C2i 2018 Special Meet the Winners of Our Annual Collaborate to Innovate Awards

160 years of innovation

theengineer.co.uk November 2018 | £3.70

c2i 2018 Special Meet the winners of our annual Collaborate to Innovate awards

Advanced Manufacturing News, features and opinion from the world of Reactor robots Wind farmer Car of the issue production engineering How nuclear fusion research is Pioneering engineer who helped Behind the wheel of the DS 7 helping to drive robotic bring offshore wind to – a car with plenty of development »24 the masses »28 tricks up its sleeve »46 »55

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Volume 297 Issue No. 7903 Established 1856 Teamwork triumphs news 06 Marine New technology to enhance n 6 November we unveiled the winners of this year’s Collaborate To safety at sea Innovate Awards (c2i), The Engineer’s annual search for some of the 08 Energy Structural batteries can UK’s most exciting collaborative engineering projects. In this issue power new life into vehicles (p30-45) we take a look at the winning projects and examine how collaboration has been at their heart. As in previous years, the results 10 Aerospace Microwave beams may are an inspiring reminder of the many ways in which engineers are keep drones flying high working together and alongside specialists from other disciplines. 14 Defence F-35 Lightning II jets start In its efforts to engage the next generation and to inspire people to trials on new aircraft carrier consider a career in engineering, industry often laments the absence of a true engineering pop star, a modern-day Brunel who can carry the torch for the profession. But this is missing the point, and our winners opinion are also a reminder that – with a couple of exceptions – modern-day engineering is refreshingly 18 Viewpoint Ralf Carlström light on egos. It’s all about teamwork. And that’s surely something worth celebrating. 20 Mailbox Your letters to the editor OOf course, that’s not to say that there are not “With a couple 22 Opinion Verity Davidge still remarkable people making remarkable 28 Interview Henrik Stiesdal breakthroughs – they just tend to stay out of the limelight. And in this issue’s interview (p28-29), of exceptions, we talk to one such individual – Henrik Stiesdal, features an engineer credited with many of the modern-day 24 Robotics Nuclear fusion could be key innovations that have made offshore wind turbines a reality. He talks to us about some of to unlocking innovative vehicle tech the manufacturing breakthroughs that have engineering is 30 c2i 2018 Award-winning projects helped drive the widespread deployment of the highlight collaborative strengths. A technology, and explains how – even though refreshingly retired – he continues to puzzle over some of the look at the winning projects sector’s biggest challenges. 46 Car of the issue DS 7 Crossback Finally, on a separate note, we’ve had lots of light on egos” 49 Drives, motors and gears letters from readers expressing their dismay 52 Automation products that Bloodhound (the UK effort to break the land speed record in a 1,000mph car) has entered administration. The Engineer has followed the project 55 Advanced manufacturing since its inception – and while some might argue that the pursuit of land speed records has little 64 Additive products place in the modern world, there’s no doubting that Bloodhound has helped engage people, 66 Food technology particularly the young, with engineering in a way that few other projects have been able to. It’s tricky to know where the project goes from here, but it’s hard to imagine that someone won’t 69 Archive step up to rescue it. Perhaps existing sponsors will up their investment in the project? Perhaps the 70 Digest Government could step in? Perhaps one of the UK’s handful of Brexit-supporting industrialists might see it as an opportunity? Perhaps by the time this issue lands the project will be back on track – this publication certainly hopes so. Your number-one website for engineering news, views, jobs and products theengineer.co.uk Jon Excell Editor [email protected]

UK subscriptions ISSN 0013-7758. Printed £75 pa UK/£117 pa by Precision Colour Centaur Media Plc, 79 Wells Street, London, W1T 3QN overseas. Order online Printing, Haldane, at www.theengineer. Halesfield 1, Telford, co.uk/subscribe or by TF7 4QQ. Visit www. telephone on +44 (0207) theengineer.co.uk for Direct dial 020 7970 followed by extension listed Advertising fax 020 7970 4190 Editor Jon Excell (4437) [email protected] Features editor 292 3705. All rights constantly updated Stuart Nathan (4125) [email protected] Senior reporter Andrew Wade (4893) [email protected] News editor Jason reserved. No part of news, products and Ford (4442) [email protected] Commercial director Justyn Gidley (4942) [email protected] Recruitment advertisement this publication may be jobs and to sign up for manager Michael Maunsell (020 7970 4679) [email protected] Business development manager Paul Tilston (4487) Account reproduced in any form our FREE weekly email Manager Lindsay Smith (4811) Production Wendy Goodbun (4807) [email protected], Gillian Maher, Tim Walker, Press Association without prior permission newsletter and tailored Publisher Simon Lodge (4849) [email protected] Subscriptions & Customer Services [email protected] from the publisher. job alerts The Engineer is available for International licensing and syndication. For more information please email [email protected] NEWS 020 7970 4442 DISPLAY 020 7970 4487 RECRUITMENT 020 7970 4110 SUBSCRIPTIONS/CUSTOMER SERVICES HOTLINE 020 7292 3705

NOVEMBER 2018 | THE ENGINEER 5 news technology

MARINE Readmoreonline error by automating routine tasks and processes, freeing the crew to Automotive JLR announces two-week Floating data focus on critical decision-making. It also means some crew members Solihull shutdown can be taken off the ship and on to Aerospace centres for ships shore, where they are less at risk, said Daffey. Hubble placed in safe Each vessel can capture up to mode as gyro issues investigated are making waves one terabyte of information from the various sensors per day, or 30 to 40TB over a month-long voyage. Civil & Structural New technology aims to improve sea To cope with all of this incoming London celebrations: engineering feats to help safety and heighten awareness HELEN KNIGHT REPORTS data, the systems use Intel Xeon Scalable processors. public festivities The data is stored in 3D NAND SSDs, a type of solid-state storage Defence device using flash memory, in which Striker II fighter pilot memory cells are stacked vertically helmet: Transforming in multiple layers. aerial combat These act as a ‘black box’, allowing the information to be Electronics accessed for analysis and training World’s fastest camera once the ship has docked. captures 10 trillion frames Rolls-Royce recently carried out per second a pilot off the coast of Japan, in which the technology helped the Energy crew of a passenger ferry owned by City of dreaming wires: Japanese shipping company Mitsui Siemens and Oxford OSK Lines to detect potential University to explore virtual obstacles in the water when power network travelling at night. The company is now developing Medical autonomous navigation Epidermal electronic technology, to allow vessels to device sticks to task of safely navigate from their port of monitoring health departure to their port of arrival, in ntelligent ships capable of conditions, or in congested waters, the safest and most efficient way Manufacturing acting like floating data according to Kevin Daffey, director possible, said Daffey. Additive fingerprints could centres, processing and storing of ship intelligence at Rolls-Royce. “That is what we are working on help trace 3D-printed huge amounts of information, “It presents an unparalleled at the moment, this ability for weapons are being made possible thanks situational awareness of what’s route-planning, collision avoidance, to a collaboration between around the vessel to the watch- tracking the vessel to make sure it Policy & Business Rolls-Royce and Intel. keepers on the bridge, including will arrive at its destination when Manufacturers missing out Rolls-Royce has recently distances, the names of the vessels it’s meant to,” he said. on R&D tax relief Ideveloped the Intelligent that are near them or how far they In May the International Awareness System, which uses are from land,” he said. Maritime Organisation established Rail & Marine AI-based sensor fusion and “Over the next three years we’ll a working group to look at what September 1935: Class A4 decision-making technology to begin to see the first commercially changes are required to the current locomotive enters service process information from a wide operated ships with some degree of legislation in order to allow vessels range of sources, including lidar, autonomous functionality on board, to operate either remotely or radar, thermal cameras, High moving towards vessels that can unmanned in the open ocean. This Definition cameras, satellite data make their own decisions from process is likely to take several For news and jobs and weather forecasts. around 2025 onwards.” years to complete. theengineer.co.uk This should help to improve Dangerous conditions in the However, individual countries maritime safety by making the ocean have resulted in 1,129 can provide their own legislative ships’ crew more aware of their shipping losses over the past 10 framework for the vessels to surroundings and the years, of which 70 to 90 per cent operate, Daffey said. “There are a environmental conditions, and have involved a human decision lot of vessels that operate just allowing them to detect other that contributed to the accident, within coastal waters that are really vessels or objects kilometres away. said Daffey. good for autonomous operation, This is particularly important at Intelligent shipping systems can such as tugs and short sea cargo night-time, in adverse weather reduce the potential for human shipping.” n

6 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018

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ENERGY Newsinbrief were part of a car or aircraft body, this could reduce the weight by up to SMMT gears up for Brexit Is double duty the UK car industry trade body the 50 per cent,” says Asp. It’s established practice to use SMMT has announced a Brexit carbon – generally in graphite form Readiness Programme to help future of batteries? or a variant – as the positive safeguard the automotive supply Building energy storage into the structural electrode while lithium metal is the chain. It will support SMEs who negative. Lithium ions migrate across form the backbone of the UK’s framework of cars and aircraft STUART NATHAN REPORTS the battery electrolyte and embed automotive sector but lack themselves within the carbon atomic the resources to adequately structure: a process known as prepare for the change to trading intercalation. conditions with the EU in the The Chalmers research focused event of a ‘no-deal’ Brexit. on what was the optimum structure for carbon fibres based on the Toyota chief’s warning polymer polyacrylonitride (PAN) to Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda both store energy by intercalating warns the auto industry will lithium and act as reinforcement for inevitably suffer if talks break a polymer composite. down on the terms of the UK’s They found PAN-based fibres withdrawal from the EU. He have much higher electrochemical said “spiralling logistics and capacity than fibres based on pitch. production costs” will hit profits Image: Yen Strandqvist Fibres with small, poorly oriented and force up car prices. Toyoda sing reinforcing reduces weight, but prototypes have crystals have good electrochemical reiterated the importance of an carbon fibre both as been found wanting in both aspects. properties but low stiffness, while “unimpaired trade environment part of a composite Now, researchers from Chalmers fibres with large, well-oriented between the UK and the EU”. material and University of Technology in Sweden crystals are very stiff but have electrode in lithium have found a new way of electrochemical properties too poor Driverless taxis by 2021 ion structural transforming composite panels into for structural battery components. Autonomous ride sharing vehicles battery could see batteries. Led by Leif Asp, a professor In general, ‘good’ battery fibres are could be on London’s streets by major improvements in electric of material and computational slightly stiffer than steel, while ‘poor’ 2021, following an agreement Uvehicles and aircraft. mechanics, the team has been battery fibres are 10 times stiffer. between Oxbotica and Addison Structural batteries are energy researching how carbon fibres in Asp says: “A slight reduction in Lee Group. They will focus storage devices which form part of composites could be used as stiffness is not a problem for many initially on London, working the overall structure of the vehicle: components of lithium ion batteries applications such as cars. The toward a greater share of the car this could be the bodywork or chassis formed out of the panelwork. market is currently dominated by services market for connected of an electric car, or part of the “It will also be possible to use the expensive carbon fibre composites autonomous vehicle technology, fuselage or skin or the underlying carbon fibre for other purposes such whose stiffness is tailored to aircraft which is forecast to be worth supporting framework of an aircraft. as harvesting kinetic energy, for use so there is some potential here £28bn in Britain by 2035. In theory, performing ‘double duty’ sensors or for conductors of both for carbon fibre manufacturers to as the structure and energy storage energy and data. If all these functions extend their utilisation.” n Leading the charge A report by the cross-party MEDICAL patients for 48 hours following data as an early warning for medical Business, Energy and Industrial breast reconstruction surgery to staff, enabling earlier and simpler Strategy Committee says continuously monitor oxygen interventions, as well as giving Government plans to phase out Bio-patch saturation levels in transferred patients increased peace of mind.” sales of new petrol and diesel tissue, which is a key indicator of Patients routinely donate their cars by 2040 are vague and is doctor’s whether there is a risk of own tissue to help rebuild breasts unambitious. It wants new fossil- reconstruction failure. following mastectomy. The procedure fuel vehicle sales to be banned little helper According to Prof Guang-Zhong achieves high success rates but early by 2032 and says a key barrier to Device to cut breast Yang, director of the Hamlyn Centre, detection of possible problems could growing the UK EV market is the poor blood supply or failure of breast help further reduce complications poor provision of charging points. surgery failure rates reconstruction surgery can have a and cut surgery failure rates. JASON FORD REPORTS major impact on a patient’s recovery, The device employs near-infrared Complications that sometimes occur prognosis and mental wellbeing. spectroscopy (NIRS) to capture and For news and jobs following breast reconstruction “Clinical signs of failure often transmit encrypted data using theengineer.co.uk surgery could be identified and occur late and patients may be sensors that are hermetically sealed rectified sooner with a new sensing returned to the operating room on inside biocompatible materials. device developed by a team led by clinical suspicion,” said Prof Yang, It could become available for Imperial College London. who led the Smart Sensing for widespread use in two-three years Measuring 1.8 x 1.1cm, the Surgery project. “Our new bio-patch and is also being adapted to help bio-patch was attached to a group of tackles this by providing objective monitor dementia. n

8 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018

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NOTE: AEROSPACE TRANSPORT automatically direct a microwave beam towards a target. Quintero One Wireless power to “It is an antenna specially designed to send energy in one is hyper-fast BYLINE particular direction towards the target,” said Buchanan. “It has been 760mph passenger keep drones flying developed for applications like capsule unveiled Microwave transmitters may provide the satellite communication and it’s JASON FORD REPORTS FOR something we feel is transferable to solution to continuous flight HELEN KNIGHT REPORTS wireless power.” Small, arbitrarily spaced transmitter sub-arrays will be used rones have long researchers are developing RF-DC to enhance the efficiency of the WPT LEAD been tipped for technology to wirelessly transfer up system. Aerospace engineers at widespread use in to 200W over distances of around Queen’s will be tasked with ensuring future smart cities, 25m, according to project leader Dr the drones are still able to fly when including delivery Neil Buchanan. equipped with a wireless power A capsule to carry passengers and services, search and As part of the project, the receiver. goods at speeds of up to 760mph has rescue operations researchers will be developing new At the end of the project the team been unveiled by Hyperloop and surveillance. wireless power transmitters and plans to carry out a laboratory Transportation Technologies. DHowever, powering the unmanned receivers, said Buchanan. demonstration of high-efficiency The 32m-long capsule will help aerial vehicles has, so far, been “We will be trying to send microwave WPT, plus a vertical realise HyperloopTT’s ambition to limited to small battery packs microwaves the same way you would take-off and landing and continuous deliver electrically-powered providing a flight time of around only send a laser beam so it needs to be flight by a drone powered by the hyperloop transportation systems 20 minutes. focused into a fine beam,” he said. wireless system. that run on proprietary passive Now researchers at Queen’s “Current technology doesn’t do that According to Norbert Sagnard, magnetic levitation and a linear University Belfast are developing terribly well, the beam tends to be Centre for Wireless Innovation induction motor inside 4m diameter technology that could see the drones too broad.” business development manager at tubes mounted on pylons. Designed powered by microwave beams from For the transmitter, the Queen’s, the technology could to carry 28 to 40 passengers, the researchers are investigating the use potentially be scaled up to larger capsules would depart every 40 of a retrodirective antenna that can aircraft and other applications. n seconds and transport 164,000 “We’ll be trying to passengers a day on each line. send microwaves HyperloopTT says its breakthrough technology is a next the same way you generation passive magnetic send a laser beam” levitation system called Inductrack. Neil Buchanan With the magnets configured in a Halbach array, the system – which Queen’s University Belfast has been tested and validated on a full-scale passive levitation track the ground, opening up the – enables passive levitation over an possibility of continuous flight. unpowered but conductive track. Existing wireless power transfer Dubbed Quintero One, the capsule (WPT) systems require very close is constructed almost completely out proximity – such as the charging of HyperloopTT’s Vibranium, a pads used for smartphones and dual-layer smart composite material electric cars – based on claimed to be eight times stronger electromagnetic induction. than aluminium and 10 times Instead, in an EPSRC-funded stronger than steel alternatives. It is project, which also involves Qinetiq, The use of drones has been restricted by short flight times also embedded with sensors to wirelessly transmit the capsule’s RESEARCH temperature, stability, and integrity. breakthrough is a hybrid system combining the Built by project partner Airtificial SoundBenders breakthrough versatility of phased arrays of transducers (PATs) with in southern Spain, the capsule will the precision of acoustic metamaterials while helping now be delivered to HyperloopTT’s Waves go around an obstacle to lift object to eliminate the restrictions on sound field resolution research and development centre in Sussex University researchers have become the first in and variability each of the previous approaches applied. Toulouse, France for additional work the world to develop technology which can bend sound The metamaterial provides a low modulator pitch to before it is used on one of the first waves around an obstacle and then levitate an object. help create sound fields with high spatial resolution commercial tracks. Airtificial The SoundBender technology overcomes two key while the PAT adds dynamic amplitude and phase chairman Rafael Contreras said: “The limitations of previous ultrasound levitation devices, control of the field. The technology can also provide Hyperloop capsule is perhaps the which were unable to bypass obstacles between the haptic feedback beyond an obstacle and to manipulate safest transportation vehicle in transducers and the levitating object. The key to its non-solid objects such as a candle’s flame. JE the world.” n

1 0 THE ENGINEER |NOVEMBER 2018

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AEROSPACE AERONAUTICS Neo satellites will be launched into GE is back New propulsion low Earth orbit using a smaller launcher than is typically needed and will then use their electric propulsion with a boom systems to raise themselves into First supersonic civil system launched geostationary orbit. engine since Concorde Olivier added that the system’s ANDREW WADE REPORTS Electric module, a UK first, will be more flexibility will allow it to operate with fuel-efficient and cheaper HELEN KNIGHT REPORTS a range of different satellite sizes. Although electric propulsion systems are highly fuel-efficient, he first electric to operate than chemical-based they are also very low thrust – in propulsion system systems, he said. “It’s a big price the range of a few hundred has come off the differentiator for customers; we’re millinewton – when compared to production line at talking maybe tens of millions of the 400N typical of chemical General Electric Aviation’s initial Thales Alenia dollars in improvement over a propulsion systems. design phase for its new supersonic Space’s Belfast chemical propulsion system.” “This means you spend more time Affinity engine has been completed, facility. The company already has orders in lower orbits and you have to with its first flight slated for 2023. Thales Alenia Space launched the for four all-electric Spacebus Neo maintain altitude,” said Olivier. Based on technology already well TSpace Propulsion Integration Centre satellite platforms – including the To this end, the company has established in civil aircraft, Affinity – the first of its kind in the UK – in XPS modules being built in the UK – developed mechanisms which are has been developed specifically for 2016 and it has now produced the from satellite operators Eutelsat and designed to point the thrusters in a the Aerion AS2, a supersonic first Xenon Propulsion System (XPS) SES, and the French military. very wide range of different business jet designed to reach module for satellites. The first launch of the system is directions to ensure the system is as speeds of Mach 1.4. While Aerion had Electric propulsion systems scheduled for 2019. The Spacebus efficient as possible. n initially partnered with Airbus on the convert energy collected from the AS2 project, the European company sun into thrust by accelerating was replaced by Lockheed Martin Out of this world: electric inert xenon gas ions. They are almost a year ago. Lockheed’s Skunk propulsion satellites significantly more efficient than Works team has since been working are more efficient chemical systems, requiring just on the airframe, while GE has been one-fifth of the propellant to carry finalising the design of the first out the same mission. supersonic civil engine since the As a result, electric propulsion retirement of Concorde. is fast becoming a standard form Affinity is a twin-shaft, twin-fan of propulsion for many satellite turbofan controlled by a Full missions, according to Ben Olivier, Authority Digital Engine Control chief executive officer for Thales (FADEC) system. It is optimised for Alenia Space UK. supersonic flight over water and “Electric propulsion is about subsonic flight over land and five to 10 times more efficient than designed to meet Stage 5 subsonic chemical propulsion, so you only noise requirements as well as have to carry a fraction of the fuel current emissions standards. GE in order to get the same effective claims Affinity will have an increase in speed,” he said. operational ceiling of 60,000ft and This means all-electric the highest bypass ratio of any satellites are significantly cheaper supersonic engine. Its combustor features advanced coatings for

DATA sustained high-speed operation, such as the accelerometer, gyroscope and orientation while additive manufacturing has Tech that watches you sleep sensor, were used to identify body and hand been employed to optimise weight. movements during sleep. The watch’s microphone According to GE vice president Get a good night’s shut eye with the help of captures ambient noise, as well as the wearer’s snoring Brad Mottier, business aircraft data harvested from a device on your wrist and talking during sleep. A light sensor also captures speeds have increased by less than Software developed in the UK and China could soon illumination in the sleeping environment. 10 per cent in 50 years. He says: help people get a good night’s sleep. So far, the device has been tested on 15 study “Instead of going faster, cabins have SleepGuard uses sensor data provided by participants and results show the software can increased in size and become more smartwatches to monitor its wearers’ sleep patterns, estimate sleep-quality at a similar accuracy to comfortable – and range has become estimates sleep quality and provides users with advice consumer-grade sleep monitors. longer. The next step is speed.” on how to sleep better. The research team from Lancaster University and GE and Aerion began the initial The software tracks non-biomedical factors such Northwest University, China hope the technology can design phase for the engine in May as body movements, sounds related to sleep disorders help users develop a more comprehensive 2017. The next design review is and ambient lighting. Sensors within a smartwatch, understanding of their sleep. JF targeted for 2020. n

1 2 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018

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DEFENCE ENERGY Breakthrough Aircraft carrier the last carrier on which Sea Harriers were in operation. “The regeneration of big-deck for batteries carriers able to operate globally, as Lithium sulphur unit launches jet tests we are proving here on this has greater capacity deployment, is a major step forward STUART NATHAN REPORTS Trials to begin on F-35 Lightning II taking for the UK’s defence and our ability to off from HMS Queen Elizabeth STUART NATHAN REPORTS match the increasing pace of our adversaries,” he said. “The first touch-downs of these impressive or the first time in HMS Queen Elizabeth has the stealth jets shows how the UK will eight years, fast jets capability to carry up to 24 F-35s, continue to be world leaders at sea have been in operation although the number on board any for generations to come.” from a British aircraft particular time will vary depending on The trials are taking place off the carrier as tests begin the mission the ship is carrying out. East Coast of the United States, on F-35 Lightning II The trials are being carried out by a accompanied by the Type 23 frigate from HMS Queen group known as ITF (integrated test HMS Monmouth and the USS Researchers from Drexel University Elizabeth. Over 500 take-offs and force), made up of British and Lassen, an Arleigh Burke-class College of Engineering in Flandings are scheduled to take place American personnel. Once the tests destroyer. Philadelphia have made a during the 11 weeks of tests. have been completed, the permanent After completing them the carrier breakthrough that could result in a The jets taking part in the trials complement will be cleared to begin is expected to visit New York. lithium sulphur (Li-S) battery with a are not part of the permanent operations from the carrier deck. After that, it will return to its capacity four times higher than a complement of aircraft that will be The commanding officer of HMS home base of Portsmouth, and is similarly sized lithium ion unit. stationed on the carrier. These have Queen Elizabeth, Capt Jerry Kidd, was expected to become fully operational Developed in the laboratory run by started to arrive in the UK to the land by coincidence also in command of in 2021. n Vibha Kalra, the breakthrough comes base at Norfolk’s RAF Marham. in the form of a porous titanium The first F-35Bs to land on the F-35 Lightning II jets monoxide nanofibre mat which forms carrier were piloted by Royal Navy will be based on HMS part of the cathode of the battery. Commander Nathan Gray and RAF Queen Elizabeth “We have found that our titanium monoxide-sulphur cathode is both highly conductive and able to bind “ The regeneration polysulphides via strong chemical of big-deck interactions, which means it can augment the battery’s specific carriers is a major capacity while preserving its step forward for impressive performance through hundreds of cycles,” Kalra said. the UK’s defence” The nanofibre mat attracts and Captain Jerry Kidd binds polysulphides as they are formed, preventing them from dissolving in the battery electrolyte. Squadron Leader Andy Edgell, Kalra realised that this might be an using the aircraft’s vertical landing effective solution by studying the capability, and shortly afterwards mechanism of the formation of the Cmdr Gray became the first pilot to polysulphides and reasoning that, as take off from the carrier using its the sulphides act as a “Lewis base” ‘ski ramp’. – a material that can donate a stabilised pair of electrons in a

HAPTICS solution – including a stable electron just 2mm, the nylon glove compares favourably to pair accepting Lewis acid into the Touching base on new haptic glove existing haptic devices that are bulky and unwieldy. It is system would theoretically bind the capable of generating up to 40 Newtons of holding force sulphides in place. Lightweight DextrES device has potential on each finger with just 200 Volts and a few milliWatts Kalra has proved that nanofibre to run off a small battery of power. Although currently powered from mains electrodes are a good option for supply, it has the potential to run off a small battery. batteries, as they can expand while Swiss researchers have developed a haptic glove that “We wanted to develop a lightweight device that charging and eliminate flammable weighs just eight grams and can mimic the sensation doesn’t require a bulky exoskeleton, pumps or very thick components from devices. They are of touching and grasping objects. cables,” said Herbert Shea, head of EPFL’s Soft made by an electro spinning process, Known as DextrES, the device was designed and Transducers Laboratory (LMTS). “The system’s low and do not require insulating and built by engineers at École polytechnique fédérale de power requirement is due to the fact that it doesn’t binding ingredients needed by Lausanne (EPFL) and ETH Zurich. With a thickness of create a movement, but blocks one.” AW powder-based electrodes. n

14 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018

Ed - news_The Engineer - November 2018_The Engineer 14 05/11/2018 15:51 SM&E_AD_2019_225Wx300H_The Engineer.qxp_15102018 15/10/2018 19:44 Page 1

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TE_011118_000_Etes_FP.indd 55 16/10/2018 10:15 news technology

ENERGY PHYSICS development of a hydrogen economy on the islands.” Research trio Funding boost for Hydrogen-diesel injection is currently being tested in the automotive sector. awarded Injecting hydrogen into the Nobel Prize ferry fuel project air-fuel mixture of a diesel engine Hydrogen diesel injection system to run on can improve fuel consumption by 20 Winners praised for to 30 per cent, reduce particulate discoveries in field of renewable island energy STUART NATHAN REPORTS matter by 85 per cent and cut laser technologies nitrogen oxides by 50 to 90 per cent. STUART NATHAN REPORTS Ferguson Marine, in conjunction nnovate UK has provided “Orkney has an abundance of with the Ultralow Emission Mileage funding to a project renewable electricity which the Company (ULEMCo), will develop the The 2018 Nobel Prize for Physics has investigating the injection of local grid cannot cope with. This led design of how the system can work in been awarded to a trio of researchers hydrogen into the fuel supply of EMEC to look into alternative ways tandem with existing systems to whose discoveries in the field of laser a ferry operating between the to store and use electricity so that power auxiliary units on board technologies have proved valuable Orkney mainland and the Orkney’s wind, tidal and wave power vessels. The system will then be across a wide range of science. island of Shapinsay. potential could be fully realised,” physically integrated onto the The three winners include the first The HyDIME project (Hydrogen said Jon Clipsham, hydrogen Shapinsay ferry. Meanwhile, HSSMI woman to win a Nobel Prize for 55 IDiesel Injection in a Marine manager at EMEC. will carry out a scale-up analysis and years, Canadian physicist Donna Environment) has been granted He added: “Having invested in an a techno-economic assessment to Strickland, also only the third female £430,000 to design and integrate a electrolyser to generate hydrogen determine whether any other region physics laureate in history. hydrogen diesel dual fuel injection from Eday’s tidal and wind resources, of the UK might be suitable for Prof Strickland, who is affiliated system. The 12-month project is EMEC has been exploring various implementation of a similar hydrogen to Waterloo University in Canada, intended to de-risk the technology. opportunities to support the infrastructure. n was honoured for her role in research HyDIME will be executed by a on amplifying ultrashort laser pulses, consortium led by Ferguson Marine and shares the award with her Engineering and will also involve EMEC is looking at colleague Gerard Mourou, of the the Orkney Islands Council, ways to store and Ecole Polytechnic Palaiseau in Orkney-based European Marine use electricity France and the University of Energy Centre (EMEC), the Michigan. Also honoured is Arthur High-Speed Sustainable Ashkin, who developed optical Manufacturing Institute (HSSMI) tweezers at Bell Laboratories. and Lloyds Register. Strickland and Mourou developed It will use renewable energy chirped pulse amplification (CPA) in generated for the island of Eday, of 1985. It was the foundation of which there is often a surplus Strickland’s thesis at the University which is fed into an electrolyser of Rochester in the US. The technique sited at EMEC’s tidal energy test created the shortest and most facilities. The hydrogen generated intense laser pulses ever generated. is used for a variety of applications In achieving this, they had to solve a around the archipelago, including big problem: short pulses generated generating electricity for the boats by other techniques contained so docked in the harbour at Kirkwall, much energy that they destroyed the Orkney’s capital. material that amplified them. Applications for CPA pulses include creating a strobe effect that MATERIALS can be used to track fast processes Hydrogen fuel cells development However, these alloy catalysts tend to degrade quickly in equipment such as photovoltaic in fuel cell conditions, with the non-platinum cells and LEDs. The amplification Scientists say new creation of platinum and component becoming oxidised and leached away. possibilities allow pulses to be cobalt alloy is key to catalyst durability To overcome this conundrum, the Brown team created that deliver temperatures fashioned platinum-cobalt nanoparticles with a hotter than the heart of the sun, Scientists at Brown University have developed a new specialised structure designed to withstand the which has applications in particle alloy of layered platinum and cobalt that has shown conditions inside a fuel cell. The particles have a pure acceleration and nuclear fusion. early promise as a catalyst for hydrogen fuel cells. platinum outer shell surrounding a core made from The only women who have Platinum is widely used as a catalyst in hydrogen alternating layers of platinum and cobalt atoms. previously won the Nobel Prize for vehicles, but the element’s high cost is a factor in Researchers say the layered core structure is key to the Physics are Marie Curie in 1903 for holding back adoption of the technology. Researchers catalyst’s reactivity and durability. the discovery of radioactivity and have long sought to combine the precious metal with Initial lab testing found the new catalyst maintained Maria Goeppert Mayer in 1963 for other, more abundant elements to form alloys. its activity after 30,000 voltage cycles. AW work on the structure of atoms. Both awards were won jointly with men. n

1 6 THE ENGINEER |NOVEMBER 2018

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TE_010918_013_Tinius Olsen_FP.indd 31 17/08/2018 11:57 viewpoint | ralf carlström Additive manufacturing can reduce industry’s environmental impact The technology is still in the early stages of adoption but could soon play a significant role in reducing waste and emissions

ndustry is vital to the European economy, Manufacturers will see financial benefits by Sustainability drives must be led from the very top providing 25 per cent of gross domestic integrating additive manufacturing into their with advocates throughout the business. product (GDP), but on the flipside, it is also production process. Manufacturers must live and breathe responsible for more than 50 per cent of sustainability, from small acts such as enabling total emissions in the European Union (EU)*. Cultural change must come recycling and paperless offices, right up to the way Directives from the EU have helped limit from the top they create their products. emissions, but manufacturing does not need The European Commission has an ambition to An example of this is Digital Metal’s parent to wait for directives to take action itself on transform Europe’s economy into a sustainable one company Höganäs, which participates in the Ireducing its impact on the environment. by 2050 and, although the UK is scheduled to leave United Nations Global Compact initiative. The Additive manufacturing is still in the early the bloc in 2019, the country’s environmental programme was launched in 2000 to encourage stages of adoption across industry, so its full ambitions will be closely aligned. businesses worldwide to adopt and implement impact is yet to be felt, but it could play a As AM becomes ever more prevalent in sustainable and socially responsible policies. The significant role in reducing industrial emissions. manufacturing, there are opportunities for initiative includes ‘Ten Principles’ covering human manufacturers to redesign their processes and rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption, Additive manufacturing supply chain, reducing cost and footprint to achieve sustainable development. reduces waste throughout the production process. With clear environmental and financial benefits With AM, manufacturers can print parts on Push factors towards reducing industrial to additive manufacturing, is it time you factored it demand. This reduces the need for tooling and emissions include EU directives, public pressure into your processes? n reduces the amount of material required to and, of course, the inescapable fact that we only produce components. Solid metals require forming have one planet and must create sustainable Ralf Carlström is general manager at and milling, both processes that require large working practices. The pull factors of using AM in Digital Metal amounts of energy and create material waste. As the industrial process are attractive in themselves; AM enables components to be printed on demand, the ability to create even more sustainable, * Climate Policy Info Hub https:// no finished product goes unsold, so there is no cost-effective production models and to improve climatepolicyinfohub.eu/role-industrial- over-production. the health of worker by reducing long-term emissions-within-eu-trends-and-policy For example, Digital Metal uses fine materials, exposure to potentially hazardous materials. so reduces the amount of high-value material While key drivers towards adoption of AM so far **M Gebler, AM Schoot Uiterkamp, C Visser used, compared with traditional subtractive have been economic and practical, organisations (2014) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ methods that form shapes from a large block. This should factor sustainability into their plans. article/pii/S0301421514004868 provides large savings in energy and materials, while being able to create forms that would be difficult or impossible to create using solid metal. In addition, this material can be recycled and used again. Additive manufacturing reduces emissions AM enables shorter, more localised supply chains, therefore reducing significantly the amount of freight journeys and weight required to transport industrial materials that can be printed either on-premise with the right equipment, or much nearer to the factory. 3D printing could A 2014 study** estimated that by 2025, 3D have economic and printing could reduce costs globally by up to environmental $593bn (£457bn), slash primary energy supply by benefits for firms between 2.54-9.30 exajoules and cut CO2 emissions by up to 525.5 megatonnes.

1 8 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018

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the power station owners are footing the bill – well, basically they won’t do anything. This will be passed on to the consumer in one way or another. Mailbox Matt D’Arcy We have the technology to fix the problem: Thehottopic renewable energy, battery storage, electric vehicles, heat pumps, better building insulation, more efficient farming (less meat). All that is lacking is the political will to do these things. Carbon Why has the UK government banned onshore wind when it is cheaper than offshore wind? conundrum Why has the UK government removed the solar feed-in tariff for rooftop solar? Our poll on how humanity Why is the electric vehicle grant budget not should respond to the latest being renewed? climate change warnings Why has the fuel duty escalator been frozen for nine years? provoked a lively debate Why does the UK government keep breaking the pollution limits? Although people want to do what they can, I’m Tom Foreman not convinced the will is there to make the change which the rest of us will then abide by necessary changes. The people who can make without thinking about it: consider some of the Economies and cultures with less disastrously the biggest changes are the governments of the most successful online shopping sites, and make short-term agendas and incentives, specifically world, but when you look at what Trump is the decision for the customer by adopting a “one- China, could well set the scene for how humanity doing and the UK government’s feeble attempts click” way of complying without effort or even responds to this. at controls while pushing fracking, I think knowledge of what’s going on in the background. We’ve seen precious little effective leadership why bother? They key word here, of course, is “government” on this subject in the West. Maybe it’s time to The planet will eventually heal itself from the – the political will needs to be there, not the look East… damage caused by the virus that is mankind, but short-term, will-I-get-elected-next-time thinking Cormac O’Prey millions of people are going to die and politicians that seems the mantra of most politicians. will do nothing until the waters are lapping at Alan Pendry I’m fully confident that Big Oil will stifle progress their feet in Whitehall, Washington and at every turn, and now these untested capture

elsewhere in the world. The most efficient way of removing CO2 from technologies encourage them even more. There Another Steve power station output is at source – but that’s not are clean and green technologies available now the only contributor. but the changes to infrastructure necessary

Individuals, domestically or industrially, are A lot of CO2 is dissolved in the oceans, require significant capital investment, which is unlikely to make any real changes without and some reports suggest that rising ocean unacceptable to the myopic, greedy, short-term

significant incentives. It is down to energy temperatures affect this process and cause CO2 thinking of wealth and power. providers and governments to implement to be released into the atmosphere. Ultimately, if Michael Morley

The F-35, the most expensive military weapon in Yet again, it seems British engineering and Inyouropinion the history of the planet, is basically a disaster. It innovation is to be stopped in its tracks by lack of proves that throwing money at a problem doesn’t investment. All too often we hear rhetoric from fix that problem. politicians from all parties about how we should Tempest – the UK’s Jimmy Jesus show more national pride in British engineering and its many successes and here we have one on future fighter Absurd. The F-35 is a game changer on countless the cusp of greatness flagging for want of money. Lots of conjecture and assumptions. It would be levels and will allow the West to maintain David Anderson really worthwhile to spend some time assessing ‘Battlespace Superiority’ for the foreseeable future. what we actually need. There is too much of the Scott Is a land speed record really exciting now? Not mindset of ‘this plane could do this and it could do much innovation engendered. Compare it with the that’. What do we really need, and who are our promise of Reaction Engines or Peak AI. ‘enemies’ ? Are we trying to fight cavemen with Bloodhound goes into Marcus Gibson machine guns? administration Another Steve Join I do hope someone steps up to the mark here. It the debate The world is unpredictable. Hence we have aircraft would be a colossal loss to engineering. Rolls- theengineer. now that do things they weren’t intended for. Royce maybe? Or perhaps Richard Branson. Tim Murphy Simon John Tyler co.uk

20 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018

Ed - Mailbox + EMS third page_The Engineer - November 2018_The Engineer 20 05/11/2018 16:00 Thesecretengineer The challenge of settling into a new role prompts our anonymous blogger to ponder how best to get newcomers up to speed

Having left Sleepy Hollow Electronics a couple of months back, I have now been parachuted into a new position that has required some learning on the job. Although it’s pretty standard, in so much as it’s been a case of “there’s the manuals, off you go”, this has led to some anxiety. Apart from possible shades of “Imposter Syndrome” (the feeling that perhaps you’ve just been blagging it so far and are about to be found out) there comes with age an idea that there’s a certain level of expectation regarding one’s ability – a level of expectation that remains unfulfilled if you don’t get an awful lot of stuff out of the door. Considering the expectations you would have of a new starter yourself makes the truth of the matter reassuringly clearer; sadly, though, I find this doesn’t particularly help in actually dealing with it. The central task can be tackled through two diametrically opposed strategies. The first is to make use of all the information online or in the help manuals, patiently sifting through them and turning yourself into an expert. The second is that when you hit a problem you go and ask someone FAULHABER BXT else and make a note of what they do. There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches. By teaching yourself, you learn that I suspect I naturally err on the side of “find out Power in new with more depth, demonstrate an ability to exploit for yourself” a tad too much. resources and solve problems on your own, and What I think is needed is a mentor. Someone dimensions learn the “official correct way of doing things” . The who will be prepared with a thought-out path disadvantages primarily centre around the time regarding the realities of the skill sets required for taken to complete tasks and the fact that you a specific position. Someone who proactively learn the “official correct way of doing things”. keeps an eye on the newbie(s) rather than the By approaching others whenever you hit a snag, usual flustered bod who greets you with a mixture you reduce the time needed to complete tasks of relief and suspicion, fills you in on the basics dramatically and find the inevitable “get arounds” and then lets you get on with it; only occasionally Welcome to the launch! that every system needs to function properly, but wandering over to nervously ask how you are November 27, 2018 you are unlikely to build an understanding of why getting on. particular processes or techniques are employed. Looking after newcomers always seems to be a — You get the breadth of knowledge but not the duty allocated in an off-handed manner without SPS IPC Drives, Nuremberg, depth. There are a couple of other factors in that much warning or forethought, so imagine how it Hall 4, Booth 346 you may give out the wrong message regarding could be if one or two members of the office were your own abilities to problem-solve and you take given half a day’s training to prepare them and up the time of colleagues. They may or may not then allowed the time to develop a proper www.faulhaber.com/bxt/en grow a tad jaded by your constant interruptions, extended introductory package. Think of the but either way you are stopping them from potential for time saved, the reduction in stress producing stuff themselves – which, after all, is and the efficiency to be gained from actively what we are all getting paid to do. managing someone’s first couple of weeks (after Obviously then the answer is to find a middle all, it need not be for any longer than that). path but judging where that lies is, I find, difficult. I find it difficult to believe that such an There’s so much to take on board, you’re approach would be anything other than highly conspicuously the new face and (if you’re like me) beneficial for both employer and employee. you are insecure enough to immediately want to create the impression of having some degree of PS Many thanks for the good wishes after the last competence. It should come as no surprise then article, it’s appreciated.

WE CREATE MOTION

Ed - Mailbox + EMS third page_The Engineer - November 2018_The Engineer 21 05/11/2018 16:01 opinion | verity davidge

Safeguarding manufacturing in post-Brexit Britain Both government and industry have a role to play in helping to develop and safeguard the skills that the country will need after withdrawal from the EU

he skills shortage they need post-Brexit, almost four in within the 10 manufacturers are increasing manufacturing their investment in apprenticeships. sector is well These have been ingrained within documented – with manufacturing businesses for 29 per cent of decades. In fact, more companies vacancies in are looking at using apprenticeships manufacturing currently considered to up-skill existing staff, not just Thard to fill. We know from our own new recruits as well as offering research that a lack of technical apprenticeships outside of skills and an insufficient number of engineering. applicants are the key drivers behind Manufacturers are also making a this and the reason why three conscious effort to hold on to older quarters of manufacturers have It is still unknown how workers with specialist skills. They struggled to fill engineering roles in limited the talent pool will are introducing new initiatives and the past three years. be in a post-Brexit world adopting patterns of working that These are the challenges that better suit their ageing demographic. manufacturers are facing now. Fast Other actions include increasing forward to a post-Brexit world and these difficulties will only worsen, with language skills and the work ethic of graduate programmes, looking to employers expecting access to the EU talent pool to be limited – although the EU nationals. recruit employees from other sectors extent of this limitation is still the great unknown. Already we have seen some There is much government can do and industries with transferable worrying trends on EU migration – national figures showing numbers fall off a on the future EU migration system to skills and increasing training cliff after the EU referendum, and research by EEF finding more EU nationals safeguard the skills industries such budgets for existing staff. However, leaving manufacturing businesses and fewer applying for job roles. With this in as manufacturing need for the future. manufacturers cite frustrations with mind, it’s a pretty safe bet to assume the number of vacancies considered hard First and foremost, design a flexible the UK’s education and skills to fill will only rise in the post-Brexit world. migration system that allows landscape – patchy training On average, EU nationals make up 11 per cent of the manufacturing employers to recruit EU nationals, at provision, poor careers provision, a workforce, typically recruited in plant, process and machine operative roles, all skill and salary levels, until the lack of parity of esteem between skilled trades and associate and professional roles. Manufacturers then rely domestic labour market is able to technical and academic education. on EU nationals to fill skills gaps in low, mid and highly skilled posts. supply the quality and quantity of Whilst government and industry is For most, recruiting EU nationals is an organic progress with employers workers we need. There has been working together to plug the skills simply recruiting the best candidate for that particular job at the time, and not much talk about a future migration gaps once and for all, what is clear is deliberately seeking EU talent. system allowing for highly skilled job that we can’t just switch off the tap Their ability do this has been the positive result of the flexibility provided by roles and possibly concessions for when it comes to accessing the EU the principle of free movement of people, which has been a great success story some lower-skilled job roles – but talent pool in the future. Much of the and a fundamental building block of the EU. This is in stark contrast to the what about technician-level roles? work manufacturers are doing to complexities and costs that UK employers face when attempting to recruit EngineeringUK estimates that drive up the skills base will take time, highly skilled workers from outside the EU. 124,000 engineers and technicians and we won’t be replacing like-for- At the same time, there are a number of other reasons why manufacturers with core engineering skills will be like with newly trained UK workers employ EU nationals. At the top of that list, cited by almost two-thirds (64 per required each year until 2024 to meet likely to entering the labour market cent) of manufacturing employers, is an insufficient number of UK nationals demand – where will they come from? at more junior roles. What we need is applying for jobs within the industry. UK manufacturers are simply not Manufacturers can’t put all their a balance – a flexible migration receiving job applications from the domestic workforce. It’s not just a lack of hopes on a future UK migration system and a responsive education volume from UK applicants, but also the quality of those candidates. A third of system that meets their needs, and skills system. That’s the magic manufacturers say the skills they need cannot be found within the UK labour however, they need to look at how formula for fixing the skills gap. n market. This chimes with other EEF research that continues to highlight the they can drive up the skills base challenge the manufacturing industry faces in recruiting the right people with within the UK – and they are. In Verity Davidge is head of education the right skills. Other cited reasons for recruiting EU workers include foreign response to safeguarding the skills and skills policy at EEF

2 2 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018 It’s show-time

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TE_011118_000_Yamazaki Mazak_FP.indd 55 16/10/2018 09:55 feature | robotics 14th International Exhibition of Railway Equipment, Systems & Services Reacting to future needs Fusion research is leading to spin-off technology that could make autonomous vehicles a reality in a shorter time frame, reports Stuart Nathan

digitaldiggital 01 railrail

uclear fusion is often criticised as being successor, DEMO, planned to be the first fusion reactor to a never-ending research project, whose actually generate electricity, is already under way, and 01 The AB Precision robot Sentinel-3 is under test at RACE, and may be HIGH only payoff – though undoubtedly development projects for the robots that will install SPEED used by emergency services in fire enticing – is always 30 years away. equipment inside its huge vacuum vessel dominates the RAIL HUB situations inside buildings However, at the UK centre for fusion main experimental hall, much of which is occupied by research, the site of the world’s largest TARM (telescopic articulated remote mast), a single robot fusion reactor and the only one arm in excess of 10m long, attached to a vertical mast currently capable of actual fusion, the Joint European running from floor to ceiling. NTorus (JET) at Culham in Oxfordshire, the perpetual On my visit, this was awaiting the installation of a research project is having real-world payoffs, albeit in manipulator on its end, which will be used to investigate unexpected places. the manipulation of very heavy objects at full reach. The key to this is RACE-Test, the testing facility for The feedback from sensors on each of its joints is remote applications in challenging environments (RACE). fused with position data from cameras and IR sensors Originating in the research effort to support the placed around the hall. This is an example of the AI development of robotic devices for maintaining and techniques of ‘industry 4.0’ in action, notes RACE-Test installing equipment inside the cramped and dangerous facilities manager Oliver Huke. Meanwhile, mock-ups of confines of a fusion reactor – the materials of the reactor sections of the planned reactor, such as its access ports, shell become activated by the neutron bombardment are under construction in other parts of the cavernous, #Railtex2019 @railtex triggered by the nuclear fusion reaction – RACE-Test is gymnasium-like space. 14 - 16 MAY 2019 now involved in a series of projects both inside and Much of RACE’s operations are concerned with the outside the fusion application. nuclear sector, both fusion and fission. “We are www.railtex.co.uk NEC, BIRMINGHAM, UK Although assembly on ITER, the successor to Culham’s increasingly concerned with decommissioning, not just reactor JET, has not yet begun, initial design work of ITER’s at Sellafield but we have projects there, internationally,”

2 4 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018 The show for everyone involved in shaping the future of UK rail

Ed - mini feature_The Engineer - November 2018_The Engineer 24 05/11/2018 16:42 TE_011118_025_Railtex_FP.indd 31 29/10/2018 12:11 14th International Exhibition of Railway Equipment, Systems & Services

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HIGH SPEED

RAIL HUB

#Railtex2019 @railtex 14 - 16 MAY 2019 www.railtex.co.uk NEC, BIRMINGHAM, UK

The show for everyone involved in shaping the future of UK rail

TE_011118_025_Railtex_FP.indd 31 29/10/2018 12:11 feature robotics

During my visit Steve King, the international customer support manager for EOD and remote vehicles at robotics 02 manufacturer AB Precision, was putting a robot derived from a bomb disposal unit through its paces across a course composed of steeply angled sections that would be impossible – or at least very difficult – to negotiate on foot. The robot had to be switched between wheels and triangular tracks to make progress without jamming. “One thing you could easily imagine a robot like this doing would be going into a room where a gas tap was open and creating a risk of explosion,” King said. “It’s intrinsically safe so it could be sent in and just switch off the tap.” “Another operation might be to remove tanks of pressurised gas from a fire zone; because of the requirement to set up cordons, that’s quite a difficult task even for teams of trained firefighters just to co-ordinate. This facility is equipped with isolated hutches with control consoles so that emergency workers can be trained to operate the robots remotely via cameras installed on the robot itself sending back pictures to monitor screens.” A caged-off area in another marquee is referred to as explained Steve Wheeler, head of RACE operations. “We “the aviary” where small drones are tested for aerial are also involved in RAIN (robotics and AI for nuclear), a 02 The RACE team gathered in the search and rescue or inspection and maintenance work. funded research hub led by the University of Manchester main experimental hall. In the Meanwhile, a circuit for testing and developing and also involving the Oxford Robotics Institute, background is the huge robot arm, autonomous vehicle systems is under construction. Sheffield, Liverpool, Nottingham and Bristol called TARM Autonomous vehicles may be the area where the RACE [universities]. That’s lower technology readiness level expertise makes its first – widely-felt – entrance into work, but applied research, looking at real applications the marketplace. It might seem an unlikely area for a of robotics, remote handling and AI to solve actual facility that has its roots in nuclear fusion, but as problems in hazardous environments.” Wheeler explains, many of the devices it has been Such environments are where RACE comes into its involved in developing have to be able to navigate their own, Wheeler adds. “We’re involved in a wide range of way through complex labyrinths of pipework or highly those environments, and that can be for inspection, confined spaces crowded with tangles of delicate maintenance, upgrades or decommissioning, where it’s equipment, and this navigation has direct applications often associated with size-reduction tasks; cutting things in the AI systems that autonomous vehicles will need. up and taking them out of their operational location for The extensive Culham site already provides a treatment and/or disposal. partially segregated space for vehicle testing, where “We have about 150 people here, organised into a traffic moves around on 10km of road in a situation mechanical design team, an electrical systems team, a resembling public roads but away from the full control and software team and an operations team. It’s onslaught of a busy city, but a new facility currently the operations engineers who have the experience of under construction will mimic various types of junction doing things remotely. We have 35,000 hours of and other ‘street furniture’ to facilitate development. The operational experience in doing difficult tasks entirely facility will include a permanent garage and laboratories remotely, and that’s what makes us unique; we don’t build where customers can base themselves during projects. or sell robots but there are lots of people who do. We are a RACE is undertaking this project in partnership with business unit of the Atomic Energy Authority: we don’t Millbrook, which operates the eponymous proving compete with other companies in the remote handling ground near Luton, where it maintains 70 miles of test sector; we support them in winning contracts and bids track simulating urban and rural conditions. These are and they subcontract to us to access our expertise.” to be developed with smart infrastructure that will be As Wheeler says, the facility’s expertise in developing able to interact with systems on autonomous vehicles, remotely operated equipment to work in demanding and and the facilities at Culham will be similarly equipped. dangerous environments is increasingly in demand from “I don’t know when fusion energy will become a reality; other industries. In laboratories housed in large it might well be the 30 years or more that everybody has marquees outside the main hall, wooden enclosures been saying it will be, for the past half-century,” Huke contain samples of irregular terrain to test robots that commented. “The technologies we have been developing could be used in areas of natural disaster, conflict or the in support of the fusion effort, and other technologies aftermath of fire bombings to help emergency services or related to those, will bear fruit in people’s everyday lives soldiers render dangerous situations safer or in search much sooner than that. None of this would be here if it and rescue operations. weren’t for that forward-looking research effort.” n

2 6 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018

Ed - mini feature_The Engineer - November 2018_The Engineer 26 05/11/2018 16:41

19.12.2017 21:37:28 19.12.2017 1 PNY_PrevailPro_DINA4_Final_ENG_8.indd

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PNY PREVAIL PNY PRO PRO interview | henrik stiesdal The man who caught the wind

Henrik Stiesdal’s innovations have helped build a huge offshore wind industry, and it all started at his kitchen table. Stuart Nathan reports

he name of Henrik Stiesdal may be unfamiliar to most readers, but this unassuming elderly Dane may become one of the most significant figures in the history of electricity generation, joining such illustrious names as Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse. While these earlier giants enabled the industrial-scale generation of Telectricity that changed the everyday lives of much of the population of the planet, Stiesdal’s innovations may be key to allowing us to maintain these voltage-hungry lifestyles without compromising the planet’s ability to support human life. Stiesdal is credited with the innovations that enabled the development of the offshore wind turbine, currently the most efficient way to harness the planet’s natural processes to generate electricity without contributing to climate change. With the cost of offshore wind tumbling, and the rapid development of large-scale electricity storage at manageable cost, offshore wind is proving to be the most important type of renewable energy generation around the world. Stiesdal’s achievements saw him shortlisted for the lifetime achievement prize at this year’s European Patent Office Inventor Awards, at a ceremony held in Paris. During a long career, which has taken him from wind energy pioneers Bonus and Vestas, to Siemens, Stiesdal together with a structure called a shear web on tackled the main problem preventing wind generation the inside to transfer the shear loads – the from its original home onshore to locations out at sea, “ The cheapest forces acting along the width of the blade – where the wind is stronger and more consistent. “The vital from one side to the other. That structure works parameter is known as capacity factor,” he explained. steel item you can if the glue joints are good, but many times in the “That’s the ratio between the actual energy you produce mid-1990s our main supplier did a bad job with and what you would have produced if the wind conditions buy these days is the quality of the glue joints and we ended up allowed you to run your turbine at the full rate all the time. putting out blades that I was not happy with. In Denmark nowadays, onshore wind energy has a an offshore wind “It was an increasingly stressed situation capacity factor of about 33 per cent. For offshore, you get but to an extent I had to accept it because there 50 per cent, so in round figures you get 50 per cent more turbine tower. They was no other supplier capable of doing this energy offshore than onshore.” work. These people were not evil or bad or The problem faced in taking wind turbines out to sea are dirt cheap” stupid, they were doing their best, but this was was that the early models, with blades of 25m to 30m just a very difficult task. long, were just not big enough to take full advantage of “We even had to do a lot of testing to make the harsher offshore conditions. “These things are big,” sure that these things wouldn’t come apart and Stiesdal said. “We had to work out a way to make them kill people. So I started thinking, ok, what could much bigger, and the way we were making them made we do to make the situation better? I always like that difficult. They are composite structures, so to explain to look at radical solutions and the radical it simply, each blade was composed of half-shell, made of solution was, if the problem is with the glue fibreglass. That was one side of the blade, with another joint, just make a blade they didn’t have glue half-shell that is the other side, and you glued them joints. Make it all in one piece.”

2 8 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018

Ed - interview_The Engineer - November 2018_The Engineer 28 06/11/2018 13:44 interview henrik stiesdal

ideal basketball penalty throw.” Stiesdal doesn’t underplay how difficult the project was. “I have to say it was fun but not easy. Whenever you do radical things like that you also expect the problems to be radical, but they were not, they were mundane, but they were many. Common issues, all kinds of small things. But now this is how we make these blades, we’ve done many thousands, even tens of thousands, and has been fantastic for me to see the kitchen table thing transformed into a big industry.” There may be many applications for this form of single-piece casting, but Stiesdal explained that Siemens chose not to investigate and exploit them. “Every time I’ve been asked I realise you need to know your limitations, you need to know the cost of de- focusing,” he said. “We need to be humble about what we can master, so let’s focus on this. We could give out a licence, of course, to somebody, but at the end of the day it would require some effort from us in serving such a licensee with the know-how. Would it actually matter, in the big picture, to have an income from that when it would take away some of our ability to focus?” Although Stiesdal has now retired, he is still thinking about offshore wind power (to his wife’s frequent frustration, he notes). What is currently exercising him is that offshore wind farms are still difficult to build. Although in the UK and Scandinavia, we are used to being able to site tall offshore turbines in the North Sea, this sort of shallow-water environment near major population centres is actually very rare around the world. “In California, Japan, Korea, Brazil and India, it’s much more common to have very deep water near population centres. And that means you have to go to floating turbines,” Stiesdal said. “They exist, of course, but they are still expensive and that’s because the technology for floating foundations comes from shipbuilding and offshore oil and gas, and those industries are not set up Stiesdal with the fruit of for very high volume production so they tend to be higher his innovation, a 75m-long cost. We need to be able to reduce the cost of these single-piece offshore wind offshore foundations.” turbine blade Stiesdal has come up with a typically radical solution. Rather than think of what he wants to make and find a production process to make it, with the inevitable This wasn’t easy. The first sticking point was same sort of open cell foam as the material consequence of having to assemble a supply chain and simply the geometry of the blade. “The they used for cushions? It was another radical drive down costs from prototyping, he thinks a better fundamental issue was that the root of the solution – make a blade without glue joints: you solution would be to look for manufacturing processes blade has to be circular so that it can be bolted can’t do that because you can’t get the inner that are keyed to producing low-cost products and devise on to the bearing, but the blade becomes wider mould out: make an inner mould that you can something that can be made using these processes. as you go out,” he said. “If you are casting in one get out. If you put the open cell foam inner “The cheapest steel item you can buy these days is an piece, you have to have an outer mould to form mould inside a vacuum bag, when you’ve offshore wind turbine tower. They are dirt cheap, they use the outer surface and an inner mould and inject injected the material and cast your blade you welding machines where the quality is easy to control and your material between the two. And because the can pump all the air out of the foam, collapse the cost per kilo is very low for a strong, high-quality root of the blade was narrower than the blade the inner mould inside its bag and just pull it product,” he said. “My idea is to place a tower on top of a itself, that would mean that the inner mould out through the root of the blade. I make it structure made of components no bigger than the tower, would not come out. Obviously, you couldn’t sound like it was all my idea, but of course it so the whole thing can be made in a factory and taken to send out a blade with the inner mould still in came out of idea ping-pong with colleagues and the port where it can be assembled to be taken out to sea. place ... and it wouldn’t work properly if it was it was executed for the first time on one of our The answer is to make the structure a tetrahedron; they not hollow – there’d be no space for the shear kitchen tables, of course. are very strong and relatively easy to assemble. That web. Nice idea, won’t work.” “We tested it with 30m blades and moved up, means you haven’t got to use production facilities whose Stiesdal went back to the drawing board at and the last time I visited the factory they were only advantage is that they are near a port; you can use his habitual thinking space of the kitchen table, doing serial production with 75m blades. That is the most competitive and transport components to where and gradually realised that he was sitting on a big, it’s 25 tonnes of fibreglass, injected one they need to be.” potential answer: the cushion of his chair. piece. If you turn the blade so the trailing edge The product is undergoing offshore testing, and has “What if we were smart? I thought. What if is upwards, it will sit on the floor and there’s the potential to bring the cheap benefits of offshore wind we had an internal mould that was made of the enough space inside for the trajectory of an to a much larger proportion of the world’s population. n

NOVEMBER 2018 | THE ENGINEER 29 c2i awards 2018

How the UK is reaping Meet the judges

benefits of collaboration Abbie Hutty – STM and The Engineer’s c2i awards programme highlights how academia and GTM delivery manager, industry are teaming up to solve real-world problems, writes Jon Excell ExoMars Rover Project, And the winner is… Airbus joy on awards night Steve Penver - Head of data and analytics, Babcock International Group

Chris Guyott – Engineering director, Frazer-Nash Consultancy

Andy Wright – Director of strategic rom the development As well as demonstrating how nurture and maintain this climate. technology, of driverless vehicles, engineers are applying emerging One key to this is ensuring that we BAE Systems to innovations in technologies to solve some of have the skills base to continue to Programmes healthcare technology mankind’s most pressing challenges, innovate in the future by inspiring and Support and energy this year’s finalists can also teach us and engaging the next generation of generation, modern some valuable lessons: the huge engineers. The winners and Alan Newby engineering spans an benefits of embracing a cross- shortlisted entries in our Young – Director of increasingly broad range of disciplinary approach; the Innovator category are a great aerospace Fapplication areas. importance of really listening to the example of this in action. technology But as the stories over the end-user; and the value of ensuring It’s also important that we work and future following pages demonstrate, amidst that every member of a team has hard to counter damaging perceptions programmes, all of this variety, the most successful their eyes on the prize and is aware that the UK is shutting itself off from Rolls-Royce engineering projects often have one of the end goal. international collaboration. Both Plc common ingredient – they’re the Many of our winning and academia and industry are heavily product of collaboration: the meeting shortlisted projects also highlight a reliant on a pipeline of skills and Danielle of different mindsets, ideas and particular strength of the UK: the talent from the EU and beyond, and George disciplines that so often provides the richness and depth of its academic/ yet there are growing signs that the – Professor spark for innovation. industry collaboration. The finalists result of the 2016 referendum is of radio Now in its third year, The in this year’s Academic Innovator impacting our ability to attract the frequency Engineer’s Collaborate to Innovate category are particularly striking best and brightest from around the engineering, (c2i) campaign was launched to examples of what can be achieved world. It has perhaps never been more University of celebrate this dynamic and, through when academia and industry are important for the entire engineering Manchester its awards programme, to uncover truly aligned. community to clearly and loudly some of the UK’s most innovative and As the stories over the following articulate its concerns to government. John Halton inspiring examples of engineering pages demonstrate, there are plenty I’d like to pass on my – Director of collaboration in action. of reasons to be positive about the congratulations to all of this year’s business Over the following pages we state of UK innovation, but the winners and huge thanks to all of and industry, spotlight the winners and finalists in conditions that sustain it should not the judges, sponsors and engineers Engineering this process, and examine how be taken for granted and it is and researchers who have helped UK collaboration has been key to important that industry, academia make Collaborate to Innovate 2018 their success. and government work together to happen. n

3 0 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018 headline sponsor comment | c2i 2018

Meet the Ask me ‘why?’ judges Too often, engineers only decribe what they are doing, but if they talked about why they were doing it they would engage their audience more, says Bill Hodson, business director at Frazer-Nash Consultancy

’m proud to call myself an engineer and hate it when people make moral guidance. It’s the best way of “Make your audience sweeping generalisations about the profession. So, at the risk of having to making your message stick. A story give myself a severe talking-to, here’s a set of sweeping generalisations with a narrative flow that shows how the protagonist of about engineers. We tend to focus on wrangling the technical detail in your innovation has been (or could be) the story. Make front of us. We enjoy being creative and innovative and using all sorts of used to do something your audience clever, elegant, methods to solve a problem. We get caught up in the cares about, is both emotionally it about them means, not the ends. We spend more time thinking about ‘how’ we’re going compelling and makes those facts and what they to solve a problem than about ‘why’ we’re solving it at all. digestible and memorable. will achieve” IBut ‘why’ is important, not least in getting an innovation off the ground. If you Then support your story with the can’t tell your user, your boss or your investor why they should share your facts and figures that win that logical passion for your ideas then they’re not going to pay much attention. Even if you left-brain approval. grab their attention, you’re quickly going to be surrounded by naysayers if you Better yet, tell the story so that to become a supporting character in can’t tell them ‘why’. You’re definitely never going to persuade anyone to invest in your audience can identify with it as your own story, but it works. your innovation if you can’t say ‘why’. readily as possible. Make them close So, it’s been a delight for me and That means appealing to the heart as much as to the head. The ‘why’ is what to the story, make them a part of the for Frazer-Nash to be part of the engages the emotions of your audience. Speaking to the emotions is not a style story. (There’s a reason why Doctor Collaborate to Innovate awards story of communication that (sweeping generalisation alert) comes easily to many Who always has a human companion once again. We’ve been the lucky engineers. We’re much more comfortable with the facts and figures. I’ve lost – the companion is there as a audience for some truly compelling count of the number of business cases I’ve seen over the years with charts and surrogate for the audience, taking our entries that clearly demonstrate graphs and tables that showed everything I ever wanted to know about ‘what’ part in the story.) engineering innovation with a was being proposed, and approximately zero about ‘why’ I should care about it in Best of all, make your audience the purpose. the first place. protagonist of the story. Make it about You probably don’t need to ask There’s also a huge body of research that demonstrates our fundamental them and what they will achieve if ‘why’ we’re involved. human tendency to use objective evidence to support a conclusion that we’ve only they had your innovation in their Our sincere congratulations go to already reached on subjective grounds. We’ve all done it. At the most basic level, hands. It doesn’t always feel natural all of the shortlisted entrants. n have you ever tossed a coin to make a decision and then wished it had come up heads instead of tails? If you have, then you’ve clearly reached a subjective conclusion and want to discard the experimental data that doesn’t support it. The same thing happens at a much grander scale all the time. The undeniable evidence of the health risks of smoking, say, took decades to break through for many reasons, but one of the biggest was that smokers enjoy smoking and didn’t want to pay attention to a lot of doctors saying it was bad for them. You might argue that science is the triumph of the objective over the subjective – and you’d be right – but it’s rare that an innovator has an audience made up of only scientists and engineers. And even scientists and engineers are people, fully equipped with associated emotions and all capable of being less than completely objective. Getting to ‘why’ is vital for an innovator. It means putting yourself in your audience’s shoes and seeing things from their perspective. How do they think about the world? What will excite them? What will bore them stupid? What do they really care about? How will your innovation make a difference to that? How The Sit-Ski device, will your innovation make a difference to them? which won the As my colleague, Jonathan Armstrong, writes in November’s careers and manufacturing skills focus in The Engineer, telling a story is a powerful way of engaging both the tech category heart and head of your listener. The human race has always told stories: from the size of the woolly mammoth that got away; to fables and fairy tales with hidden

NOVEMBER 2018 | THE ENGINEER 31

Ed - C2i_The Engineer - November 2018_The Engineer 31 05/11/2018 17:47 automotive | c2i 2018 UK Autodrive Arup with AXA Insurance, Coventry City Council, Ford Motor Company, Gowling WLG, Horiba MIRA, Jaguar Land Rover, Milton Keynes Council, RDM Group (Aurrigo), Tata Motors European Technical Centre, Thales, The Open University, Transport Systems Catapult, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford BOX OUT utonomous vehicle development is a major priority for the UK automotive sector, and perhaps The Runners up the most conspicuous project in this area is the winner of our 2018 Automotive category, UK Autodrive. Led by engineering AUTOMOTIVE consultancy Arup, and involving a diverse mix of partners,A including experts from the worlds of insurance and law, it aimed to prepare society for driverless cars and position the UK as a hub of autonomous vehicle expertise. good if a Volvo only talks to other Volvos. There’s The project, which concluded last month, has been a lot of effort to ensure that the systems on Runners up demonstrated a range of technologies on the test the vehicles are interoperable.” track and on the streets of Milton Keynes and Reiterating the importance of this cross- Automotive Coventry. Recent months have seen on-road trials company collaboration, Dennis Witt, a research n of a prototype Range Rover capable of Level 4 engineer with Autodrive partner Ford, said: “It’s Hydrogen Dual-Fuel Road Sweeper – autonomy (meaning it is theoretically able to been really useful testing with Jaguar and Tata. If ULEMCo with Aberdeen City Council perform all safety-critical driving functions) as well we just tested three Fords together with the same The world’s first road sweeper powered by as a range of closer-to-market applications for hardware and software it would all work [but] it’s hydrogen as well as diesel. vehicle-to-vehicle connectivity technology based only when you get into that mixed environment that n Composite Lightweight Automotive on DSRC (dedicated short-range communications) you can understand some of the interoperability Suspension System (CLASS) – WMG with Ford, – a low-latency, high-speed wireless challenges.” Gestamp, GRM Consulting communications technology similar to Wi-Fi. The project has also involved a number of firms Project aimed at demonstrating the These included a demonstration of not automatically associated with automotive, with manufacturability of lightweight composite collaborative parking – in which connected Arup itself being a good example. “Connected and chassis components for cars. vehicles update each other on the location of autonomous vehicles are going to affect everything n High Volume E-Machine Supply from the UK available parking spaces – and an electronic we do as a business, from building design, road (HVEMS-UK) – Jaguar Land Rover, Tata Steel, emergency brake light (EEBL) feature, which design, to infrastructure design,” said Armitage.n Grainger & Worrall, WMG, Newcastle triggers a warning when another connected car Another key partner in this regard is security University, High Speed Sustainable further up the road brakes heavily. The project has and transportation specialist Thales, which has Manufacturing Institute (HSSMI), Horizon also included an emergency vehicle warning (EVW) been advising on measures for protecting data and Instruments Ltd, Motor Design Ltd. system, which warns the driver about the presence protecting connected vehicles from cyber attacks. Project aimed at building UK expertise and of a nearby emergency vehicle before it can be “This is a cyber-physical system, so attacks are growing supply chain in design and heard or seen. around things like trying to stop the brakes by manufacture of electric powertrain technology. Meanwhile, in the centre of Milton Keynes, a denial of service, and not around standard n Mercedes-Benz User Experience (MBUX) fleet of 40 driverless pods, developed by Coventry information things,” explained Peter Davies, Infotainment System – Mercedes-Benz, firm RDM group, has been used to explore how technical director at Thales e-Security. Harman and Daimler, Samsung, Nvidia autonomous vehicles might operate safely It is just one of a number of critical challenges AI-based infotainment system that learns a alongside pedestrians. the industry needs to address before the kind of driver’s habits and preferences and creates a Clearly, technologies underpinned by Level 4 capabilities showcased by Autodrive enter more personalised driving experience. connectivity cannot be developed in isolation, and the mainstream, including, according to Armitage, one of the defining characteristics of Autodrive is improving the way that it talks about the subject. the degree of collaboration between companies “Industry has been woefully inadequate in the way form of driver assistance, there are few vehicles on more used to a fiercely competitive environment. it has described driverless cars,” he said. “For the the roads now that are not at least Level 1 “In the brave world of connected and most part there’s complete misunderstanding in autonomous, he said. autonomous vehicles it’s not going to happen the outside world of what an autonomous car is.” “One of my pet lines is that if you want to know unless the vehicles are going to run collaboratively,” Part of this strategy should be to remind the what an autonomous vehicle is, the car park said project leader Tim Armitage, of Arup. “It’s no public that, with most vehicles now boasting some outside is full of them.” n

32 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018

Ed - C2i_The Engineer - November 2018_The Engineer 32 05/11/2018 17:22 Our People Know Prototyping to Production Parts

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TE_011118_Powerstar_FP.indd 1 17/10/2018 15:54 defence, security & aerospace | c2i 2018 Keyhole Surgery for Jet Engines Rolls-Royce PLC with the University of Nottingham

olls-Royce is one of only a handful of companies that can produce turbofan engines for the world’s civil airlines. However, for a business that generates revenues from services, the pressure to keep engines running and aircraft flying is only going to increase, which in turn will require a Rnew approach to delivering packages such as TotalCare, a ‘power by the hour’ maintenance deal that pays the firm for engines that perform. To this end, Rolls-Royce is developing to six-figure sums per day, the guideline for the Winnipeg-based mobile tech firm Librestream to technology called ‘remote boreblending that gets project was to remove the impact time “from adapt their software. They were then able to realise inside jet engines for inspection and repairs weeks, to days, to hours”. the concept of obtaining a measurement, without the need to dismantle them. The idea was proposed to the Aerospace generating a tool path from the defect, and sending James Kell, in-situ technology specialist, is Technology Institute via Innovate UK and the the tool path as a complete set of directions to the overseeing the project as a part of the company’s University of Nottingham and was developed remote robot. IntelligentEngine vision. “We’re keen to work between January 2014 and March 2017. Following a test on an ex-flight engine, smarter rather than harder,” he said. “We’ll have a Directed by Professor Dragos Axinte, The Rolls-Royce is working with Newcastle-based lot more work ahead of us in the future [as] the University Technology Centre for Manufacturing Tharsus to further develop the technology. n fleet is growing and we won’t be flushed with and On-Wing Technologies at Nottingham, focuses people with the right skills, so that’s what’s really on the design, development and prototyping of driving the thought process.” custom solutions for Rolls-Royce’s in-field Runners up Jet engines are aggressive environments in maintenance devices. which compressor blades can incur edge damage “The reason we work with Nottingham is Defence, Security due to large volumes of air flow. These anomalies because they have a set of skills built up over many must be rectified by removing and replacing the years where they understand the intricate & Aerospace engine, or repairing the blade in situ with a problems that we face, like trying to get inside the boreblending probe that grinds the damaged blade engine,” said Kell, who described how the team at n Kromek – D3S – Kromek with Defence edge back into shape. The process is carried out by Nottingham looked at the variables required to Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), highly skilled mechanics. replicate the existing process, resulting in the use Invincea (now called Two Six Labs) PSI “There aren’t a huge amount of people in the of a pneumatic motor instead of the belt-drive (Physical Sciences Inc) company that are able to do such a thing, and system used in existing boreblend probes. A collaborative effort on the development of guaranteeing they’re in the right place to be able to To make use of the smallest commercially hand-held radiation detectors. act quickly around the world is not necessarily an available pneumatic turbine motor, a custom n easy task to manage,” said Kell. Responding to an thin-wall housing was developed to guide incoming Compressor Aerofoil Residual Stress issue that could affect the whole fleet with a small airflow over the turbine. This was key to the Mapping – Rolls-Royce with Strathclyde number of people is difficult, to say the least. “A manufacture of a robot probe small enough to pass University – Advanced Forming Research strategic network of deployed robots could be a through inspection ports. A novel acoustic method Centre better way of working,” he added. was then employed to monitor the blade-grinding Developing a process for mapping residual The company’s remote boreblending solution process, which was crucial in understanding the stress patterns in compressor aerofoil would involve a number of ‘slave’ robots being material removal process and for allowing accurate components. stationed at strategic global locations, controlled modelling of tool path data and kinematics. n Delta F – Worcester Scientific with Coomber from a master station. A skilled mechanic would Novel flexible joints with a hollow channel were Electronics and Precision Atomics then teleoperate the slave robot after it was first developed that allowed a flexible pneumatic hose Exploring the use of bioMems (biologically installed on the engine by any airline mechanic. access to the turbine tool. The joint design was inspired microelectromechanical systems) to “Your specialists can work on an engine in Sao based on continuum or snake-like robots with develop next-generation biological and Paulo, then switch to an engine in Singapore in one flexible spines and joints. To communicate and chemical sensors. day,” said Kell. With downtime penalties adding up control them remotely, the team worked with

NOVEMBER 2018 | THE ENGINEER 35 information, data and connectivity | c2i 2018 category sponsor Move_UK Robert Bosch Limited, with Jaguar Land Rover, TRL Limited, The Floow Limited, Direct Line, and the Royal Borough of Greenwich

unning since August 2016, Move_UK is a multi-year project designed to advance the progress of autonomous driving technologies. Led by Robert Bosch Limited, it features a diverse range of partners, including the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL), Direct Line, The Floow, the Royal RBorough of Greenwich and Jaguar Land Rover (JLR). “Bosch has a very close working relationship with JLR,” explained Simon Morley, Move_UK project lead at Bosch. “We work with them on various technologies.” At the heart of the project is the concept of “Connected Validation”, essentially a new method for “Babcock International is proud validating Automated Driving Systems (ADS). Huge Runners up swathes of the automotive sector are working on to support this year’s C2I awards. autonomous technology, yet coherent frameworks Engineering is embedded in our Information, for testing and approving the rapid advances remain DNA and technology underpins Data & Connectivity elusive. Bosch and its partners are seeking to everything we do, and so does change that. the way we collaborate with our n WindTwin – TWI, Agility3, Brunel University “We’ve got a vehicle fitted with a range of sensors, customers. With our engineering London, Dashboard, ESI namely a video camera and a variety of radar sensors, A sensor-based digital twin platform to which have been added in the latter stages of the expertise spanning across our optimise wind turbine performance. project,” said Morley. four sectors we have the ability to “In the back, we’ve got a data recording system. identify and integrate technology n LIMPET – Dashboard, Penspen, NEL, Exeter The car, via these sensors, generates a large amount into our through-life support. University of information, and that information is passed to the That’s why we are a partner trusted IoT solution for advanced oil and gas pipeline various parts of the car around what they call a CAN monitoring. to deliver.” (Controlled Area Network).” n ULTRAWAVE – Lancaster University, Goethe The CAN allows all the sensors to communicate University of Frankfurt, University of Rome Tor Steve Penver, Head of Data and Analytics, with one another and interact in harmony. Due to the Vergata, Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, enormous volume of data that the sensor suite Babcock International Group Ferdinand Braun Institute, OMMIC, HFSE and captures, only snapshots of this interaction are stored Fibernova on the vehicle’s recording system. Pan-European project to establish superfast “The crux of the project is the fact that there is so wireless data speeds. much data being generated – particularly as we go to under normal driving conditions, going about everyday n Simplified Coherent Technologies for Future higher levels of autonomy – that it’s impossible to tasks. Sanitised data from a test track can only tell you Optical Access Networks – UCL, University of actually analyse it all,” Morley explained. so much. For high level autonomy to be successful, Cambridge, Huawei Technologies, EPSRC “The data recording system in the back of the car real-world data from the streets is needed. An innovative networking solution to the ‘last is much more intelligent than just a big hard disk “We’re using production vehicles as a base,” said mile’ fibre problem. drive. We’re recording the data based on events which Morely. “In itself that might not sound exciting, but it’s n OPTIMISED – Laing O’Rourke, Alstom, are critical to the testing validation of driver highly relevant because the drivers from Greenwich University of Nottingham, Keonys, Simplan assistance systems.” are driving these vehicles as they would any other A big data platform to boost planning High-value data is immediately transferred to the vehicle… it’s real-world driving and that’s the power of simulation and energy management. cloud, with larger volumes of less crucial data the project.” downloaded via Wi-Fi once the vehicle is back at its According to Morley, one of the benefits of the Greenwich base. The cloud data generally consists of collaboration was having a diverse set of viewpoints, for these systems? Because obviously, people are information pertaining to events where autonomous with each member coming at the project from a starting to introduce these systems on to the technologies have been engaged, for example when slightly different angle. Bosch and JLR are looking to marketplace, but the legislation is several years automated emergency braking (AED) has been future development, while Direct Line and The Floow behind. It’s not just a regular R&D project, where a applied – or almost applied - by the vehicle. are more focused on risk factors. report will be produced and put on the shelf. This is Alongside AED, triggers such as harsh driver “Likewise, TRL are looking at it very much from a actually a project where the data and results will be braking can also flag an event as noteworthy. One of regulatory point of view,” he said. “How can this used for the development of new automated driving the things that makes the project’s data so valuable, method we’re developing potentially be used in the software. And that was not necessarily something according to Morley, is that the vehicles are operating future to design regulation and type-approval tests that we set out to do.” n

36 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018

Ed - C2i_The Engineer - November 2018_The Engineer 36 06/11/2018 13:12 category sponsor healthcare & medical | c2i 2018

Sanguis could lead Sanguis to the development of a universal plasma NIRI with NHSBT, Macopharma alternative to AB

ur winner in the healthcare & medical category combines textiles and chemistry innovation in a project that could transform transfusion services and help save lives. Sanguis is a collaboration led by Nonwovens Innovation & Research Institute (NIRI), a Leeds- Obased textiles company that develops products and prototypes for a variety of sectors. Working in partnership with biomed company Macopharma and NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT), NIRI developed a new type of filter that removes ABO blood group antibodies from donated human plasma, creating universal plasma (UP) that can be used to treat anyone. Ordinarily, a patient’s blood group must match that of the donor in order for blood and plasma transfusions to be carried out safely. If the wrong type of plasma is given to a patient, the conflicting antibodies can cause haemolysis (rupture of red too big a burden and it takes too long to be a consortium. At that point we brought in blood cells) which can result in death. Group AB suitable product.” Carbosynth, a company that was able to produce plasma can be given to anyone, but just 4 per cent Although the concept originated with NIRI, the the artificial antigen. We also brought in of the UK population has this blood type, meaning company knew that collaboration would be key to Macopharma… to assist with how we can develop its supply is constantly under pressure. refining the product and testing it in the field. the technology from a larger upscale perspective.” As the only currently available universal Working with Macopharma, NIRI designed the filter Worldwide, more than seven million units of plasma, AB is in high demand in emergency and to ensure it was compatible with the biomed therapeutic plasma are used each year, with a military scenarios. When seconds can be the company’s process for manufacturing blood packs. market value in excess of £350m. The UK difference between life and death, it affords NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT), which represents £20m of that, and the Sanguis medics the luxury of not grouping the patient’s supplies blood across England, also joined the consortium envisages significant adoption of its blood before treatment. However, the relative consortium, which was supported by Innovate UK. filter here, particularly after the clinical and cost scarcity of AB has prompted the search for an “We did initial feasibility studies on being able benefits become clear. To ensure the product can alternative UP and Sanguis could present an to bind the artificial antigen and prove the penetrate the global market, the plan is to offer the economically viable and scalable source. According concept,” Ward explained. “Through the project, we technology as an ‘add-on’, rather than integrated to Ross Ward, new business development manager worked with Macopharma and NHSBT to develop directly into blood collection sets. This will allow at NIRI, a fibrous immunoadsorption filter is at the that technology further. the filter to be used with any type of blood pack. core of the project’s innovation. “NHSBT tested the technology in a real NIRI is now working with both Macopharma and “There’s an artificial antigen which we bind to a feasibility study and then we were granted an IUK NHSBT to scale up the process so that it can be substrate,” Ward said. “This artificial antigen (Innovate UK) project where we formed the deployed en masse. n basically binds to the antibodies, in simple terms almost like a key and lock mechanism. The plasma runs through the filter, then obviously binds to the Runners up Healthcare & Medical antibodies, and what you get at the end of it is a n CHIRON – Designability, Bristol Robotics cancer – University of Nottingham, University of plasma with harmful antibodies removed.” Laboratory (UWE), Shadow Robot Company, Melbourne, Lawrence Livermore National The technology that NIRI uses to graft these Telemetry Associates Limited, Three Sisters Care Laboratory, University of Minnesota, SureScreen antigens is a new proprietary process. Although the Ltd, Smart Homes & Building Association (SH&BA) Diagnostics company is unable to share too many details, it A collaboration to design the care robots of the Developing new technology to broaden the use of involves covalently binding the artificial antigen to future, focusing on dignity and independence. bioelectronics-based therapeutics. nonwoven material using chemical reactions. The n EDEN2020 – Imperial College London, University n Multi-functional Bioactive Medical Devices for resulting high-porosity filter can remove ABO Medical Center Groningen, Politecnico di Milano, Musculoskeletal Regeneration – The University of antibodies from donated human plasma, Renishaw, Technische Universität München, Sheffield, Ceramisys Ltd converting 300ml into UP in approximately 10 Universita’ di Milano, The San Raffaele Hospital of A new generation of antimicrobial bone graft minutes. The UP can then be used to treat any Universita Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Xograph substitutes to treat or prevent deep bone infection. patient, regardless of blood type, as there are Healthcare Ltd n SLIPS – University of Leeds, NHS Leeds Teaching minimal antibodies present to react with those in Multifaceted, EU-backed project to deliver tailored Hospitals Trust, Steeper Group PLC their own plasma. neurosurgery treatment. Innovative tactile sensing technology for assessing “It has to be under 10 minutes for it to be n Wireless wearable targets cells in fight against and treating diabetic foot disease. marketable,” said Ward. “Anything more becomes

NOVEMBER 2018 | THE ENGINEER 37

Ed - C2i_The Engineer - November 2018_The Engineer 37 06/11/2018 13:12 energy & environment | c2i 2018

Balanced Energy Network (BEN) ICAX Ltd; London South Bank University (LSBU); Upside Energy; Origen Power; Cranfield University; Mixergy

ntended to create and develop a new type of conventional CHP (combined heat and power) heating network described as an ‘Internet for district heating systems include integration of heat’, and currently reaching the end of a diverse heating systems through the recovery of 27-month programme funded by Innovate low-grade waste heat; delivery of simultaneous UK, BEN is part of an effort to decarbonise heating and cooling; and reduction installation heating, which accounted for over 30 per costs through making use of the existing cent of the UK’s total carbon emissions in infrastructure. When buildings require cooling, 2016. The government describes this effort as the the heat can be released into the district circuit Imost difficult policy and technical challenge in to warm those that need it. The result is a flexible meeting carbon reduction targets, and in 2017 a network with advantages for both those requirement was set to supply 40 TW hours of heat releasing heat and those extracting it. Equipment BEN links through low carbon networks by 2030, and 10 TW to exchange information about sources and buildings for hours by 2020. needs for heating and cooling is built into the heating and As some 80 per cent of homes built today will system, allowing flexible use of available energy. cooling still be around in 2050, the project was set up both “There are tremendous energy-efficiency to be suitable for installation in new-build housing gains in heat networks, and we’ve known this for and to retrofit to existing buildings. a long time,” says Aaron Gillich, senior lecturer The collaboration team is seeking to in energy and building services engineering at demonstrate a concept for heat sharing known as LSBU. But there are significant engineering Runners up a Cold Water Heat Network (CWHN), which is challenges to establishing such networks, he suitable for delivering heat from a new type of adds, not least their size: “These things are big. Energy & advanced heat pump operating at a normal heating We have to plan them decades in advance, we circuit temperature at 80°C, alongside existing gas have to know what demand is going to be, who the environment boilers. The CWHN is intended to be able to expand clients are going to be. The long-term legal issues n organically and link piecemeal across a city, and is of clients and suppliers become very tricky to plan Agile power management systems for linked to a large-scale seasonal thermal storage that far in advance. marine vessels – Babcock; WMG; the from a natural aquifer and shorter term high- One difficulty, Gillich says, is that traditional University of Warwick; Potenza Technology Ltd temperature storage in advanced water stores; all systems only do heating; the UK is a very heating- A new approach to specification and are to be capable of operating under control of a oriented country, but with climate change we may implementation of marine power management cloud-based demand-side response aggregator. have to think more about limiting summertime capable of interfacing with modern power The CWHN was developed by ICAX, which is overheating. The use of heat pumps in the system sources and energy storage acting as the co-ordinator of the project; it also represents the electrification of heating, he says, a n Bristol STW – a renewable energy ecosystem designed and developed a new type of high- vital component in decarbonisation as their power – GENeco; Wessex Engineering and temperature pump which is central to the can come from low-carbon sources. Construction concept. LSBU, meanwhile, is acting as the host At LSBU, Gillich explains, the heat pump system The only co-located food waste recycling and site for an experimental network, while also is linked to borehole thermal storage, with two waste water treatment plant in the UK providing system modelling and assessment of 100m bores drilled into the chalk aquifer by drilling n Elephants to Ants: Innovation in Integration the network; Upside Energy is providing demand specialist TFGI from where water can be drawn – RACE (Remote Applications in Challenging side management analysis and cloud-based when needed at around 15° C to regulate Environments); RED Engineering; REACT control of the electrical elements of the system; temperature of the loop. “We haven’t really done Engineering; OC robotics; Structure Vision Mixergy is designer and developer of thermal this in the UK yet for some reason,” he says. “There Integrating multiple small robots (‘ants‘) to storage cylinders; Origen Power has developed a are boreholes serving individual buildings, but they work together to achieve goals beyond their device called a fuel cell calciner in partnership haven’t been linked into networks.” individual capabilities rather than a large with Cranfield University – this device enables The other essential component of the system complex ‘one size fits all‘ machine (‘elephant’). electricity to be generated in a way that removes is demand-side response, Gillich said. This is n OTHELLO – Photon Engineers Ltd; Polysolar carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. analogous to a battery management system in Ltd; Swansea University; Exeter University; Put simply, the heat sharing network works by the electrical grid, he explained. It turns on Absotherm Ltd; SPECIFIC transferring warmth via piping circuits between charging and discharging when needed to balance Seeking innovative ways to make use of solar buildings at near ground temperature, and the entire system; in this case it shuttles heat energy by using the properties of cadmium recovering it via heat pumps in each building. between buildings, dumping it into 10,000l hot telluride, a material which captures electricity These heat pumps are designed to replace gas water storage tanks when necessary. The fuel from visible light while allowing the heat boilers in existing buildings without the need to cell calciner component provides a non- component of solar energy to be captured for replace existing heat distribution systems. intermittent way of generating electricity to power heating or heat-driven cooling The advantages of this type of system over the heat pumps. n

38 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018

Ed - C2i_The Engineer - November 2018_The Engineer 38 06/11/2018 13:19 Tame the Beast!

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NOVEMBER 2018 | THE ENGINEER 39

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40 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018

Ads - LHP_14-Nov-2018_The Engineer 40 02/11/2018 16:38 manufacturing technology | c2i 2018 category sponsor

Runners up Sit-Ski Manufacturing High Value Manufacturing Catapult & technology (HVMC) with Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) Warwick Manufacturing n NNUMAN (New Nuclear Manufacturing) - Group (WMG) National Composites Nuclear AMRC with Rolls Royce, Framatome (formerly Areva) the National Nuclear Centre (NCC) Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory and others. Research Centre (AMRC) Centre for A collaborative effort to develop UK nuclear Process Industries (CPI) manufacturing expertise n Carbon Aluminium Automotive Hybrid here are few more collaborative Structure (CAAHS) Gordon Murray Design with environments in UK engineering Constellium, Brunel University, Innoval than the seven facilities that Technology and Bentley Motors. make up the Government’s High Ongoing project looking at the development of Value Manufacturing (HVM) an aluminium version of Gordan Murray Catapult: centres of excellence Design’s iSTREAM technology that bring together businesses n OPTIMISED Laing O’Rourke with Alstom, and research groups to drive forward a host of University of Nottingham, Dassault Systemes different technologies. T and others. But despite the rich culture of knowledge- Sit-Ski was a The development of three separate industry 4.0 sharing within these facilities, collaboration collaborative project demonstrators. between the Catapult’s component parts – many of which existed before its formation – has not always come naturally, partly due to the Scott Hillier. across the HVM Catapult. Warwick Manufacturing commercially sensitive nature of much of the work The first challenge was to develop technical Group used analysis approaches developed for they are involved in. understanding of a sport that has hitherto been the automotive industry; the Advanced The winner of c2i 2018’s manufacturing something of a black art. To address this the team Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) technology category – a project to develop a Sit-Ski developed a telemetry system based on low-cost supported through its structure concept design system for disabled alpine skiers – is the eye- sensors that could capture data from the athletes approaches, the Manufacturing Technology catching result of an effort to address this. and shed some light on what was happening. The Centre designed and built the low-cost The project was instigated by Mark Ireland, an resulting system, built for around a third of the instrumentation system, while the Centre for engineer with the Manufacturing Technology cost of conventional instrumentation, used Process Industries developed the pressure- Centre (MTC) – which is part of the HVM Catapult absolute orientation sensors to measure sensitive films for measuring weight transfer of – who began by asking 140 senior engineers from acceleration and lean angles from the ski, the the athletes. The National Composites Centre across the HVM to identify key technical chair and the rider while linear resisters were supported with the detailed design integration capabilities. Areas of expertise flagged up by this used to measure suspension deflections. and the design and manufacture was carried out exercise (which included data-acquisition, Meanwhile, pressure-sensitive films were used to across the network. light-weighting, design, digital technology and measure weight transfer. Clearly, the technical expertise lavished on additive manufacturing) led the team to start All of this data was streamed via Wi-Fi to a Britain’s para-Alpine skiers has been a welcome thinking about a sports-related project, but a laptop for remote monitoring and used to create a boon for the sport and the team is continuing to chance encounter on a skiing holiday with digital twin, in which the athlete’s weight and body support Scott Hillier. Beyond this, Ireland believes para-Alpine skiers determined its ultimate dimensions were used to create a parametric model the project has achieved its wider goal of course. Intrigued by the Sit-Ski devices that these enabling analysis on structural performance. fostering a culture of collaboration and improving athletes were using to hurtle down the slopes, One particularly innovative aspect of the design knowledge of some key areas of UK Ireland immediately felt that he’d found the which resulted from this was a composite spring, manufacturing expertise. “Collaboration is quite perfect application. or ‘flexure’, that attaches the seat to the ski and hard to measure,” he said, “but our engineers now “When you look at all the technology we play provides shock-absorption. This was modelled to know who to speak to at these other centres, so with in terms of automotive, aerospace, nuclear give the correct spring characteristics allowing a it’s resulted in us doing more projects across the and pharmaceutical I knew that we could make a virtual design of a Sit Ski rig for any athlete. And network and rather than people reinventing step change in terms of the technology on the when manufactured, the flexure performed exactly things, they know who to go and talk to.” Sit-Ski,” he said. as the model predicted. Another area of innovation It’s also had a number of tangible commercial A cross-centre team was put together was the use of topology optimisation and additive spin-offs. The telemetry package has been used by incorporating these capabilities and the group manufacturing for a number of the suspension Rolls Royce to help simplify the supply chain by made contact with the UK’s leading para-Alpine components which led to a 50 per cent weight measuring the forces components were subjected skiers: Anna Turney, who represented Great saving on components including the Sit Ski foot, do during transportation, while Airbus has been Britain at the 2010 and 2014 Winter Paralympic push rod and rocker system. exploring the use of composite springs in aircraft Games, Ben Sneasby and up-and-coming athlete The project drew heavily on expertise from undercarriage. n

NOVEMBER 2018 | THE ENGINEER 41

Ed - C2i_The Engineer - November 2018_The Engineer 41 06/11/2018 13:23 young innovator | c2i 2018 category sponsor Living in Space and Young Innovators Programme

SMASHfestUK with: Middlesex humanity unless ways can be found to adapt and University, The Refinery, Deptford Green survive using engineered solutions. Runners up The event began as a week of activities in School, Haberdashers’ Aske’s Hatcham Deptford, South East London, but has grown – with Young innovator College Sixth Form, Christ the King Sixth funding from the UK Space Agency, the Royal Form, AstroCymru, Monster Paw Games, Academy of Engineering and the Science and n I’m an Engineer, Get me out of here – Little Inventors, University of Greenwich, Technology Facilities Council – to pilot activities Mangorolla CIC with Teachers at 307 schools, Science and Technology Facilities outside London through the Earth and Sky tour. Engineers at 169 companies and organisations An online engagement activity that connects Council, Royal Academy of Engineering, Living in Space– framed around a worst-case scenario of Earth being too inhospitable to survive school students across the UK with engineers UK Space Agency – was formulated during the tour and brought to n Academy9 – Transport Scotland with life by collaborators who helped to inform activities Secondary Schools – Breadalbane Academy, ow do you get children from that would inspire youngsters to look at the Grantown Grammar School, Kingussie High economically disadvantaged engineering and science necessary to live in space. School, Pitlochry High School backgrounds interested in STEM The public co-creation element alone involved Primary Schools – Abernethy Primary, Alvie when they’ve already decided it’s people participating in space engineering and Primary, Aviemore Primary, Blair Atholl Primary, ‘not for them’? If you’re Wyn science-based activities with seven universities, Breadalbane Primary, Carrbridge Primary, Griffiths, Middlesex University UCL Women’s Engineering Society and Fraser Daviot Primary, Deshar Primary, Gergask product design course leader Nash, plus space scientists that included Jess Primary, Glenlyon Primary, Grantown Primary, and one of the co-founders of SMASHfestUK, the Durk, Theoretical Cosmology Researcher QMUL & Grandtully Primary, Kenmore Primary, Kingussie Hanswer is simple: take STEM-oriented activities STFC Astronomer. Primary, Kinloch Rannoch Primary, Logierait into underserved communities but don’t put Ideas generated during this process informed Primary, Newtonmore Primary, Pitlochry participants off by badging the initiative as overtly the Living in Space project brief, culminating in a Primary, Royal School of Dunkeld and STEM-related. multi-part semi-immersive experience during the Strathdearn Primary If you think this sounds familiar, it’s because main Deptford 2018 SMASHfestUK festival that A9 Consultancies – Jacobs, CH2M Fairhurst SMASHfestUK were winners in the Young Innovator gave visitors the opportunity to engage with Joint Venture and Atkins Mouchel Joint – Engagement Initiatives category of C2i 2017, and engineering disciplines and concepts including Venture here they are again, picking up the accolade of aeronautics, robotics, mechatronics and software. Using real-world engineering projects (in this Young Innovator for taking their unique offering Industry experts similarly meet with members case the A9 dualing programme) as the basis of across the UK and into the realms of space. of the public to discuss the principles and a host of engineering education activities. To recap, SMASHfestUK defines itself as a practicalities of the activities being presented, and ‘narrative-driven festival with a specific mission to to discuss broader opportunities in education and widen participation and build diversity in STEM, future careers in those fields. opportunities or challenge them, to try things through the arts’. The free-to-attend festival does SMASHfestUK is the brainchild of Griffiths and outside their normal metrics?” this by engaging participants in STEM through a Dr Lindsay Keith, a science broadcast specialist The event has, however, earned itself the kind of combination of activities. and research fellow at the University of Greenwich. credibility that will help sustain it and in turn Each SMASHfestUK is themed around a Despite its success, backers for SMASHfestUK present a different set of challenges for future disaster scenario that poses dire consequences to can be conflicted by ‘good will in principle’ and the funding. As well as C2I accolades, SMASHfestUK ‘measurement culture’ that drives companies has also won the Royal Academy of Engineering and educational establishments. ‘Ingenious’ Award two years running (2016 and “There’s a lot of lip service paid by companies,” 2017), and has been acknowledged with a National said Griffiths. “I will positively assume there’s Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement good intent but other things get in the way. (NCCPE) ENGAGE Award for ‘Public Engagement Obviously, companies are driven by commercial with Research in STEM’ 2016. requirements, but the same goes the for This recognition is helpful in lending the event organisations that aren’t necessarily fully driven credibility but the team knows it should re-think its by commercial restraints... educational funding model, which has so far been sustained by establishments, for example. smaller engagement grants. “People are under a huge amount of pressure “We’re at a kind of transition period where we’re because of these structures they’re working a small-scale organisation that’s overdelivering on within, so the idea of doing something outside of its funding,” Griffiths said, adding that the those structures is very appealing, but the organisation is considering how to ‘leverage the practical reality of it then becomes very difficult,” next level’. “There are lots of models we could do he added. “That’s… the conflict we’ve been that would make it sustainable very quickly, but Attendees at dealing with. We know loads of people have great they are the easy routes. Charging people, going to SMASHfestUK ideas and incredible capabilities but how do you well-off communities: very easy to do and exactly then work with them and help them, or give them what we won’t do, and will never do.” n

42 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018

Ed - C2i_The Engineer - November 2018_The Engineer 42 06/11/2018 13:26 Efficient, long- lived, and low operating costs.

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Future fighter Tempest – unravelling the UK’s new strike aircraft project

C2I 2018 The shortlisted finalists for The Engineer’s annual Collaborate to Innovate awards Station masters Driving change Car of the issue The engineering challenges Jaguar Land Rover’s Elizabeth Meet Nomad, the off-road of fitting out Crossrail’s Hill talks electrification, supercar from the firm new stations skills and innovation »32 behind the Ariel Atom »34 »37 »30

Ed - front cover_The Engineer - October 2018_The Engineer 1 02/10/2018 12:17

44 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018

TE_010818_INFOLOGICAL_QP.indd 1 15/08/2018 09:43

Ads - LHP_14-Nov-2018_The Engineer 44 02/11/2018 16:26 academic innovator | c2i 2018 South West Nuclear Hub Collaborating Partners: University of Bristol, University of Oxford, Kyoto University, Sellafield, EDF Energy, Atkins, National Nuclear Laboratory

ith the UK facing strict deadlines to meet obligations for reducing carbon emissions as part of its contribution to action against climate change, and electricity generation representing the largest collection of Wsignificant point-sources of carbon, nuclear energy has assumed a new importance in the national energy mix. The Oxford-Bristol NRC has identified nine A great deal of engineering effort is under way global research themes that are of relevance to the Runners up across the country in a variety of spheres, ranging nuclear sector, all of which require a from the decommissioning of old plants and life multidisciplinary approach. These include topics Academic extensions to existing plants, building of such as structural engineering, systems reliability completely new capacity (such as Hinkley Point C) and waste, fuel management, robotics and digital innovator and basic research into new types of nuclear innovation. Each research theme has a senior reactor. To cope with the expected growing demand academic lead co-ordinating activity and n SHEAR Group – British Antarctic survey, for high-level skills in the nuclear sector, Bristol identifying potential connections with other Dnipro National University, Clyde Space University, the home of an MSc course in nuclear universities, including Oxford and the nearby Robotic drill testbed for applications on Mars science and engineering, has joined forces with University of the West of England. n Robotic Innovation and Support for SMEs nuclear stakeholders to launch the South West A major priority for the hub is to ensure that its – University of the West of England, Bristol Nuclear Hub, which has been recognised as the research is taken up by the global nuclear supply Robotics Laboratory, Numatic international, winner of the academic innovator category at this chain, and to help with this goal it is creating a Reach Robotics, Walk to Beat, Architectural year’s Collaborate to Innovate Awards. nuclear innovation ‘factory’, called Nucleate, Association, KS Lettershop Supported by a £2.5m Catalyst Fund grant from dedicated to overcoming market barriers to Ongoing project to provide access to robotics, HEFCE and £5m from the University of Bristol, the innovation in the nuclear sector. automation and support services to small and hub takes advantage of its proximity to a number Based at the Bath and Bristol Science Park, medium-sized enterprises of nuclear operations. These include the Magnox Nucleate will consist of a bespoke, adaptable R&D power station at Oldbury in Gloucestershire, space, coupled to co-located office space in order decommissioning reactors at Berkeley, also to enable researchers to work closely with industry pioneered at the Large Hadron Collider. Before this Gloucestershire, Hinkley Point and Winfrith in representatives and to also host business development, most radiation detectors were not Dorset, and the growing construction site for the incubation services to enable new energy-related able to cope with the very high radiation fluxes that new EPR reactor at Hinkley Point. Further afield spin-outs, start-ups and SMEs to be established are found in some facilities, particularly those but still within reach are another decommissioning and grow. Nucleate is intended to become a found at Sellafield where the old facilities are power station at Trawsfynydd in Snowdonia and national centre for nuclear industry innovation, known to contain highly radioactive material. Such Wylfa on Anglesey. It also counts the nuclear fusion and with a particular research focus in reactor radiation environments are hazardous to life and research centre at Culham in Oxfordshire, the lifetime management. also tend to damage equipment that is sent to Harwell Research Centre and the nuclear Public engagement is also a key focus of the handle them. submarine dismantling programme at Devonport hub. It coordinates both national and regional The diamond detector, which was developed as within its catchment area. outreach activities, which include a nuclear with Kyoto University, Oxford Gray Institute and Bristol and Oxford universities are already seminar series of public lectures. The hub will act MRC Harwell Institute, uses a diamond tile – 5mm linked by a joint nuclear research centre (NRC) and as an independent gateway for promoting public square and a fraction of a millimetre thick but the hub leverages this collaboration. With this link understanding of nuclear energy, framing it within extremely robust, as its active element. When the and its industrial partners active in the region, the the context of climate change mitigation. tile is exposed to radiation, it develops a charge hub aims to provide a ‘single front door’ for Among the innovations that the hub has had a which can be detected by placing a voltage across government and industry to access skills and hand in developing are a diamond-based compact the tile. The device is compact and it can be research infrastructure. radiation detector, developing technology that was installed in difficult-to-access areas. n

NOVEMBER 2018 | THE ENGINEER 45

Ed - C2i_The Engineer - November 2018_The Engineer 45 06/11/2018 13:30 automotive | car of the issue DS 7 Crossback: Fit for a president French luxury cars once had a reputation for being quirky, innovative and cosseting. The DS 7 Crossback seeks to bring back some of that joie de vivre, writes Chris Pickering

S Automobiles may be one of Europe’s newest car brands – spun off from Citroën in 2014 – but it’s a name that conjures up a rich history. The original Citroën DS was perhaps the world’s most advanced car when it was launched in 1955. It came with self-levelling hydropneumatic suspension, a semi-automatic gearbox, servo-assisted disc brakes on all four wheels and cutting-edge aerodynamics that gave it a drag coefficient of just 0.36 when most saloon cars were seemingly still Dmodelled on house bricks. The Citroën DS’s finest hour came in August 1962. A DS19 limousine was being used to ferry French president Charles de Gaulle through the Paris suburb of Petit Clamart when gunmen opened fire from the side of the road, spraying the unarmoured car with bullets. At least two of the tyres ruptured, sending the car into a skid, but the unique self-levelling suspension system allowed de Gaulle’s chauffeur to regain control and escape at speed. From that day on, the DS could do no wrong and remained a firm favourite with the president. Not your run-of-the- That brings us to the car you see here. The DS 7 Crossback is the first model mill crossover: The to be designed from the ground-up for the new brand (its siblings remaining DS 7 Crossback Citroën-based for the time being). And it has more in common with its illustrious namesake than you might expect. When the new French president, Emmanuel Macron, was sworn in last year, it was a DS 7 that wafted him down the Champs-Élysées. Fortunately, no shots were fired this time, but the new 01 car does have plenty of tricks up its sleeve, including a clever suspension system, which is very much in the spirit of the original ‘Déesse’. Known as Active Scan, the system is standard on the Prestige and Ultra Prestige trim specs. It uses a stereoscopic camera, mounted on the windscreen to scan the road for up to 20 metres ahead, identifying any irregularities of more than 10mm. This information – combined with a range of sensor data, including speed, acceleration and steering angle – is sent to a control unit that works out the optimum damper settings to mitigate the disturbance. A motorised solenoid valve on each damper is then used to adjust the flow of oil between the upper and lower chambers, giving individual control of both the bump and rebound responses on all four wheels.

Vive la différence In an age where most manufacturers are engaged in an increasingly misguided attempt to appear sporty, the DS 7 is a breath of fresh air. Within the first 100 driving looming on the horizon. The system is by no means perfect, though. It yards you can sense a welcome degree of compliance, even on the top spec still occasionally fidgets over sharper bumps and ridges – perhaps exaggerated model’s 20-inch wheels and low-profile tyres. Perhaps not surprisingly, the by the lack of other disturbances. If we’re honest, there are still passive effect is most noticeable on larger disturbances such as potholes, which the suspension set-ups out there that do a better job and the DS 7 certainly can’t DS 7 appears to swallow whole. It also does a decent job of keeping body roll in compete with magic carpet ride of the Mercedes S-Class, which uses a similar check at higher speeds – more so than the initial plushness would suggest. system (albeit a more complex one in a car costing more than twice the price). We’re told the benefits are particularly noticeable in the back seats, with But, in some respects, that’s missing the point. The Active Scan-equipped DS 7 the Active Scan system reducing the oscillation that can occur over bumps. does ride noticeably better than the majority of cars in its class and you can There’s also a suggestion that it could reduce travel sickness – something certainly tell the difference if you step into one of the lower-spec versions with that’s becoming increasingly talked about with the prospect of automated traditional passive dampers.

46 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018

Ed - car of the issue_The Engineer - November 2018_The Engineer 46 06/11/2018 14:12 automotive car of the issue

01 The classic Citroën DS, which launched in 1955

02 The DS 7 Crossback scans for bumps in the road

camera to pick out potential hazards, such as vehicles, pedestrians and 02 animals, which are displayed via a video feed in the virtual instrument cluster. The clever bit comes with the inbuilt software, which grades these risks and highlights them with a red or yellow box. We didn’t have a chance to evaluate this system during our time with the DS 7, but it is said to work well. Inside the cabin there’s a driver alertness system, which uses an infrared camera above the steering wheel to detect signs of drowsiness, based on movements of the eyes, eyelids and neck. This is combined with data from the forward-facing camera on the windscreen and other control inputs to detect delayed or erratic responses that might suggest fatigue. Other features include an adaptive cruise control system with lane assist, which will brake, accelerate and steer the car while maintaining a fixed distance to the vehicle in front. Plus, there’s a nod to one of the Citroën DS’s most famous features, with a swivelling beam system, which allows the DS 7’s headlights to pivot both vertically and horizontally to maximise illumination of the road. This upmarket feel is aided by the DS 7’s construction. Unlike most cars at this All this comes at a price. The DS 7 starts at £28,635, but it is possible to price point, the monocoque chassis is both bonded and welded, with a bead of spec one to more than £47,000. Arguably, it’s the higher-spec models that make adhesive (22m in all) applied between each weld. We’re told this results in a the most sense, distancing themselves furthest from the run-of-the-mill 30 per cent increase in torsional stiffness, which benefits handling, ride C-segment crossovers, but it also puts them up against some seriously comfort and NVH. In fact, DS is so proud of this technique that it has been heavyweight opposition from the likes of BMW, Audi and Jaguar Land Rover. referenced in the dot-dash theme of the LED daytime running lights. The upside to this premium market positioning is that it allows DS to debut technology that would currently be beyond the price range of its sister brands, Steps towards automation Peugeot and Citroën. It is hoped that this will create a cascade effect within the There are plenty of other interesting bits of technology too. Notably, the DS 7 is PSA group, opening up new technology to wider markets. And that, of course, is available with an optional night vision system. This uses a thermal imaging something thing that the original Déesse did rather well. n

NOVEMBER 2018 | THE ENGINEER 47

Ed - car of the issue_The Engineer - November 2018_The Engineer 47 06/11/2018 14:10 revolve.co.uk

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Ads - RHP_14-Nov-2018_The Engineer 48 02/11/2018 16:21 product news drives, motors products | drives, motors and gears & gears

Supplier: Siemens Supplier: Maxon Frameless motors increase choice for Keeping tabs on Maxon customers

otor specialist Maxon is Oktoberfest now supplying frameless motors – essentially just a stator and rotor – to clients Stuart Nathan looks at Siemens’ role in the who require a reduced part running of the huge festival, from monitoring count, are trying to install a motor into restricted space, the beer pumps to operating the ghost train or need lower mass. MOn a housed motor, a portion of the overall The tech length is required for the bearings and location behind the features. Depending on the application, there are festivities then further bearings to support the driven element of the assembly. By using a frameless motor, the design engineer can use one set of bearings to support the shaft, which is both the motor shaft and the driven element, “Frameless removing the need for duplicated sets motors are of bearings. This reduces the part suited to count and the space applications envelope and also removes some where space potential sources of failure. constraints Installing a frameless motor can are an issue” be tricky. Developments in magnets mean that their strength per unit volume is increasing, and when assembling a magnet rotor over a steel stator core, the strong forces attracting the two units can cause them to crash together, which can chip the brittle magnet material. As well as leaving solid chunks inside the mechanism, this damages the coating on the magnet which can lead to corrosion. To help customers avoid these Siemens keeps the Bräurosl, also started using the system, problems, Maxon has produced an installation followed by Hacker in 2012. manual which is available to download. good times flowing The system for Paulaner is centred on four According to the company, frameless motors at Oktoberfest large tanks, each containing 28,000l of beer in are particularly suited to applications where a central space, and is controlled by a space constraints are an issue and a high ermany, the country which programmable logic controller (PLC) of the power-to-weight ratio is needed, such as optical legislates beer production to Simatic S7 300 series. Three tanks are pods, radar systems, azimuth and elevation drives, make sure that it is ‘pure’, is connected to five tap rooms via an underground and rotary joints for robotics and exoskeletons. n the home of Oktoberfest, pipeline 240m in length. possibly the world’s biggest Beer flows along this pipeline at a rate of drinking party. Siemens about 20l per minute to 11 taps, where it is automation is a key part of served at precisely 6°C. A ‘Mass-O-meter’ the festivities, both in keeping the fairground housed in the same cabinet as the PLC Grides that are a feature of the event running monitors the flow rate of beer and sends data and, even more importantly, making sure that to the brewery. the vital beer keeps flowing. Elsewhere at Oktoberfest, Siemens can also Munich’s Oktoberfest sees more than six be found operating a ghost train ride that has million litres of beer poured every year. Since been a feature for the past 50 years. Today, its 2010, the Paulaner Brewery has used Siemens control technology runs laser effects and technology in its tent to allow sales and projectors, as well as the motors that keeps the throughput to be monitored via web browser, ride’s cars rolling along the tracks past the Maxon’s new tablet or smartphone. In 2011, another brewery, shocks and scares. n motors

NOVEMBER 2018 | THE ENGINEER 4 9

Ed - Drives_Motors_Gears_The Engineer - November 2018_The Engineer 49 06/11/2018 13:31 product news drives, motors & gears Full speed ahead for new disabled driving tech A look at a pioneering new system to ensure racing is fairer Supplier: Festo

eam BRIT, a motor- racing team of disabled drivers that competes alongside able-bodied drivers, has worked with engineers at automation specialist Festo and TSlovenian firm MME Motorsport on an advanced pneumatic system that enables steering, brakes, clutch, throttle and gears to all be controlled purely by hand. The team – which competed in the 2015-16 Britcar Endurance Team BRIT with their Series and Silverstone 24-hour race Aston Martin V8 Vantage in a specially adapted VW Golf GTi – is now racing with an Aston Martin V8 Vantage and gearing up to removed, unplugged and replaced with a normal steering become the first all-disabled team to wheel so the car reverts to standard specification. This participate in the Le Mans 24-hour could mean that production of vehicles suitable for race, an ambition it hopes to achieve disabled drivers becomes simpler and less expensive. in 2020. The controls introduce an The new hand controls are mounted on a standard electronic braking system, making steering wheel with a quick-release steering boss. Gear racing easier and safer for drivers shifter rocker-plates and throttle paddles can be who are unable to use their legs. configured to suit the driver’s capabilities. The thumb- Fully adaptable, technologically operated clutch lever is positioned on the left, with the The adaptable sound and proven at the highest radio PTT button on the right. The team has also developed customised level, the hand controls mean that an electronic throttle conversion to convert the cable- interior every driver racing on the track is operated throttle to electronic control. The throttle body equal, with no-one at a disadvantage controller reads the pedal input from the foot throttle simultaneously. The pedal brake system works normally due to an amputation, injury or pedal and steering wheel throttle and relays the throttle and is typically also fitted with bias adjustment. congenital defect. command to either the existing engine control unit or to Shifting of a sequential gearbox is controlled by an Al Locke, Team BRIT’s race the additional throttle motor driver module. electronic gear control unit (GCU) based on inputs from engineer said: “The control system is Electronic control of the braking system is achieved the driver, or if preferred it can be set to an automatic flexible and can cater for different using Festo automation technology. It enables mode. The GCU controls a two-way pneumatic cylinder requirements from different disabled proportional pneumatic control over a dual hydraulic acting on the shift mechanism of the gearbox. It also drivers, while guaranteeing maximum system – split between the front and rear brakes, with controls the blip and cut functions to allow flat upshifts performance from the car. The hand adjustable bias. The hydraulic system works in triple and clutchless downshifts, as well as blocking erroneous controls allow disabled drivers to parallel with a further two sets of front/rear master shifts to avoid over-revs. The team has also developed keep both hands on the steering cylinder pairs: one for the foot pedal and another for the variants for semi-automatic gearboxes and H pattern wheel at all times and perform all of emergency back-up handbrake. The handbrake is the final manual gearboxes, ensuring system flexibility. the required functions. component in the hydraulic system before pressure is Like the braking system, clutch control is achieved “The foot pedals work as normal, relayed to the callipers, so that – in the event of a using Festo technology. A proportional pneumatic valve which adds to the flexibility of the hydraulic failure further upstream or an electrical failure controls a pneumatic cylinder, which is connected in system to suit different disabilities with the hand control system – the driver still has safe series with the primary clutch. It can be activated by either – for example, one-leg amputee, access to the braking system directly from the lever. the standard foot pedal or by hand via the steering wheel one-arm amputee, etc. This system The handbrake used by Team BRIT is single-acting: the paddle. The hand-control clutch is mappable to give also allows able-bodied drivers to driver pulls the lever backwards to brake only the front increased resolution around the bite point. drive the car as normal, which means wheels, and pushes the lever forwards to brake only the Commenting on Festo’s involvement, the UK head of that teams can be made up of drivers rear wheels. There is a failsafe that enables the vehicle to marketing, Steve Sands, said: “Festo GB is very happy to with and without disabilities.” be stopped in the event of hydraulic failure downstream of support Team BRIT in the development of their ground- Furthermore, the specially the handbrake. There is also the option to use a standard, breaking hand control system, aimed at making adapted steering wheel can be dual-acting handbrake which brakes all four wheels motorsport more inclusive for people with disabilities.” n

5 0 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018

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NOVEMBER 2018 | THE ENGINEER 51

Ads - LHP_14-Nov-2018_The Engineer 51 02/11/2018 15:48 product news automation products

stepper motors and encoders ensure German manufacturer introduces fast handling of up to 1kg with a precision of ±0.5 mm. The complete system has an installation space of cost-effective delta robot up to 420mm in diameter and can carry up to 5kg at lower speeds. System will pay for itself in just six months, say the makers, “The open design of the delta robot enables manufacturers to use instead of the usual two years Supplier: Igus their own controller,” said Matthew Aldridge, managing director of Igus. “We estimate that with the usual A low-cost delta robot introduced by picking and packing operations. Igus integration costs, each Delta robot Igus will enable engineering firms to has drawn on its existing expertise in installation will be around £10,000 to enjoy the benefits of robotic lightweight linear axes and bearings £15,000, which means that it will pay automation for as little as £5,000, to develop a system claimed to be for itself after a few months.” according to the company considerably more cost-effective Depending on requirements, the The German manufacturer, which than other delta robots. delta robot can be delivered as a kit is best known for its plastic bearings, The robot is available directly in a box within 24 hours of receipt of claims that the system will pay for from stock as a kit or delivered order. Comprehensive assembly itself in just six months. This pre-assembled ready to install. Its instructions are included and an compares favourably to the maintenance-free belt drive units, assembly video is available online at: industry’s rule-of-thumb target of lubrication-free link rods, encoders www.igus.co.uk/deltaassembly two years. and stepper motors combine to Alternatively, the delta robot can Delta robots – also known as create a lightweight, low-cost be delivered pre-assembled on a parallel robots – consist of three automation solution for automated transport frame ready for arms connected to universal joints at tasks such as pick and place. installation. The machine builder is the base, and use parallelograms in The system is based on three free to use their preferred software the arms to maintain the position of maintenance-free drylin ZLW and controller or, as an alternative, an end effector. toothed belt axes, lubrication-free they can opt for the intuitive and Thanks to their speed and igubal link rods and matching easy-to-use dryve D1 controller precision, they are widely used in adapter plates. Meanwhile, NEMA from igus.n

rig is able to work effectively Robots help automate broccoli throughout the night. Real-time data analysis can be monitored both from a HMI in the harvest day and night tractor cabin and remotely from a central office. While the system is Only heads which meet size requirements are picked currently tailored to broccoli harvesting, it has the potential to be Supplier: FANUC/KMS Projects adapted for other brassica and leaf crops such as cabbage and lettuce, a rig, powered and driven by a tractor. both in the UK and beyond. Each robot arm is fitted with a “FANUC has been a central cutting tool and can harvest a head partner for many years, from the of broccoli every three seconds – initial testing and simulation stages twice as fast as a manual picker. using simple cardboard boxes, right The hollow wrist and body of the the way through to the design of our M20iB robots not only keep weight to single-module pre-production rig in a minimum, but are also rated to time for the UK’s 2018 broccoli IP67 to guarantee reliable outdoor season,” said Peter Keeling at operation. State-of-the-art servo KMS Projects. technology and six-axis range of “We will conduct further field movement also help to facilitate fast, trials this year, and use the empirical intricate manoeuvring. data to fine-tune the performance, A built-in visual detection system with a view to building a small works in conjunction with the FANUC number of three-headed rigs in time robots to ensure only those broccoli for commercial use in the 2019 heads which meet pre-determined season. In short, this has the Automation specialist FANUC has broccoli harvesting system. The size requirements are harvested. potential to help growers partnered with KMS Projects to harvester features three FANUC As well as being faster than drive growth and become develop a selective automated six-axis M20iB robots mounted onto manual harvesting, the automated more profitable.” n

5 2 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018

Ed - Automation products_The Engineer - November 2018_The Engineer 52 05/11/2018 16:49 product news automation products A billion tonnes, 150 people

Automation is helping a Swiss food giant produce vast amounts of production, sensors measuring variables including temperatures, food with very little human intervention, reports Jason Ford flows, and pressure make it possible to build a process that is repeatable. This means that recipes stay the Things aren’t meant to go wrong on same because the system looks at press trips, but in June an plant performance against recipe international delegation of journalists requirements and acts accordingly. All saw an automated guided vehicle of this information comes together in have a wobble at Wander Ag’s plant in the control room. It ensures full Neuenegg, Switzerland. traceability for all Wander’s products. It seemed an inauspicious end to According to Ducousso, this an otherwise fascinating tour around amounts to one billion portions of the plant where powders are made for food, 16,000 tonnes of powder and Wander’s numerous Ovaltine-related 4,000 tonnes of crunchy cream products that include drinks, snacks chocolate spread per year. It also adds and chocolate spread. up to 20,000 tonnes of malt extract, Within a couple of minutes, which is made in an entirely however, a member of the control automated process. room team was on the scene to rectify “The only human presence is when the situation and have the AGV go “Automation and standardisation ingredients on site and despatch to we’re doing the cleaning,” he said. about its business as normal. are extremely important to us,” said them if required. “If we have a need Despite the conspicuous lack of Far from being an embarrassing Theo Schmid, product supply manager and it’s on the production programme workers on the shop floor, Wander’s end to the tour, the swift intervention at Wander. “In Switzerland the cost of then they ship to us, without us human resources remain vital to the highlighted how the highly automated living and labour costs are very high. It needing to issue an order. This company’s operations. plant could remain active despite a forces industries like ours into looking minimises inventory,” he said. “You need the technology but you minor malfunction. for automation as far as possible. If we Then, when a production order is also need the know-how and you have According to Xavier Ducousso, head had the same equipment as 30 years downloaded from ERP, the MES starts to bring that together. You need to of manufacturing, the control room in ago our company would have the batches and calls the necessary have people who are able to run this Neuenegg oversees thousands of [between] 400/500 people working for raw material, which is delivered via type of technology otherwise it won’t sensors and actuators that afford high us. Thanks to automation, we have AGV from Wander’s high-rack work,” said Schmid. “You need that levels of automation at the plant, from about 150 people covering three warehouse. Raw materials are also from a technical support point of view raw material handling to packaging shifts.” supplied from day silos. Ingredients in but also from your operations people finished goods. Schmid added that targeted the dry mix are then combined, mixed on the shop floor.” Key to this is a range of products growth – particularly in Germany – dry or wet depending on the recipe, Schmid added that Wander will from ABB, which began with System and the changing eating habits of and then dried, granulated and bottled continue to evolve its automated 800xA and steadily grew to include an consumers are similarly driving as a dry mixture. processes, which also includes Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Wander’s production processes The automated system controls the working with robots and carton- system and ABB’s Manufacturing toward more automation, which weighing of raw materials to the forming machines. For Ducousso, Execution System (MES), which forms begins with the ordering and delivery mixing process, which reduces errors Wander has come a long way in the part of the company’s Ability of raw materials. as the system detects and interrupts time he has been at the plant, and Manufacturing Operations Schmid explained that suppliers the weighing or mixing process if any sees big data as one tool to help Management (MOS) solutions. can view Wander’s inventory of anomalies occur. In powder further improve efficiency. n

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54 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018

Ads - LHP_14-Nov-2018_The Engineer 54 02/11/2018 15:38 Uniti sets sights on Silverstone

Swedish electric car firm Uniti is to establish a pilot production plant at Silverstone Park in the UK. The company said the facility – expected to be up and running by 2020 – will produce the Uniti One electric car and will serve as a blueprint for globally Expansion: An artist’s licensed impression of Dyson’s digital assembly plants throughout new electric vehicle plant the world. The initiative aligns with the UK’s industrial strategy to lead the world in zero emission and autonomous vehicle technologies. Uniti has been working with Silverstone Park developer MEPC to Dyson’s Singapore swing create a vision for the pilot plant, with further details to come. This is yson is to build its supply chains, access to markets, comparatively high-cost base but the first of several planned initiatives first advanced and the availability of the expertise also great technology expertise and for Uniti to establish itself in the UK, automotive that will help us achieve our focus. It is therefore the right place to with a goal of becoming a major manufacturing ambitions. make high quality technology loaded player in the nation’s EV market. facility in Singapore, machines and the right place to make The firm has already engaged a a move that will see “We expect our electric vehicle.” team of engineers at an R&D centre the company’s Dyson employs 1,100 staff in in Northamptonshire while fostering electric vehicles launch in 2021. to more than Singapore across its new Singapore partnerships with local companies DThe decision to build the two- Technology Centre at Science Park including KW Special Projects (light storey facility in Singapore has been double our One and its Advanced Manufacturing weight structure and additive predicated in part by access to Centre at West Park, where it makes manufacturing), Danecca (EV high-growth markets, an extensive team there” 21 million motors a year. powertrain) and Unipart (global supply chain and highly-skilled Jim Rowan “Singapore is central to our future supply chain). JE workforce. and we expect to more than double A 400-strong team is developing CEO of Dyson our team there,” Rowan said. the vehicle on Dyson’s Campus at Dyson, which also assembles Hullavington Airfield, UK, which “We will begin construction in products in Malaysia and the Contents recently benefitted from an December and it will be completed in Philippines, announced that it is investment of £200m into new 2020, meeting our project timeline. working on an electric vehicle in 55-57 News buildings and facilities including more “Our existing footprint and team in September 2017. The company said it than 10 miles of test track. Singapore, combined with the is continuing a £2.5bn investment Writing to staff, Dyson CEO Jim nation’s significant advanced programme in long-term technology 58 Viewpoint Rowan said: “The decision of where to manufacturing expertise, made it a and now employs 4,450 engineers make our car is complex, based on frontrunner. Singapore has a and scientists around the world. JF 60-62 Machine tool round-up

NOVEMBER 2018 | THE ENGINEER 55

Ed - AM News_The Engineer - November 2018_The Engineer 55 05/11/2018 17:01 ROBOTICS

the robot is in the correct position before it begins drilling the hole. Laser trackers can lend “With these low-cost sensors, you have the scope to improve your working volume because you can robots a helping hand have multiple sensors, which you can then leave in-situ, so you have a A new breed of low-cost lasers can help remove inaccuracy constant, closed-loop manufacturing system,” he says. and improve working volume in manufacturing HELEN KNIGHT REPORTS The difference in cost is around the same as that between buying a he accuracy of house and buying a car, he adds. robotic The Catapult-funded manufacturing collaboration between Reflex systems could be Imaging and the AMRC’s Integrated improved at a Manufacturing Group (IMG) involved fraction of the cost two workshops at AMRC’s Factory of using 2050 to develop use-cases and conventional measurement demonstrators for the LAMM. Ttechnology, thanks to the development of a new type of laser tracker. “Robots are The Laser Metrology Module (LAMM), which uses a laser to track a repeatable but target and generate co-ordinates for they are not that target, has been developed by Horsham-based Reflex Imaging. very accurate ” The Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS)-based device fires Accurate: In-situ Thomas Hodgson a laser beam and then very laser trackers AMRC accurately measures the reflections. Reflex Imaging originally developed the system for use in The idea was to find application medical applications but has been areas within the high-value working with researchers at the Hodgson, the large volume metrology millimetres or so,” says Hodgson. For manufacturing industry and help University of Sheffield Advanced lead at AMRC’s Factory 2050, who led high-value manufacturing tasks, Reflex develop the sensor to suit Manufacturing Research Centre the project. companies can invest in in-situ laser these applications. (AMRC) to investigate its use in “Robots are very repeatable trackers to improve their accuracy. The initial workshop was high-value manufacturing. – meaning they go to the same place However these laser trackers designed to understand the The team has been investigating every time – but they are not very typically cost anywhere between technology – and identify possible the use of the sensor technology in accurate, so if you tell them to go to £80,000-£250,000, adds Hodgson. applications – while the second robotic manufacturing systems in an absolute coordinate they will The trackers are often used in workshop focused on specific particular, according to Thomas most likely miss by a couple of robotic drilling, for example, to ensure manufacturing tasks. n

DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY intelligence research to serve a solutions. Using a new global design assembly lines. ABB logistics market that bought one third of all approach, the factory will be able to automation solutions will be used Automated robots in 2017. increase the type and variation of throughout the plant, including “[China’s] strategic embrace of robots that can be made onsite. automatic guided vehicles that manufacturing the latest technologies for artificial ABB said it will also be able to autonomously follow robots as they intelligence, advanced robotics and combine this expanded portfolio of move through production, supplying gets smarter cloud-based computing present a robotics into a myriad of tailored them with parts from localised playbook for every country that solutions. stations. ABB’s YuMi robots will allow ABB is investing $150m (£116m) into wishes to have a globally competitive The Shanghai factory will be close collaboration on many of the what it claims will be the world’s manufacturing base,” said ABB CEO modelled as a digital twin to give small parts assembly tasks needed most advanced, automated and Ulrich Spiesshofer. managers, engineers, operators and to manufacture robots. flexible robotic production plant. The new Shanghai factory will maintenance teams the tools to “The concept behind our new Set to open by the end of 2020, feature a number of machine monitor real-time operations and the factory is to make the smartest and the new Kangqiao manufacturing learning, digital and collaborative performance of production robots. most flexible use of every meter of centre in Shanghai will combine the technologies and an onsite R&D The new factory’s floorplan will be production,” said Per Vegard Nerseth, company’s digital technologies, centre will be dedicated to based on so-called ‘interlinked managing director of ABB’s Robotics collaborative robotics and artificial developing artificial intelligence islands of automation’ instead of business. JF

5 6 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018

Ed - AM News_The Engineer - November 2018_The Engineer 56 05/11/2018 17:03 news advanced manufacturing

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AI system WiseEye weaves its magic to detect defects in fabric production Innovative textile production breakthrough proves as reliable for quality control as the traditional human eye process STUART NATHAN REPORTS machines. A high-powered LED light bar equipped with a high-resolution charge-coupled device camera is mounted on a rail, which is driven by an electric motor to monitor the fabric as it is produced by the machine. The captured images are preprocessed and fed into an AI system which has been preloaded with data from thousands of yards of fabric. The system compares the new weave with its models in real time and generates and displays analytical statistics and alerts. “Our innovative introduction of AI, Big Data and Deep Learning technologies into WiseEye not only is a breakthrough that meets the industry needs but also marks a WiseEye detects fabric defects with AI, machine vision & big data significant milestone in the quality control automation for the traditional he textile industry textile manufacture, installing Fatigue and simple error mean this is textile industry,” says Prof Wong. was at the heart of machine vision into looms as an unreliable and inconsistent. In a six-month live environment the Industrial intelligent fabric defect detection “In view of the numerous fabric test, the system produced the 90 per Revolution and system. Known as WiseEye, the structures that give great variations cent reduction in loss and wastage arguably the first system uses deep learning to detect in fabric texture and defect types, compared with human inspection industry to be up to 40 common fabric defects with automatic fabric defect detection claimed by the team. automated with the an accuracy resolution of 0.1mm/ has been a challenging and At the moment, WiseEye can be introduction of the programmable pixel, minimising the chances of unaccomplished mission in the past used with most types of fabrics with TJacquard loom. producing substandard fabric by up two decades,” says research leader different weaving structures and Now, researchers at Hong Kong to 90 per cent. Currently, quality Prof Calvin Wong of PolyU’s Institute solid colours. The ultimate target is Polytechnic University (PolyU) have control in textile production is done of textiles and clothing. WiseEye is to be able to cover all common types applied artificial intelligence to by humans inspecting fabric by eye. integrated directly into weaving of fabrics within five years. n

EXOSKELETONS

– the Chairless Exoskeleton (H-CEX) this year, alleviates pressure on a robotic personal mobility Hyundai’s age – and is now testing an upper-body worker’s neck and back by adding technologies able to operate both system known as the Hyundai Vest 60kg of strength to the user when indoors and outside by switching of the human Exoskeleton (H-VEX). their arms are used overhead. between two and three-wheeled Hyundai has been investing At the 2017 International operation. Dr Youngcho Chi, executive robo-builder heavily in robotics technology in Consumer Electronics Show (CES) it vice president of Strategy & recent years. unveiled Hyundai Medical Technology Division and Chief South Korean car giant Hyundai is H-CEX is designed to protect the Exoskeleton (H-MEX), which assists Innovation Officer of Hyundai Motor working on the development of knees and help maintain a worker’s paraplegics and elderly people with Group, said: “The field of robotics has wearable robotic exoskeletons for sitting position. Weighing 1.6kg, it is walking and traversing staircases. the potential to usher in a new era in use in its factories. able to withstand weights of up to This system is currently in the our industry. The possibilities for the The company claims wearable 150kg and is attached to the user process of being approved by the technology are endless – from future industrial robots could help increase with waist, thigh and knee belts. Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in mobility solutions and industrial efficiency and prevent work-related The new H-VEX system, which will Korea, and by the US Food and Drug productivity aids to vital military accidents and has already be trialled in the firm’s North Administration. applications, we think the future is demonstrated a lower-body device American factories before the end of The group is also developing better with robots.” JE

NOVEMBER 2018 | THE ENGINEER 57

Ed - AM News_The Engineer - November 2018_The Engineer 57 05/11/2018 17:03 advanced manufacturing | comment 5G can supercharge industry 4.0 Marcus Burton, of Yamazaki Mazak, argues that 5G networks can help breach the last great barrier to Industry 4.0 and accelerate the servitisation of manufacturing

e are now reaching the critical stage of the roll-out of private network technology could Worcester, Bosch Group. It’s the only Industry 4.0 in the UK. With the announcement of the enable a machine tool provider to test bed in the UK to focus on first ‘Made Smarter’ pilot scheme in the North West, allow customers and other suppliers Industry 4.0. the pressure to encourage the uptake of digital – such as automation or metrology Our belief is that 5G offers a technology in manufacturing supply chains is being providers – access to their slice tantalising glimpse of how one of ramped up. The benefits of Industry 4.0 are clear but via an app. Industry 4.0’s biggest barriers can be there remain some formidable barriers in the way of This would provide a secure area broken down. networking wider supply chains, both direct and indirect. in which information can be stored, The ultimate goal must be for the WIn the future, as manufacturing becomes increasingly servitised, the shared and analysed. security and the platform to be so ability to offer software and data analytics capability, augmented reality and However, most importantly, each good that, effectively, the IT director predictive maintenance through virtual network, or slice, will be takes himself out of the decision. AI – to name just three potential “At Mazak, we are isolated. As such, if cybersecurity is The potential for 5G to unlock examples – will become more and breached in one slice, the attack is servitisation is enormous. In the more important. interested in 5G contained and cannot spread. future, I believe that 5G will become All of this will require a level of This, in turn, will generate a level the price of entry for Industry 4.0, co-operation between suppliers for a multitude of of confidence among the with IT directors waving through and end-users which is not there at reasons but the key manufacturers – and, crucially, their network access privileges with the the moment. IT gatekeepers – which is not there words: “That’s fine with me, you’re Specifically, the ability of OEMs to one is its security at the moment. 5G-enabled.” gain access to manufacturer IT Mazak has been at the forefront networks for the purpose of potential” of the Worcestershire LEP’s 5G Test Marcus Burton is non-executive fault-finding, remote monitoring and Bed, along with QinetiQ and director of Yamazaki Mazak UK assisting with technical support remains limited. We may talk about the remote monitoring of Mazak: At the machinery but the truth is that many industry centre of a leaders I talk to remain deeply reluctant to allow 5G test bed suppliers access to IT networks or the data to enable them to optimise machinery, driving improved productivity and efficiency. Worries about viruses have morphed into deeper concerns about cybersecurity and the potential for hacking. In the minds of IT directors, the downside risks of opening up IT networks to suppliers understandably outweigh the upside. The capability is there but the will is lacking. At Mazak, we are interested in 5G for a multitude of reasons but the key one is its security potential. 5G enables ‘network slicing’ – a form of virtual network architecture – with a single network capable of being sliced into multiple virtual networks. Each slice can be customised with further virtual private networks to meet the needs of specific applications, services and devices. When used in combination, slicing and virtual

5 8 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018

Ed - AM comment_The Engineer - November 2018_The Engineer 58 05/11/2018 16:56 TE_011118_059_CRP_FP.indd 1 31/10/2018 17:15 advanced manufacturing | machine tool round-up Hidden talents Machine tool technology may appear to have reached maturity, but new developments such as ultrasonic capability and advanced control systems are proving that there is still room for improvement. Mike Excell reports

achine tool Project proposals are already in the developments pipeline and the machine will have 01 focus on applications for companies including control, McLaren, Rolls-Royce, Boeing, BAE feedback and Systems and Airbus. It also opens up embracing opportunities in the renewables, alternative medical and construction sectors. cutting technologies. Appearances According to Kerrigan, the Mcan be deceptive. Superficial advantage of ultrasonic capability is assessment may suggest that, that the high-frequency movements notwithstanding increases in speed – 40,000 micro-movements per and precision, machine tool second – bring greater control of chip technology employing very hard formation and heat within the cutting tools has reached maturity; system. The result is less damage, that the ‘traditional’ subtractive less waste and a better finish, so the process is being increasingly technology is suited to machining supplanted by newer and more hard, abrasive, brittle materials. efficient methods. “The ultrasonic-assisted Well, it’s not quite that simple. machining process is basically the Productive and creative same as a standard rotatory cutting combinations of new and established tool operation,” he explained, “but technologies are entering the with an added highly tunable, advanced manufacturing arena. The micro-scale, axial motion of the DMG Mori DMU 340 G Linear looks cutting tool providing a secondary like a ‘normal’ (albeit high end) motion during cutting. It is the machining centre. In fact, the £1.8m additional movement that has the machine, which will be arriving at the ability to control the amount of introduction of SupaTouch, an University of Sheffield Advanced energy supplied into the cutting 01 Second generation ultrasonic- optimisation routine within Manufacturing Research Centre interface, affecting the amount of assisted machining option enables Renishaw’s Inspection Plus macro (AMRC) later this year, is the world’s thermal energy and fracture energy advanced machining operations, software, which speeds up on- largest ultrasonic-assisted machine associated with the process.” challenging conventional CNC machine measurement. SupaTouch tool. It will be the first machine of its productivity and quality constraints intelligently optimises on-machine size to be fitted with an ultrasonic- Driving efficiency probing cycles and is said to deliver capable spindle for use in 5-axis The AMRC points the way ahead rigid, stable platform for the two cycle time reductions of up to 60 per machining applications. perhaps, but meanwhile the adoption rotary axes. Machines incorporate cent. It determines the fastest feed The specification for the machine of ‘conventional’ 5-axis machining, integral Blum tool breakage rates a machine tool can achieve has been developed with the input of especially in aerospace applications, detection, to allow long periods of while ensuring repeatable Dr Kevin Kerrigan, the lead for the continues apace. Craigavon-based unattended running. A third, larger measurement; smart incycle Composites Machining Group at the subcontractor Boyce Precision 5-axis machine, a Hermle C 400, is to decision-making technology AMRC Composites Centre. It is Engineering is one of many supply be installed later in 2018. implements the quickest probing designed to deliver significant chain companies to move from 3-axis With unattended running and strategy (either one-touch or improvements in composite to 5-axis machining in dealing with minimal interruption a prerequisite two-touch) for each measurement. machining, ranging from high-end the increasing complexity of for competitive manufacturing, the This continues during component luxury vehicle monocells to next- prismatic parts required, exemplified importance of measurement, measurement. If a probe is triggered generation aeroengine lightweight by investment in two Hermle C 250 monitoring, control and feedback to during machine acceleration or fan blades. It is capable of titanium vertical machining centres. The process efficiency has never been deceleration phases (which may drilling and finishing operations, and machine configuration places the higher. These principles have driven happen due to variation in the working with materials such as three linear axes within a modified developments at Renishaw right positioning of the workpiece) the glass-fibre reinforced aluminium, gantry above the working area, while from the company’s inception. The measurement result will be and high-temperature composites. the integrated trunnion provides a tradition continues with the inaccurate, in which case SupaTouch

6 0 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018

Ed - Machine tool roundup_The Engineer - November 2018_The Engineer 60 05/11/2018 17:06 02

02 Aircraft seat parts produced by Boyce on its Hermle machines 03 03 XYZ’s Heavy-Duty VMCs are available with Heidenhain TNC 620 control, including touchscreen technology

04 DMG Mori’s DMU 340 G Linear 5-axis platform is designed to deliver significant improvements in composite machining

NOVEMBER 2018 | THE ENGINEER 61

Ed - Machine tool roundup_The Engineer - November 2018_The Engineer 61 06/11/2018 12:32 advanced manufacturing | machine tool round-up

automatically commands the probe the tools, CNC system and the to re-measure the surface at a more in-process measurements needed appropriate speed to ensure to calculate the adjustment offsets. 05 accuracy is maintained. This fusion of hardware and data allows ActiveEdge tools to be Closing the loop adjusted at the micron level. In a similar context, the latest While the capability to ‘chase development from Rigibore is of microns’ is ultimately determined by interest. Automatic adjustment of what happens at the cutting tool/ offsets for turning and milling are workpiece interface, the supporting commonplace; with Zenith, the infrastructure remains critical; company has addressed the control systems are part of this and challenge as it applies to fine-boring they need to match not just the tools. Zenith eliminates manual machine but also user preference. intervention or machine downtime to XYZ Machine Tools is demonstrably achieve micron-level adjustments. attuned to this with its philosophy of Industry 4.0 compliant, it is a offering ‘what the customer needs’. closed-loop system designed to work This has led to its Heavy-Duty (HD) seamlessly with in-process gauging range of vertical machining centres and the machine tool control system. being made available with the Making minute adjustments to Heidenhain TNC 620 control. fine boring tools traditionally requires the tool to be removed from Control option the machine and adjusted manually “We offered Heidenhain as a control in a presetter; this is slow, disruptive option many years ago, but found it a and skilled labour-intensive. Having slow seller due in part to the developed its ActiveEdge wirelessly additional cost and complexity of the adjustable boring bars, the next step system,” said managing director for Rigibore was to close the loop on Nigel Atherton. “However, with recent this semi-automatic system. Zenith changes to the Heidenhain control automatically compensates for insert system, such as the addition of wear, temperature drift and material touchscreen technology, along with a inconsistency without removing the more modern and compact user- tool. The process means that interface, we can now see tolerance bands can also be opportunities that fully justify adding narrowed to maintain bores as close it to our HD series of machines. to the nominal size as possible. “Our independence as a machine The ActiveEdge boring tools tool supplier means that we are free feature boring cartridges that can be to adapt our machine range to suit wirelessly adjusted, a capability the changes in customer demand, powered by batteries in the tool’s such as giving them a choice of ‘yoke’, which means that the system control. We have to ensure that our can make adjustments to the boring customers have the right machine for 06 tools whether they are in the spindle their business and our ability to or the tool carousel. The ActiveEdge adapt quickly means that we can Interface closes the loop between achieve that.” n 07 05 Rigibore eliminates manual intervention or machine BESPOKE TOOLING downtime to achieve micron-level automatic adjustment, via an Alongside its standard-range cutting tools, supplier WNT designs and Industry 4.0-compliant closed- develops tooling for special applications. This service was called into loop system action when Cumbria-based Bendalls Engineering won a contract to manufacture venturi-type pumps for testing radioactive high-pH ‘liquor’ 06 Bendalls Engineering required tooling lengths that challenged found in the nuclear industry. Key features included a series of relatively the lathe’s z-axis limits small diameter bores, with high diameter-to-length ratios. The challenge for Bendalls was exacerbated by a lack of high-pressure 07 Renishaw’s SupaTouch coolant on its CNC lathes and the 316 stainless steel workpiece technology determines the material. Working from component drawings, WNT produced a full fastest feed rates achievable proposal incorporating multiple drills, tapered boring bars and reamers, while ensuring repeatable all non-standard. The lathe’s z-axis would be used to its maximum to measurement accommodate tools up to 312mm long (and just 15.3mm in diameter in some cases). Tools were manufactured from solid carbide, with WNT’s MiniCut inserts, with 0.2 mm corner rads, being fitted to the boring bars.

6 2 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018 BREXIT Is there time to prepare? Where do you start?

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NOVEMBER 2018 | THE ENGINEER 63

Ads - RHP_14-Nov-2018_The Engineer 63 02/11/2018 15:35 product news additive products

Goede said: “The new HP Metal Jet VW working with HP’s Metal Jet platform is an important step into the future for us as an automotive manufacturer, but also for the entire on mass production of car parts industry, and we look forward to helping shape this development… in the future.” Volkswagen expects a significant increase in the number As early as next year, GKN Powder Metallurgy intends to establish a and size of components from the 3D printer Supplier: HP process chain geared toward automotive production in German car giant Volkswagen has said: “Automotive production is limited to the production of individual collaboration with VW. revealed plans to use HP’s Metal Jet facing major challenges: our parts or prototypes, VW claims that Initially, the technology is 3D printing process for the mass customers are increasingly expecting HP’s 3D Metal Jet technology enables expected to be used to produce a production of a number of more personalisation options. At the the production of a large number of small series of design parts – for automotive components. same time, complexity is increasing parts without having to develop and example, tailgate lettering, special The company said it had been with the number of new models.” manufacture the corresponding gear knobs and personalised keys working closely on the technology While the car industry’s use of 3D tools. This significantly reduces the – with the first structural with both HP and component printing processes has typically been time required to manufacture parts. components for mass-production manufacturer GKN Powder vehicles expected to be produced Metallurgy and presented the within two to three years. process for the first time at the “A complete vehicle will probably International Manufacturing not be manufactured by a 3D Technology Show (IMTS) in Chicago. printer any time soon, but the The process produces high- number and size of parts from the 3D quality metallic components layer- printer will increase significantly,” by-layer by jetting a stainless-steel explained Goede. powder and binding agent, which is VW is stepping “Our goal is to integrate printed then ‘sintered’ in a furnace. up its use of structural parts into the next Martin Goede, head of technology 3D-printed car generation of vehicles as quickly as n planning and development at VW, components possible.”

Siemens’ printed gas turbine burner clocks 8,000 hours as E.ON enjoys the benefits ‘Gamer-changing’ tech is delivering Supplier: Siemens

Siemens and energy provider E.ON burner head, instead of the outside for both firms. Siemens is are celebrating one year of service fuel pipe, allow the operating accelerating the development of for the former’s 3D-printed gas temperature to be kept lower, thus innovative design and turbine burner, during which it has contributing to a longer operational manufacturing technologies and clocked up 8,000 hours of operation lifespan of components and, E.ON is benefiting from these without incident. ultimately, the gas turbines. The part innovations as an early adopter. In 2017, Siemens began printing has been functioning in an SGT-700 “As an energy service provider, gas turbine burners using selective gas turbine at E.ON’s combined cycle precision and consistency are an laser melting technology. These power plant in Philippsthal in the absolute requirement for us,” were the first burners produced by German state of Hessen. said Niklas Lange, project manager Siemens’ intelligent burner “These early results from the at E.ON Energy Projects. “Additive manufacturing (IBUMA) programme IBUMA burner with E.ON validate our manufacturing not only delivers this, in Finspång, Sweden. Each burner belief that this technology but in our experience, it can head is manufactured in one piece, is a game-changer,” said Vladimir even improve performance compared with traditional methods Navrotsky, chief technology officer compared with older models. that required 13 individual parts The 3D-printed for Siemens Power Generation “When I saw these burners from and 18 welds. gas turbine Services, Distributed Generation. Siemens in Sweden, I knew we could Design improvements, such as burner Siemens and E.ON are “co- benefit from using them in a the pilot-gas feed being part of the creators” of the project, with benefits commercial turbine.” n

6 4 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018

Ed - Additive products_The Engineer - November 2018_The Engineer 64 05/11/2018 17:09 product news additive products

well as AM build optimisation work to Sheffield knife-maker blends analyse the non-conventional support structure design, because it is able to simulate the influence of old-school craft with cutting edge multiple parts on a build platform. The 3D-printed titanium piece was Engineers use additive manufacturing techniques to then given to Mitchell for finishing. “I was impressed by the profile of produce ‘impressive’ titanium blade. Supplier: AMRC the blade – it replicated very well what I would do by hand, particularly the taper from the spine to the edge,” A Sheffield manufacturer of the truest sense of the word – a said Mitchell. “It did need a degree of bespoke knives has teamed up with craft-maker applying advanced grinding to apply an actual cutting the AMRC to combine his craft skills manufacturing technologies and edge but the tolerances of the edge with the latest additive exploring how this could change their were good to start with, very fine. I manufacturing techniques. business model now and in the didn’t realise it would print that fine. Stuart Mitchell has been making future,” said Andy Bell, design “With the curvature and the detail and shaping blades for more than strategy manager for the DPG. in the handle, the hollowed-out three decades, and his creations can “Design methods allow us to sections – I realistically can’t do any be found in Michelin-starred explore, through different frames, of that. It’s possible but not practical kitchens around the world. how we can approach a wicked because there’s probably a week or The 48-year-old was curious to problem like the introduction of more’s worth of hand work there. see if his old-school craftsmanship additive manufacturing to an “The fact that all that can be could be enhanced by developments organisation that would never added or taken away, as it were, by in additive manufacturing. This led to normally approach this technology changes to a CAD model and then a project with the Design and due to the high perceived risk, cost adapted to suit – to increase or Prototyping Group (DPG) at the and knowledge gap.” reduce weight – none of this I can do, University of Sheffield Advanced The 3D-printed DPG engineers used Autodesk’s it’s all very hands-on for me.” Manufacturing Research Centre to blade, which was Simulation Utility for Netfabb Mitchell, who was born into the produce a titanium chef’s knife. finished by hand software to aid their design for the family cutlery business, makes “This is design-led disruption in additively manufactured knife, as custom knives to order in Sheffield. n

manufacture more complex designs 3D-printed parts show promise and shapes than by conventional methods. The firm has also been testing the performance of ceramic in Rolls-Royce engine tests matrix composites (CMCs), which last longer in high temperatures and are Firm making progress towards its IntelligentEngine vision lighter than metal alternatives. Engineers have downloaded Supplier: Rolls-Royce millions of data points from the tests, Rolls-Royce is which began last November and saw Engineers at Rolls-Royce have been using Advance3 the engine achieve full power in July. using the company’s Advance3 as a test-bed Advance3 plays an important part in engine demonstrator to test the delivering the IntelligentEngine, performance of 3D-printed Rolls-Royce’s vision for the future, as components. The system, a test-bed it builds on pioneering technology for the UltraFan engine that is and digital capabilities to deliver expected to be available in 2025, important benefits for customers. incorporates about 20,000 separate Ash Owen, chief engineer for the parts and has so far completed more firm’s civil aerospace demonstrator than 100 hours of tests. programmes, said: “Testing so far has Initial results are showing been completely seamless, which is excellent performance from parts an outstanding achievement when produced using additive layer you realise that this is an engine manufacturing – which allows more incorporating a range of new complex engine elements with the development phase. Rolls-Royce size of a tractor tyre – within the technologies as well as a brand-new multiple pieces to be manufactured has been at the forefront of Trent XWB-97 engine, which was core architecture. We have in fewer parts, or even as a single innovation with the process, flying tested in 2015. completed our first phase of testing complete part – improving lead times the world’s largest 3D-printed ALM increases production and are analysing the results right and allowing components to be aerospace structure – a front bearing efficiency and reduces component now. We like what we see from the redesigned quickly and easily during made from titanium and about the weight while providing the ability to CMC and ALM parts performance.” n

NOVEMBER 2018 | THE ENGINEER 65

Ed - Additive products_The Engineer - November 2018_The Engineer 65 05/11/2018 17:09 feature | food manufacturing Tech helps food sector shape up Food manufacturing and engineering is a big and essential industry but it suffers from systemic weaknesses of low productivity, a falling labour supply and high amounts of waste. Technology is helping get it in trim, says Will Stirling

or the nation’s biggest manufacturing sector – contributing £28.2bn to the UK economy – food and drink also has one of the lowest productivity rates. However, according to the Food and Drink Federation, this is improving. There is also a lot of waste. In early October, Tesco removed best before dates from more than 100 product lines to try to help consumers cut food waste. The University of Lincoln, which carries out a lot of food technology research, claims that 10 million tonnes of Ffood is wasted each year, which generates 20 million tonnes of CO2. As Brexit looms and the pound remains relatively weak, the cheaper supply 01 of labour from Europe for picking, packing and manufacturing food is falling and is likely to fall further when Britain leaves the European Union. Thankfully, many technologies are available to help the food sector get into shape. The sector has a reputation for limiting the use of robots to some picking and end-of-line operations like pallet-loading. The mixing and manufacture of food – a complex chemical process – is harder to automate. This National Centre for Food Manufacturing (NCFM) at the University of Lincoln is researching several automation and Internet of Things (IoT) projects that will improve food industry productivity. It runs the Automated Processing Robotic Ingredient Loading system, or APRIL. The robotic system works to combine various tasks of material handling, mixing, blending, homogenisation, cooling and more 02 Standard food manufacturing processes use machines quite inefficiently, compared with other sectors; overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) in chilled foods can be as low as 30 per 01 APRIL is a robotic system combining cent. Ingredient wastage in some various food production tasks traditional batch production 02 Aerofarms is developing systems processes can run at five to nine per to grow crops with reduced or no cent. APRIL reduces this to one to need for sunlight, soil or pesticides two per cent, the NCFM says.

6 6 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018

Ed - Smart food manufacturing_The Engineer - November 2018_The Engineer 66 05/11/2018 17:10 feature food manufacturing

The Internet of Fridges

Manufactured food needs cold storage in the retail process. Innovate UK, the government’s innovation agency, estimates that food refrigeration accounts for more than 14 per cent of the UK’s electricity demands at any one time and represents a third of a typical retailer’s total energy costs. Additionally, Professor Simon Pearson at the University of Lincoln says it makes up four to five per cent of total UK carbon emissions. Innovate UK has part-funded a two-year project with the catchy title ‘The Development of Dynamic Energy Control Mechanisms for Food Retailing Refrigeration Systems’. It involves Tesco, Lincoln University, The Grimsby Institute and Intelligent Management Systems (IMS Evolve), which controls about 112,000 refrigeration systems across 2600 stores owned by Tesco in the UK. By using IoT technology, the group have profoundly reduced Tesco’s energy bills. Control systems used in these cold stores use very static control temperatures. The IoT tech produces algorithms to dynamically control the temperatures, proving this can be done while controlling food quality and temperature control limits. The feasibility study results estimated potential savings for Tesco of £2.7m a year. The project has now led to work on IoT for the Food Standards Authority, for domestic refrigeration systems. Another project would be to see if a “smart energy network” or smart heat Entopy’s Tracca: Real-time network could use IoT alerts will prevent wastage Slow growing: The Food technology in factories sector has a reputation for or on a research park to save energy in machinery. limiting the use of robots Food waste happens in the factory, in store and most of all in the home but it also occurs during transit. Of the total 10.2 million tonnes of post farm Out on the farm, the use of robots and drones for planting, harvesting and survey applications food waste in the UK in 2015 (when full data was is rising. Harper Adams University in Shropshire has a “Hands-free Hectare”. Here, the rule is that available), around 3.1 million tonnes occurred in the the main work must be “human-less”, where researchers use drones and autonomous vehicles to supply chain. Why so much? Technology company sow the seed, fertilise and spray the land. Data is collected from the field by scanning drones, Entopy’s Tracca device allows temperature and and a roving robot collects crop samples. motion sensors on a roll cage or unit load to report With space at a premium, scientists are looking to farm “up” was well as across. Aerofarms is frequently via GPS on the condition of goods in disrupting traditional food supply chains using high tech, data-driven vertical farming. It is transit, in the warehouse or anywhere in between. developing systems to grow crops with reduced or no need for sunlight, soil or pesticides and, it Entopy CEO Toby Mills says: “Immediate alerts on roll claims, using 95 per cent less water. cages being left outside of the cold chain for too long Its products are also fully traceable from seed to packed goods. Meanwhile, US food tech could significantly save wastage. Taking action as company Memphis Meats is producing real meat directly from animal cells without the need to soon an issue is spotted can make a big difference.” raise and slaughter animals, with clear benefits to the environment, animals and health. Smart factory logistics are being used in the food Ever been disappointed by throwing out food that looks fine but might have gone off? As sector to shift material quickly and more intelligently. recently as 23 October, the Centre for Process Innovation in Wilton, Cleveland, announced a time In June, Nestlé and XPO Logistics opened a temperature indicator label, or TTI, to tell consumers when food goes off and when it’s still safe. distribution centre in the East Midlands which CPI, a High Value Manufacturing Catapult centre, is co-developing the wet media deploys robots and systems co-developed with formulations with Mexar Ltd, an inkjet technology company, to be able to increase production Swisslog Logistics Automation to move product of the TTI label. Partner Intray developed the scientific principle for the label, branded as autonomously. Nestlé says the facility’s digital Oli-Tec, which responds to time and temperature, using a green, amber and red traffic-light ecosystem will integrate predictive data and system to highlight the condition of goods, with the latter notifying consumers that their safety intelligent machines to deliver one of the most could be at risk. advanced distribution management centres in the The amber indicator is a “call to action”, giving Oli-Tec the potential to save large amounts of world for faster, more efficient food delivery. waste by alerting consumers to the condition of food as it deteriorates. n

NOVEMBER 2018 | THE ENGINEER 67

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68 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018

Ads - LHP_14-Nov-2018_The Engineer 68 02/11/2018 15:32 from the archive | rms caronia Royal seal November 1947 of approval How The Engineer reported on the world’s largest passenger liner

ngineer readers who link Yarrow water tube boilers, constructed a thriving manufacturing by the shipbuilders. sector to a healthy The two turbine units consisted of economy might be triple expansion impulse reaction surprised to find an turbines, designed to be operated advocate of this view in independently in the ahead or astern the upper echelons of the direction, wrote our predecessor. The Royal Family. high pressure, intermediate pressure EThat was the case in 1947 when and low-pressure turbines were Princess Elizabeth visited the Clydebank grouped around a main gear wheel, the yard of John Brown and Co, Ltd to name the condenser being underslung from its Caronia, a new Cunard-White Star liner that low-pressure turbine. At full power the was the world’s largest passenger liner at high-pressure turbine was built to run at the time. 3,686rpm and the intermediate and With the UK still in the grip of post-war low-pressure turbines at 1,990rpm. austerity, Princess Elizabeth used the “The turbine revolutions will be occasion to acknowledge the great skill that reduced to the propeller speed of had gone into designing and building the 140rpm in the case of the high-pressure ship, adding that the same ingenuity would turbines, through double reduction, bring the UK out of the economic doldrums. ships, representing a gross tonnage of over double helical gearing; for the Our reporter noted that the Caronia was the 500,000, with machinery of 750,000hp. intermediate and low-pressure turbines there will second ship of the same name to be built by John Everyone involved in the Caronia had good be single reduction helical gearing,” The Engineer Brown for Cunard ownership, the first 20,000-ton reasons to be proud of her, not least because she’d added. “The primary gears of the high-pressure ship being launched in 1904 from the same been designed for dual use in the North Atlantic pinion are of the all-addendum type, whereas the building berth at Clydebank. and cruising in tropical waters. high pressure second reduction gears and the Cunard’s history of transatlantic services goes To this end, many model experiments were intermediate and low-pressure gears are of the back to 1847, and during the luncheon that conducted in a testing tank at Clydebank, and the deep tooth involute design. The astern turbines are followed the launch much was made of the size and draught of the vessel were calculated so incorporated in the intermediate and low-pressure association between the shipping company, the that the ship could enter all the ports likely to be turbine casings.” shipbuilders and owners of Clydebank shipyard. included in a world cruise itinerary. The single-flow main condensers were built In proposing the toast of the ship and her Before heading to the engine room, our with a cooling surface of 16,500 sq ft, which was owners, Lord Aberconway, chairman of John Brown, predecessor added notes on the hull design and made up of 6,554 tubes. The main boilers could be referred to the dual capacity of the ship and the construction, observing: “The ship is built with a found in one compartment and comprised six fact that she would carry nearly 1,000 passengers cellular double bottom, which gives a continuous side-fired, five-drum water tube boilers fitted with (932 to be precise) in “every modern comfort which watertight inner skin, from fore to after peak, with super heaters and air heaters. could be applied to a ship at sea”. 40 watertight compartments between the inner Steam was supplied to the main turbines at a According to our reporter, Mr FA Bates, and outer bottoms. Ten watertight bulkheads form pressure of 600lb psi and a total temperature of chairman of the Cunard-White Star Ltd, responded the main watertight compartments of the ship 800F, said The Engineer. Four of the boilers each and said that the Cunard company was proud of above the double bottom.” had a generating heating surface of 8,387 sq ft, the fact that its association with John Brown and Notes from the tech specs showed the and a superheating surface of 2,945 sq ft, while the firm which preceded it went back to 1853. nine-deck, 34,000 gross tonnage Caronia to be the remaining two boilers had a generating surface For his part, Sir Stephen Pigott, managing 715ft long with a promenade deck 665ft in length, of 5,861 sq ft and a superheating surface of director of Clydebank shipyard and engine works, and the ability to achieve a top speed of 22 knots. 2,224 sq ft. referred to the Cunard-White Star company as the The main propelling machinery, said The Caronia served Cunard for 20 years and made firm’s chief customer. His firm and its pre- Engineer, comprised a twin-screw arrangement of her last journey for the company in a voyage from decessors had built for Cunard a total of about 50 Parsons-geared turbines, taking steam from New York to Southampton. JF

NOVEMBER 2018 | THE ENGINEER 69

Ed - Archive_The Engineer - November 2018_The Engineer 69 05/11/2018 16:06 digest

Word oftheissue

Anthony Poulton- Smith explores the Bigpicture origins of the word ‘joint’ A comparatively late word, unknown until the 13th century, it was first applied to the many joints of the body. The word comes from Proto-Indo-European yeug meaning ‘to join’. Originally this did not refer to a moving part but to something joining two other items – from this we can see how the term ‘out of joint’ came about, meaning ‘confused, disordered’. This ‘yeug’ gave us an astonishing number of words which, at first glance, have no connection with ‘join’. These include ‘conjugal’, ‘joust’, ‘subjugate’, ‘junta’ and ‘yoga’. Looking at early languages offers an explanation, for there is a chain of words from a succession of languages with a common meaning. Sanskrit ‘yugam’, Hittite ‘yugan’, Greek ‘zygon’, Latin ‘iugum’, Old Slavonic ‘igo’, Old Welsh ‘iou’, Lithuanian ‘jungas’, and Old English ‘geoc’, all meaning ‘yoke’ – hence it comes from the earliest days of farming and also explains why the other common use of ‘joint’, as in butchering, refers to a Virgin Orbit has revealed LauncherOne, a rocket that will be strapped to the bottom of Cosmic Girl, a specially piece of meat with the bone but converted Virgin Atlantic plane, and flown to 30,000ft. It will then detach from the aircraft and its thrusters will engage to without a moving ‘joint’. take the rocket into space. Prizecrossword When completed rearrange the highlighted squares to spell out a mechanical device that regulates movement. The first correct answer received will win a £20 Amazon voucher. Email your answer to [email protected]

Across Down 1 Immeasurably long periods of time (4) 1 Not subject to an obligation or liability (6,4) 3 Powered by a conducted charge (10) 2 Deriving from atomic energy (7) 9 Converts ordinary language into a cypher (7) 4 Hungarian composer and piano virtuoso (5) 11 Saves computer data as a security 5 Three-dimensional measurement (5,4) measure (5,2) 6 Cause to take on a definite and clear shape 12 Pressurised ring used on wheels (9,4) again (13) 14 Striker that ignites a charge (6,3) 7 Phrase indicating that a job can be done 16 Prefix meaning four parts (5) with ease (2-5) 17 Not secret or hidden (5) 8 Secondary representation of an original (4) 19 Thermodynamic quantity showing energy 10 Visual presentation showing how produced by a system (5,4) something works (13) 21 Having overly complicated or ingenious 13 Statement relating to a mixture of gases mechanisms or design (5,8) (7,3) 24 Unvarying or habitual method of procedure 15 Procedure to measure allergic reactions on (7) the skin (5,4) 25 Architectural ornament with three arcs 18 Vent pipe for waste gases (7) arranged in a circle (7) 20 Reduce pressure or intensity (4,3) 26 Violent release of energy (10) 22 Get the better of (5) 27 More than one but indefinitely small in 23 A small nail (4) number (1,3)

October’s highlighted solution: Acoustics. Winner: Gavin McCarthy

7 0 THE ENGINEER | NOVEMBER 2018

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TE_010918_055_WeissTechnik_FP.indd1058 WEISS The Engineer Full Page AUG 55 18.indd 1 21/08/201821/08/2018 15:5809:07