ANU Solar Racing

Structures, Composites, Mechanical & Aerodynamics engineering ⋅ 2023-present

Over the past three years on the Australian National University’s Solar Car Team, I took a primary load-bearing composite assembly from requirements on paper, to geometry, to finished layup and assembly. I machined and welded suspension hardware, helped optimise and manufacture various mechanical systems, and drove the finished car across the outback in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge. I work end-to-end, designing, analysing, and manufacturing.

On our 2025 car, Solar Car 4, the team cut the total car mass from 245kg to 221kg while making the car 50% larger compared to its predecessor. I owned the internal chassis structure that made a lot of that packaging possible.

What is the World Solar Challenge?

The Bridgestone World Solar Challenge is a biennial event that sees solar-powered cars race 3022km through the harsh Australian outback from Darwin to Adelaide. We compete in the Challenger class: single seater vehicles with no external charging, running entirely on sunlight collected as we drive (and an initial charged small battery). Cars are optimised obsessively, with our car having roughly the same aerodynamic drag as the wing mirrors on a car, while weighing an eighth of a car of similar proportions.

In 2025 we reached 1301km into the race before an electrical failure ended our run – three times further than our team had ever gone before, in an event where only about a quarter of the entrants make it the full distance. My chassis structure performed reliably throughout the whole journey and my other systems required only minor adjustments after validation in the harsh desert environment.

My role on the team

I joined ANU Solar Racing for the tail-end of Solar Car 3’s development (2023 race) and then worked across the full start-to-finish design and build of Solar Car 4 (2025). On SC3, I was in the Aerodynamics and Mechanical subteams and designed its battery cooling system. On SC4 I moved to the Structures, a new subteam created to bring composite structural design and manufacturing in-house for the first time and was responsible for the car’s aerodynamic and structural development. Notably, our team had near zero previous composite design or manufacturing experience, nor the facilities to do so. By the end, we did the right research, consulted the right people, and found the right resources to build a comprehensive in-house composite design process and manufacturing workshop, capable of near end-to-end production of critical high-load carbon fibre structures.

My two largest pieces of ownership were:

Carbon Fibre Internal Structures – the primary load-bearing assembly, which I owned end-to-end

Wheel Jackets. – close-tolerance aerodynamic wheel covers, which I manufactured and integrated under inherited design flaws and a tooling defect

I also drove the car during the 2025 race, which was moved into winter and met far more extreme weather (such as crosswinds, sometimes exceeding 80km/h, for which we designed sailing characteristics into the aerofoil-shaped body).

Selected other work

Across a 20-person technical team that studies full time, everyone contributes everywhere and builds across disciplines. Here’s a sample of my other contributions to the team:

Aerobody CAD, Curvature and CFD – early full-body CAD achieving G3 continuity across most of the body, plus initial aerodynamic development in Ansys Fluent.

Steering wheel structure – solving stress concentration and open edge issues in the laminate with de-coring and epoxy edge sealing methods. I decided to integrate an aluminium mounting plate to the carbon structure as well to give a ductile fail-safe load path.

Composite manufacturing – laying up, trimming, and debulking the topshell (solar deck) during layup in our in-house workshop. I led a manufacturing push-period within our in-house workshop while our team was split between in-house and partner site manufacturing.

Suspension hardware – I welded the suspension control arms and shock mounts, and milled drilling guides for the suspension mounts

Carbon fibre brake pedal mount – I redesigned our original aluminium brake pedal mount in carbon fibre using only leftover prepreg sandwich panel off-cuts and additional vacuum-consolidated hand (wet) lamination. It cut weight by 41% while retaining identical load capacity. Unfortunately this was shelved from the final car for build timeline reasons

Solar module soldering – I helped solder busbars to solar cells and encapsulate them to make modules for Solar Car 3’s solar array.

Metal laser engraved VIN – when I had some time I laser engraved some nice looking VIN plates for our car

4-bar canopy hinge limiter – Our canopy opened too far and was fouling (and damaging) its thin carbon fibre edge. I solved this problem by extending one bar of the 4-bar linkage so the hinge geometry limits itself.