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In Europe, there are over a million kilometres of oil pipelines, nearly a million kilometres of railway tracks, 600 offshore platforms and 300 suspension cable bridges. However, these assets are aging as they have been in use for many years and operate under harsh conditions. Brunel research team has advanced ultrasonic non-destructive testing (NDT) which has the ability to inspect buried pipes in their original place without removing the pipes or damaging their surrounding environment. In addition, the research was pursued to improve the NDT of rail tracks, storage tanks, flexible risers in offshore platforms and aircraft wires. The research has been commercially exploited and incorporated into Teletest Focus System Mark III by Plant Integrity Limited. The significant improvement has led Plant Integrity to terminate the sale of Teletest Mark III and introduce a new version, Teletest Focus System Mark IV, to the market in late 2010. Since then, Plant Integrity has doubled its turnover from sales of Teletest Focus System Mark IV from £1 million to £2 million in less than a year.
Research led by Professors Cawley and Lowe (employed at Imperial College over the whole 1993-2013 period) resulted in guided wave inspection being established as a new non-destructive evaluation (NDE) method. It is used worldwide to screen long lengths of pipework for corrosion, particularly in the petrochemical industry. A spin-out company has been established that employs seven PhD graduates in NDE from Imperial and the technology is also licensed to another company. Turnover on equipment sales 2008-2013 exceeds £50M and the service companies using the equipment generate about £75M pa in revenue worldwide and employ about 300 FTE staff to carry out the inspection. The oil companies benefit from greatly reduced cost of inspection, especially in areas such as insulated, offshore and buried pipes where access is difficult and expensive for conventional inspection methods. Furthermore, the reliability of inspection is significantly improved, leading to major improvements in safety.
The techniques developed by the Warwick Ultrasonics Group focus on non-destructive testing (NDT) and address particular industrial needs as specified by industrial funders. These partners have included over 40 companies in the REF Impact period, ranging from SMEs to large multi- nationals operating in a range of sectors such as the heavy manufacturing, nuclear energy, food, petrochemical, transport, aerospace, power generation, equipment manufacturing and service industries. In particular, our spin-out company, Sonemat, has commercialised high-performance electromagnetic acoustic transducers (EMATs) developed by the research group, which has led to economic benefits for NDT equipment suppliers and their end users. Further industrial impact has arisen from novel NDT methodologies established by the Group.
Following the 2005 inauguration of the joint Non-Destructive Testing Validation Centre with TWI Ltd at Port Talbot, UWTSD: Swansea Metropolitan established a Knowledge Transfer Centre (KTC) in 2008 with European Regional Development Funds (ERDF) and UWTSD funding. The role of the KTC is to support Welsh Manufacturing Industry in the conjunction of NDT with Composites Fabrication. With additional funding from the pan-Wales ASTUTE project, two Prince of Wales Innovation Scholarships, two EPSRC/Industry CASE studentships, one in NDT and the other in Composites, the Unit has assisted 46 companies across Wales, undertaken 32 collaborative industrial projects and has created 5 jobs. Investment induced has totalled £282,482 to date and the Unit has established itself as a leading NDT centre of expertise. Industrial engagement includes research and development with leading NDT companies such as TWI Ltd, Silverwing Ltd, Oceaneering Ltd, and manufacturing companies such as Calsonic Kansei Ltd, Tata Steel and United Aerospace Ltd.
Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) is essential for the safe and efficient operation of high-value engineering plant in many engineering sectors. Research into ultrasonic arrays at the University of Bristol has had a major impact on NDT. Exploitation of the techniques developed has directly led to combined sales of around [text removed for publication]. For major end-users of NDT such as Ontario Power Generation, BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce, the research is leading to reductions in inspection costs, [text removed for publication]. In addition, highly-skilled engineers have been trained through an Engineering Doctorate programme and are now leading the industrial development of new array inspections based on underlying research performed at Bristol.
From strains within a single carbon fibre to deflections in a bridge, dam or railway line, accurate measurement is vital to industry and public infrastructure. In many engineering contexts, traditional approaches to measurement are inadequate or involve unacceptable costs and delays. These shortcomings have been addressed by the University of Bristol's research into high-precision, video-based metrology and its application through Imetrum, a spin-out company. Imetrum was founded in 2003 and launched its first product - the Video Gauge - in 2007. In the area of mechanical testing, the company has brought the first video-based extensometry system that can be supplied calibrated to international standards to market. For structural monitoring and safety inspections, deformation measurements are usually required. The Imetrum system is being used to precisely measure such deformations in rail bridges and other vital parts of the infrastructure without costly and inconvenient interruptions to their operation. Imetrum has approximately doubled its turnover each year since 2007. [text removed for publication].
Cardiff University's research in acoustic emission monitoring and refined data analysis has been applied to large, complex structures and has subsequently transformed the inspection processes of concrete and steel bridges. This has been commercialised by Mistras Group Ltd. to provide a safer, more reliable and progressive means of bridge monitoring, enabling the company to acquire a global reputation and increase its turnover to £7.5M per year — £5M relating to Cardiff research. Cardiff's innovations have had major international impacts (in UK, Europe, India and USA) through:
ERPE research has made major impacts on the design and operation of concrete infrastructure through design, corrosion investigation/residual life prediction and non-destructive testing (NDT). New interpretations of ground penetrating radar (GPR) data have impacted international practice through: the American Concrete Institute (ACI) document on NDT of Concrete, ACI 228.2r2013; fib Model Code 2010, ISBN:978-3-433-03061-5; a corrosion monitoring device; and "GprMax", the world's most widely used and acclaimed GPR freeware.
The financial impact of the underpinning ERPE research is estimated at £100M p.a. on infrastructure maintenance savings worldwide.