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Research from the Sheffield Department of Mechanical Engineering has led to major improvements in engineering analysis and design software for aerospace companies such as Rolls-Royce and Airbus. As a result of introducing new practices based on our research, the organisations have reported significantly reduced time input to design components as well as related economic benefits. For example: Rolls-Royce has reported an order of magnitude improvement in the time needed to mesh components. Similarly, by adopting our highly efficient computational aerodynamics solvers, Defence Science & Technology Laboratory has reduced the time its engineers spent evaluating concepts from many days to a few hours.
Spatial decomposition methods have been extended to apply to spatial, scale, and temporal domains as a result of work at the Numerical and Applied Mathematics Research Unit (NAMU) at the University of Greenwich. This work has led to a numerical framework for tackling many nonlinear problems which have been key bottlenecks in software design and scientific computing. The work has benefitted the welding industry in the UK because these concepts are now embedded, with parallel computing, in the industry's modern welding design process software.
Optimisation tools developed in the UoA have significantly advanced the ability to find the best designs for complex systems in cases where these were previously unobtainable. These optimisation tools have been implemented in several companies to shorten design times, reduce costs and reduce CO2 emissions. This has brought about new multi-million pound revenues, long-term contracts, increased employment and contribution to sustainability targets.
Research by Gondzio (Maxwell Institute) on algorithms for large-scale optimization has led to major advances in the design of interior point methods (IPMs). The advances include new ways of exploiting centrality (1996-2008) as well as special preconditioning (2004) and warmstarting (2003, 2008) techniques. These techniques make it possible to solve more difficult optimization problems more quickly. Some of these have been implemented by all major commercial providers of optimization software including IBM, Gurobi, Mosek and FICO. The techniques have therefore had an economic impact on these companies and on thousands of their customers worldwide who now benefit from faster, more reliable methods to solve their challenging optimization tasks.
Through close collaboration with scientists at the European Space Agency (ESA), research at the University of Southampton has developed new algorithms and an associated software tool that have contributed to more efficient spacecraft design. Now a standard component of the ESA's design technology, the tools have doubled the speed in which crucial design processes can be completed, resulting in increased efficiency over the REF period of 20 person-years — equivalent to €1 million in monetary terms — and maintaining the ESA's manufacturing competitiveness. The success of this work led to a €480,000 EU grant to adapt the tools for the avionics industry as part of efforts to meet ambitious environmental targets under the EU Clean Sky Initiative.
The University of Hull has pioneered a novel method and tool for dependability analysis and optimisation of critical engineering systems known as Hierarchically Performed Hazard Origin and Propagation Studies (HiP-HOPS).
a) HiP-HOPS (http:\\hip-hops.eu) has been successfully commercialised in conjunction with software houses ITI GmbH (Germany) and ALL4TEC (France). Over 30 licences for the tool have been sold since 2011 with total income for all partners estimated at £300,000.
b) The method and tool have been taken up by large organisations including Volvo, Toyota, Honda, Fiat, Continental, Germanischer Lloyd, Embraer and Honeywell.
c) HiP-HOPS has contributed to the specification of EAST-ADL, an emerging design language developed as an automotive industry standard, confirming industrial reach and acceptability.
d) The Dependable Systems research group is pursuing impact on the new automotive safety standard ISO-262626 and have contributed to setting up the new IFAC DCDS workshop a key forum for disseminating research on dependability to industry.
Our research has been applied directly by Aviva plc. to develop improved products in the general insurance market (e.g. household and car) and in the more specialised area of enhanced pension annuities. As a result, Aviva has become more competitive in these markets and customers are enjoying better value for money. In the case of enhanced annuities, the benefits are in the form of higher pension income for those accurately identified as facing shortened life expectancies. Aviva is the largest insurance company in the UK and the sixth largest in the world.
This case study concerns economic impact accruing in the aerospace engineering industry in Europe from software developed to perform stress analysis. Durham research has led to a spinout company, Concept Analyst, Ltd., and the software resulting from the research (Concept Analyst) is currently licensed by the following companies: BAE Systems (Brough, Samlesbury, Warton, Prestwick sites), Agusta Westland, Assystem, Jesmond Engineering, Spirit Aerospace. Trials are currently in place at Airbus UK and Bombardier, Canada. An agreement has been signed with the fatigue consultancy Jesmond Engineering, Ltd. to market the software within the aerospace sector. Economic impact arises from time savings for designers using Concept Analyst as compared to conventional commercial tools.
Rolls-Royce uses the HYDRA computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code for the design of all of its new gas turbine engines. The HYDRA CFD package, including the mathematical theory behind it, was developed by Professor Mike Giles and his research team in the period 1998-2004 at the University of Oxford, and subsequently transferred to Rolls-Royce, forming the basis of the RR corporate CFD strategy with an investment of over 100 person years in development.
Since 2009, HYDRA has become the standard aerodynamic design tool across Rolls-Royce, and has been used to design Rolls-Royce's Trent 1000 engine and the newer Trent XWB. HYDRA has enabled Rolls-Royce to save over [text removed for publication] in test rig expenses, provides superior accuracy compared to its competitors such as FLUENT, and has contributed to increases in engine efficiency of up to [text removed for publication], which in turn has led to higher sales and increased revenue for Rolls-Royce.
In 1997 ERPE invented a novel automatic machining feature recognition technology which has been incorporated into the Pathtrace EdgeCAM Solid Machinist Computer Aided Manufacture (CAM) package, now owned by Planit plc. EdgeCAM is considered as one of the leading independent solid machinist CAM package, with 10 - 15% of the world market. Related ERPE feature recognition in shape representation and characterisation has enabled the design of a 3D shape browser for product data management systems. Commercialised in 2005 as ShapeSpace with £0.7M current market value, for application to the parts industry in automotive markets, it has attracted the US Actify Inc., as an equity sharing partner to aid ShapeSpace to access worldwide markets.