World War. He was part of the team that designer the Mark I Tank, he was himself credited for solving the problematic design of the fuel delivery system on the first vehicle in the world to be called a tank. A golden tank trophy stands in Lincoln stone bow bearing his name, in memory of his efforts and achievements during the war. With this type of history in my family i found it very difficult in not pursuing further education and hopefully a future career in the industry.

I applied through UCAS for my course at Brunel University, my first and second choice were both at Brunel, as soon as i came on the open day i knew this was the place i wanted to sit my degree. Looking back my first year was relatively simple. Universities seem to use this as a way to benchmark students; assuring that everyone is capable, and on a level-playing field for when the real hard work begins in the second year. Despite this we took part in a great deal of worthwhile projects during year one; the highlight of which were the technical drawing and engines laboratories.

I was proud of my grades in the first year and have attained 4 A+'s, 1 A- and 1 B+ in my six modules. Going into my second year i had 5 modules to sit, currently halfway through the year here is a brief overview of each one and what is involved:

Principles of Vehicle Design:
One of my favourite modules so far this year, lectures focus on design considerations for different systems in a car. We have currently covered topics of powertrain and transmission and will be moving on to the lesser systems after the Christmas break. Within this module is a very exciting project in which we are taking part in feasibility study for a zero emission single seat racing car, for the Formula Zero Competition (an article on this can be found in the ‘formula zero’ category found on the right sidebar of this webpage). I have been studying various books on steering systems and contacting various hydrogen fuel cell companies, as the Hydrogen systems and the steering geometry are my areas to focus upon.
Along side this project another piece of coursework involves us organising a conference for Brunel Motorsport alumni, which appears to be a bit of a tall order been as the last one (which was organised by the university board – not students) attracted guest speakers in the likes of Ross Brawn and Frank Williams. I will be immensely impressed if our group manages to achieve anything close to this!

Professional Engineering Applications and Practice:In this module we have already taken part in a CAD tutorial using Siemens (more popularly known as Unigraphics) NX version 7.5. I completed a piece of coursework, which comprised of making a part from scratch providing machine drawings for its parts, exploded views, motion simulation and various competency exercise to prove our ability with the software. We also have various lectures in the module centring on business, engineering and professional practices.
The secondary major project for this module is to produce a presentation to be performed in front of members of industry on a chosen company. Our company is Jaguar Land Rover; we have yet to build our slide show for this yet so I will update this as the project comes along.

Solid Body Mechanics:Solid body mechanics is all about how solids react to forces and loads, whether solids are stationary (statics) or moving (dynamics). It has additional element to the ‘fundamentals of…’ course that I took last year in that we take part in statics and vibrational laboratories. We have so far done the statics lab in which we did three different experiments with pressure vessels, torsion, tension, shear and strain. I am currently in the process of writing up the lab report for these as they are due in January.

Thermofluids:This module is another continuation on the fundamentals of…’ course that I took in the first year, but the principles have become more complex and we are covering the second law of thermodynamics in far more detail. We also have labs in this topic, both fluids and thermo; the labs have included a study of refrigerant systems (vapour compression cycle), gas turbines (jet engines), compressible flow (including supersonic shockwaves exiting a nozzle) and high-speed air jets.

Analytical Methods, Control and Instrumentation:Analytical methods is a module which is basically a combination of computational mathematics and control engineering. So far we have only covered the control, which included a control lab in which we studied the systems governing a servo system with and without tacho feedback. But after Christmas we move on to a more in depth study of Matlab and have an assignment using it as we did in year one.

Aside from all of this work I have a years industrial placement to sort out by Christmas so It has been a busy old year! So far I have applied to Williams F1, Mercedes High Performance Engines, Jaguar Land Rover, Aston Martin and am currently in the process of filling in forms for Xtrac and Bentley. So wish me luck! Interviews will be after Christmas…

This completes my about me section for now! If you have any questions about projects or the site in general please contact me using the contact me link at the top of the site!