Log in
The vulnerability of both military and civilian infrastructure to the threat of terrorist activity has highlighted the need to improve its survivability, and this poses a significant design challenge to engineers. Research work at Imperial has led to the development of novel constitutive relationships for polymeric materials coupled to novel analysis procedures; software algorithms for effective simulations of blast and impact events; and enhanced experimental testing methods allowing a fundamental understanding of the structures. According to Dstl, this body of research has `unquestionably improved the security and effectiveness of the UK armed forces operating in hostile environments abroad as well as the safety of citizens using metropolitan infrastructure within the UK'. The techniques have been applied to vehicles and UK infrastructure, including for high profile events, such as the 2012 Olympics.
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.
Novel vapour sorption experimental methods for the characterisation of complex particulate materials have been developed in the Department of Chemical Engineering. This research and expertise resulted in the creation of Surface Measurement Systems Limited (SMS), whose Dynamic Vapour Sorption (DVS) and Inverse Gas Chromatography (IGC) instruments are now found in >500 laboratories around the world. They are recognised standard research and development tools in the global pharmaceutical industry (DIN 66138). SMS has contributed >270 man-years of employment and generated £27M of turnover, whilst SMS instruments have generated over £300M of economic value, over the REF period.
The automotive and aerospace industries are keen to reduce their environmental impact and so have looked to move to lightweight materials. This creates issues in terms of joining, using and disposing of dissimilar materials. Oxford Brookes has therefore worked with national and multi-national companies in the adhesive, materials, automotive and aerospace industries to try to solve these problems. This has resulted in high quality research publications, innovative test equipment, improved numerical methods, novel designs, design guidelines, manufacturing procedures, British Standards, patents, commercial products and further funding. The impact of the work has global safety, environmental and economic benefits with multi-national aerospace and automotive companies implementing the results in current developments.
XeraCarb Ltd is a spin-out company formed in 2011 to exploit a class of ceramic composite materials co-invented by Jones. These materials were first devised in 2008 via a Materials and Engineering Research Institute (MERI) Knowledge Transfer activity and developed from 2009 onwards through a series of UK Ministry of Defence (UK MoD)-funded research projects. XeraCarb was spun out after the underpinning research won a national award in 2011 as the most promising UK materials system for commercialisation. The applications for XeraCarb's materials range from body- and vehicle-armour to kiln furniture and wear-resistant components. The company has attracted significant venture capital investment and is valued at over £1m. It has set up an independent production facility, has appointed employees, has been awarded a TSB grant, has materials undergoing trials in respect of a number of applications, and has delivered its first orders.
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.
Using high-k dielectric enables the Flash memory industry to develop sub-28-nm products, but the high density of defects in high-k dielectric is a major challenge for product qualification, since the existing characterisation techniques are not suitable. The new pulse techniques, developed by the Microelectronics Research Group (RG1), overcome this challenge and have been extensively used by the Memory Devices Consortium (including Intel, Micron and Samsung) at IMEC (the Inter-University Microelectronics Research Centre in Leuven, Belgium) for the development of new Flash memory products in this REF period. This benefits the global Flash memory industry by providing guidance for material selection, process screening, device structure optimisation, and qualification procedure improvement.
Nanoforce Technology Ltd. is a spin-out company wholly owned by QMUL, active in the field of polymeric and ceramic materials. Bridging the gap between academic research and industrial applications, Nanoforce has done business with over 100 companies since 2008, providing the key research expertise and specialist facilities to enable the development of new materials and commercial products, including Sugru® a room temperature vulcanizing silicone rubber, Zelfo® a self-binding cellulose material, and BiotexTM a range of high-performance yarns, fabrics and pre- consolidated sheets based renewable resources such as PLA and natural flax fibres. Nanoforce has been promoting the development and commercialisation of spark plasma sintering (SPS) since 2006, which resulted in Kennametal recently opening the first commercial SPS facility in the UK to produce advanced ceramic armour. Nanoforce's clients have included large multi-nationals such as DSM, Dow Chemical, General Electric, SABIC, L'Oreal, Shell, Sibelco, governmental agencies such as Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), and a large number of SME's.
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.
A significant body of research in ultrasonics at the University of Strathclyde led to the formation of Alba Ultrasound Limited in 2000. This successful UK engineering manufacturing company designs and manufactures high quality wideband ultrasonic array transducers for sonar applications to a worldwide client base, delivering benefits ranging from naval and maritime security through to safer ocean environments and informed exploitation of marine resources. Alba Ultrasound's unique array transducers constitute the sensor front-end in many leading sonar systems, and its innovative products are incorporated in a range of sonar devices used by the military and commercial companies. Through application of Strathclyde research, the company has experienced a significant period of growth during 2008-2013, with a three-fold increase in employees and turnover rising from £750k to £3.8M.