Oliver Gazeley (Engineering 2007) has been awarded a BP 3rd Year Prize for his project on the fatigue life of bicycle spokes.

The third-year project aimed to identify the factors which have the greatest effect on the lifespan of spokes, with an eye towards what cyclists can do to reduce or alleviate those factors. The BP 3rd Year Prizes, worth £100, recognize excellence in undergraduate Engineering projects.

Determining fatigue life is complex due to the large number of factors involved, but the project did determine that the typical load put on a bicycle spoke is usually below the endurance limit of the material – meaning that when a spoke does fail, it’s more often the result of corrosion or surface damage causing stress concentrations. The project does have implications for the habits of bicycle commuters – and is particularly relevant to Cambridge itself, given the town’s very high proportion of cyclists.

Pictured: Oliver (back, left) with his fellow prizewinners and Dr Andy Leonard, Vice-President of BP Cambridge.

Posted: 15 March 2011