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Between January 2008 and July 2013, over 10,000 key stage 4 school students and their teachers directly engaged with active research of the Cavendish Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Cambridge through an annual interactive 3 day exhibition, titled "Physics at Work". In 2012 the event attracted 31 non-selective state schools and 17 selective/independent schools, 23 of which had visited the exhibition 3 or more times previously- a testament to its success. Building on the enthusiasm that the students showed during their participation in the event, teachers noted an increase in the number opting to study A-level physics and stated that those previously with no interest left with a very positive image of the subject.
The impact presented in this case study is the commercialisation of 15 products with perfume microcapsules by Procter and Gamble (P&G), made possible using capsule mechanical strength data provided by Prof Zhibing Zhang's research group at Birmingham. Use of microcapsules gives improved freshness performance, and thus commercial advantage, compared with traditional formulations; they have been incorporated in P&G's four major billion-dollar brands — Downy, Febreze, Lenor and Tide. This has significantly improved their competitiveness enabling P&G to retain their leading position in the USA and Western Europe. A novel micromanipulation technique developed at the University of Birmingham has been used extensively to obtain mechanical properties data for the micro-particles, including microcapsules prepared in Birmingham and provided by companies, which is related to their formulation and processing conditions and end- use performance. In addition, the knowledge generated has helped 15 other companies to commercialise new functional products containing micro-particles.
Professor Ray Ogden FRS has made fundamental advances in mathematical models for the elastic response of rubber-like materials. These models have been adopted as the standard starting point for the design and analysis of rubber-like solids and they have been incorporated into the industry-standard commercial `finite element' software packages, including Abaqus, ADINA, ALGOR, ANSYS and MARC. These packages are widely used by professional engineers for design calculations and stress analysis, particularly in the aeronautical and automotive industries, playing a crucial role in design decisions associated with enormous financial investments and with the safe and successful operation of the products involved. Models have now also been constructed for the behaviour of soft biological tissue and these are in widespread use in applications in cardiovascular research and the life sciences.
University of Bradford research has enabled a material manufacturing company, Armacell, to reuse up to 95% of its production waste to produce new, high-value acoustic products with up to 50% better acoustic performance than any competition products of similar size. We protected the developed IP through several international patents and set up a spin-off company, Acoutechs Ltd, to explore this technology commercially. These materials are now used to reduce noise levels below the recommended limits and to improve the general acoustic quality of spaces at home and work for the benefit of public health. The products generate an annual turnover of more than €4 million for Armacell and prevent more than 500 tonnes of plastic waste from going into landfill annually.
The research produced accurate simulation models of piezoelectric actuators for investigating sensitivities to parameter variations that led to maximum power for minimum electric field. This was the basis of design rules for determining new products at the industrial partner NXT, now named Hi-Wave Technology, headquartered in Cambourne, UK. Old design rules had led to two failed products whereas these new design rules have guided successful products with a major Japanese television manufacturer, a Japanese printer company and a Russian mobile phone company. Without this research Hi-Wave would have stopped activities in this technology. To date, licences for more than 24 million units per annum have been sold and more than 280,000 units manufactured.
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.
The development by Cambridge University staff of compact semiconductor sources and detectors of Terahertz radiation has opened up this part of the electromagnetic spectrum to commercial use for the first time, enabling many applications. In medicine these applications include the analysis of drugs and the detection and imaging of cancer; in security applications the detection and imaging of explosives; and in the semiconductor industry the detection and imaging of buried defects in semiconductor wafers. High power Terahertz lasers are used in gas sensors, for imaging and as local oscillators. This technology has been exploited by a spin-off company TeraView which has 25 employees, has raised £16M in funding, £3.5M since 2008, and has sold 70 imaging systems, half since 2008 at an average cost of $300K each.
Graham Buckton's work at the UCL School of Pharmacy has involved the development of new techniques, which are now industry standards, for assessing the amorphous content of materials in inhalation products. This work has had a significant influence on both manufacturing quality control and regulatory requirement, including informing FDA policy, to the effect that this type of assessment is now a requirement for licensing of powder inhalation medicines in the US and Europe. Benefits to drug companies include cost savings and more reliable production. Furthermore, the associated School of Pharmacy spin-out company, Pharmaterials, offers these assessments as a core part of its commercial activity, with a large client base of industrial partners who require such assessments for their inhalation and other products. The overall result of this work has been changes and improvements in the design, control and manufacture of inhalation products.
The UCL Department of Chemistry has for many years run a far-reaching programme of outreach and public engagement that has deep roots in the department's research programme. Its schools outreach work has promoted chemistry and science among secondary school children, while contributions to blogs, newspapers, radio, and television have engaged diverse audiences from primary school children to the elderly. Millions of people have viewed television contributions, while tens of thousands have been reached in theatres and science fairs, with positive reviews and feedback confirming a stimulation of public interest in, and understanding of, chemistry.
Cranfield University's research in computational fluid dynamics (CFD), turbulence models, studies of instabilities and the development of multi-scale methods has reduced the computational uncertainty in the modelling and simulation used by the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) to support the safety and performance of nuclear weapons.
Cranfield's research in compressible turbulent flow for Low Mach numbers is now employed to increase accuracy in CFD codes employed by the German Aerospace Agency DLR, Pennsylvania State University, and the French Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique, which use this work to model flows ranging from turbulent mixing through inertial confinement fusion (ICF) to scramjets.