Summary of the impact

Ulster research groups in the fields of composites and metal forming have had a long-term and fruitful engagement with major industries such as Caterpillar (FG Wilson), Rolls Royce and Bombardier. Since 2008 this has resulted in new patented technologies, significant cost/performance improvement in manufacturing, the delivery of on-site industrial training, the formation of spin-out companies and the establishment of the £6m N. Ireland Advanced Composites and Engineering Centre with currently 10 member companies. In particular, Ulster research has been at the heart of patented Bombardier processes which underpinned their strategic entry into the commercial narrow body aircraft market which is worth $43billion per annum globally. The C Series wing programme, which utilises composites, employs 800 people directly in Belfast at full production, with a further 2,000 employed in the supply chain. As of today, Bombardier has global orders and commitments for 388 C Series aircraft, which include firm orders for 177 of the new airliner.

Summary of the impact

The investigators of this impact case study have utilised their expertise in materials engineering, theoretical/numerical modelling and product development to achieve significant economic, social and environmental impacts in a range of fields through developing a systematic methodology for innovative product design and optimisation. Through several industrial projects and collaborations, significant impacts have been witnessed including new products creating several million pounds in revenue annually for businesses in different sectors and green manufacturing technologies in repair and reclamation of components. All the described impacts were results of investigation in the Mechanical Engineering and Materials Research Centre (MEMARC) over the assessment period.

Summary of the impact

Fluid modelling approaches devised by the Materials and Engineering Research Institute's (MERI's) materials and fluid flow modelling group have impacted on industrial partners, research professionals and outreach recipients. This case study focuses on economic impacts arising from improved understanding which this modelling work has given of commercial products and processes. These include: metal particulate decontamination methods developed by the UK small company Fluid Maintenance Solutions; liquid crystal devices (LCDs) manufactured by the UK SME ZBD Displays; and an ink-droplet dispenser module originally invented at the multinational Kodak. Additionally, the modelling group's computer simulation algorithms have been adopted by industrial research professionals and made available via STFC Daresbury's internationally distributed software package DL_MESO. Finally, the group has developed, presented and disseminated simulation-based materials and visualisations at major public understanding of science (PUS) events.

Summary of the impact

Dr Richard Brooks and his team at the University of Nottingham have been investigating the high strain rate behaviour of composite materials since 2003. This has led to the development of two products that are being installed in streets in the UK and Ireland by East Midlands SME Frangible Safety Posts Ltd. The direct benefits to the company have been: the installation of 900 products in the UK and Ireland; saving of £17k capital cost and 2 months in terms of time to market per product developed and; raising of £1.8M investment to bring the products to market At least one life has already been saved in the Shetland Islands as a direct consequence of the product behaving in the way it was designed to.

Summary of the impact

The Computational Mechanics and Reliability Group at the University of Greenwich has been developing computational methods for predicting material behaviour and component reliability since the late 1990s. This case study details economic and environmental impacts and impacts on practitioners. In particular it shows how our expertise has:

• substantially aided companies to predict reliability of new electronic systems before physical prototyping providing significant cost savings;
• enabled companies to assess impact of new materials that address environmental legislation;
• provided information to the Cutty Sark Trust in help maintain this national maritime treasure.

Summary of the impact

The development of the bespoke finite element software ICFEP (Imperial College Finite Element Program) is the main research outcome of the numerical group in the Geotechnics Section at Imperial College (IC). The research conducted in the Section since 1993 has led to a substantial growth of ICFEP's modelling capabilities in both complexity and robustness, following closely the advancements in understanding of real soil behaviour achieved through laboratory and field investigations of soils. Between 2008 and 2013 the application of these modelling capabilities to practical engineering problems, which are generally unavailable with a similar degree of sophistication in commercial software, amounts to over 80 projects of which a third are worth multi-billion pounds in global value. The impact of ICFEP's application has been to reduce the geotechnical risk and the cost of design and construction, and to give confidence in the environmental stability of design solutions, by providing accurate predictions of soil response associated with individual projects.

Summary of the impact

The production of plastic (polymer) waste and the difficulties associated with its disposal is a major environmental challenge. Many polymer food packaging structures are made using thermoforming processes in which hot thin oil-based polymer sheets are forced under pressure into moulds and then cooled to become thin-walled packaging structures. These structures are not eco-friendly and do not degrade after use. Thus unless they are recycled, which is a complicated process and mostly does not happen, these structures cause major environmental problems worldwide.

Researchers in Brunel Institute of Computational Mathematics (BICOM) have undertaken extensive computational modelling of the thermoforming of packaging structures made from bio-materials (thermoplastics). This computational work, together with the necessary laboratory experiments which were executed by Brunel engineers, has contributed to a far better understanding of the behaviour of starch-based biodegradable food packaging. In turn, the availability of such knowledge has contributed to the steady move by food packagers and food retailers towards the adoption of such packaging which is helping to reduce the amount of long term non-biodegradable waste produced.

Summary of the impact

For aerospace vehicles, the development of new materials and structural configurations are key tools in the relentless drive to reduce weight and increase performance (in terms of, for example, speed and flight characteristics). The economic drivers are clear — it is widely recognised that it is worth approximately $10k to save one pound of weight in a spacecraft per launch and $500 per pound for an aircraft over its lifetime. The environmental drivers (ACARE 2050) are also clear — reduced aircraft weight leads to lower fuel burn and, in turn, to lower CO₂ and NO_x emissions. With such high cost-to-weight ratios, there is intense industrial interest in the development of new structural configurations/concepts and enhanced structural models that allow better use of existing or new materials. Analytical structural mechanics models of novel anisotropic structures, developed at the University's Advanced Composites Centre for Innovation and Science (ACCIS), are now used in the industrial design of aircraft and spacecraft. Based on this research, a new, unique anisotropic composite blade, designed to meet an Urgent Operational Requirement for the MoD, is now flying on AgustaWestland EH101 helicopters that are deployed in Theatre. In addition, the new modelling tools and techniques have been adopted by Airbus, AgustaWestland, Cassidian and NASA and incorporated into LUSAS's finite element analysis software. These tools have, for example, been used to inform Airbus's decision to use a largely aluminium wing design rather than a hybrid CFRP/aluminium wing for the A380.

Summary of the impact

One of the main functions of enclosures around electronic systems is to shield electromagnetic fields and reduce their interference with other systems. At the University of York the design of new measurement techniques for Shielding Effectiveness (SE), new instrumentation, and improved numerical model based design techniques have delivered more rigorous engineering processes for smaller equipment shielding enclosures (e.g. PCs) and large enclosures with a secondary shielding function (e.g. airframes).

These have resulted in global sales of specialist equipment to many major electronics companies through York EMC Services Ltd, a revised international standard for the measurement of SE and efficient modelling techniques to determine the SE of complex composite materials.

Summary of the impact

Research at University of Cambridge Department of Engineering (DoEng) has created a new fundamental understanding of the static, dynamic and blast performance of lattice sandwich structures (a repeating pattern of metal struts between two sheets of metal). Ship builders in the Netherlands and the USA have built over 19 ships worth approximately GB200M using this technology since 1/1/2008 with many more planned. These ships are:

• less likely to rupture in low speed collisions, which is important especially for river tankers
• compliant with new standards for the carriage of dangerous goods by inland waterways in Europe at a lower cost, because the designs are simplified
• blast resistant, which is important when considering potential terrorist threats.