Newsletter Department of Engineering Issue 9 | Spring 2010 Professor Dame Ann Dowling In this issue 2 Pilkington Prize honour teaching excellence 2 Winners of ‘Engineer in Society’ essay the new Head of Department competition 3 Department of Engineering in partnership Ann Dowling was previously Head of the Energy, Fluid Mechanics with e-Go aeroplanes LLP and Turbomachinery Division here at the Department and Director 3 Best turbomachinery paper award of the University Gas Turbine Partnership with Rolls-Royce. 4 Students “Algae House” wins international design competition 5 A Sensory World. Novel Sensor Technologies 5 Call to drive the next industrial revolution 6 Cambridge Manufacturing Engineering Design Show 2009 8 Electric aircraft take to the air 9 Helen Makey has won a 6 month internship with Renault F1 10 Nokia demonstrate new technology at the Department 10 Violin makers at the Department 11 Full Blue Racing return with Silverware 11 Multi-million pound grant boosts Ink-jet research 12 Nokia Photography Competition at the Department of Engineering winning images 14 Cambridge CMOS Sensors Limited: A new spin-out from the Department of Engineering 15 Electrical Engineering Division receive awards 16 A method to avoid bridges being incorrectly assessed as too weak Professor Dame Ann Dowling was the UK Academy of Engineering study on lead of the Silent Aircraft Initiative, which nanotechnology and the Engineering Panel 16 Young researcher wins award for his work gained a high international profile. This in the UK 2008 Research Assessment on air quality was a collaboration between researchers at Exercise. She was appointed CBE for 17 Alumni Feature: Dr Priti Parikh Cambridge and MIT who have released the services to Mechanical Engineering in 2002 18 Where are they now? conceptual design of an ultra-low noise and DBE for services to Science in 2007. 19 Creating 3D models with a simple webcam and fuel efficient aircraft, SAX40. Ann Ann is looking to the future and says, works primarily in the fields of “The world faces an unprecedented set of 20 4th year Hugo Scott Whittle receives a Sir combustion, acoustics and vibration and challenges. It must: regenerate its William Siemens medal her research is aimed, in particular, at low- economies; mitigate climate change; and 21 CamBridge Bridge Design Competition emission combustion and quiet vehicles. build resilience to the effects of climate 22 Royal opening for IfM’s Alan Reece Building She has held visiting posts at MIT (Jerome change and a wide array of other threats. 23 The End of the Road C Hunsaker Visiting Professor, 1999) and Engineering is critical to success in all these at Caltech (Moore Distinguished Scholar areas. My predecessor, Professor Keith 24 Sustainability Innovation Student Challenge 2001). Glover, led the Department for seven years Award 2009 Ann is a Fellow of the Royal Society, though a period of strong growth and Royal Academy of Engineering (Vice- tremendous academic success. My aim is President 1999 –2002) and is a Foreign to use our position as a global hub for An integrated engineering department Associate Member of the US National engineering excellence to maximise the founded on core strengths spanning all Academy of Engineering and of the French impact of our academics and our students engineering disciplines and also cross- Academy of Sciences. She serves on a in addressing the major challenges with connected by three strategic themes: number of industry and government engineering solutions. This means winning • Cognitive Systems Engineering advisory committees, and chaired the investment in these difficult times for • Engineering for Life Sciences EPSRC Technical Opportunities Panel building capacity, infrastructure and global • Sustainable Development. (2003-06), the Royal Society/Royal connections.” www.eng.cam.ac.uk Pilkington Prizes honour teaching excellence Twelve of the University’s very best teaching talents have been honoured at the annual Pilkington Prizes awards ceremony. This year’s leading lights include pioneers of visual and oral archive as historical sources and developers of fresh and acclaimed new courses and qualifications. One of the winners is Dr Matthew Juniper, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Engineering Energy Group. A gifted and dedicated teacher, he’s been at the forefront of adopting new technology to animate his lectures on fluid mechanics. It’s largely due to his efforts that the popularity of fluids as a specialist area for students has grown significantly in recent years. He developed a new type of online resource to supplement his lectures and clarify difficult aspects of the course. This year, as part of the University’s 800th anniversary celebrations, all winners of the first Pilkington Prizes were invited to join the 2009 nominees for a dinner at Murray Edwards College, along with Cambridge Foundation Trustees past and present, students, University representatives and members of the Dr Matthew Juniper, back row, first from left, with the other Pilkington Prize winners. Pilkington family. The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alison established in 1994 by businessman and Cambridge Foundation. The aim is to Richard awarded the prizes. alumnus of Trinity, Sir Alastair Pilkington ensure that excellence in teaching at the The Pilkington Teaching Prizes were during his term as Chairman of the University is given proper recognition. Winners of ‘Engineer in Society’ essay competition Prizes have been awarded to Nominations for prizes were put forward together to address the challenges of four first year engineering by the Department’s PhD students and environmental sustainability? teaching assistants who each year mark • Menglin Wu: Ethics and Engineering students to acknowledge the the c300 essays submitted. The large Lessons from the Repair of Citigroup very high quality of the essays number of nominated essays were then Center and the Challenger Disaster submitted for this year's filtered by the course lecturer, Tim 'Engineer in Society' module. Minshall, to pick the four best essays. An additional prize was awarded to the Amazon tokens were awarded to Menglin winning and runner-up essays on Formula Wu, Matthew Graham, Felix Sampson 1. Tony Purnell (former head of Jaguar F1 and Harry Tayler who had submitted and Red Bull F1, now consultant to the FIA essays regarded as outstanding by the and visitor to the Department) took them markers. out to lunch to discuss the current • Felix Sampson: What do the current challenges facing F1. challenges facing Formula 1 teach us PDFs of the winning essays can be about the governance of engineering downloaded at: www.eng.cam.ac.uk/ organisations? news/stories/2009/ essay_winners/ • Harry Tayler: How do the Global Economic Conditions Affect the work of Practising Engineers? Winners of 'Engineer in Society' essay • Matthew Graham: How can For more information, contact Tim competition governments and engineers work Minshall: [email protected] 2 | Engineering Newsletter | Issue 9 | Spring 2010 Department of Engineering working in partnership with e-Go aeroplanes LLP Two fourth year students at the Department of Engineering are working with e-Go aeroplanes LLP to create an aircraft that pushes the boundaries of design; not only high performance, but also very low weight and good fuel economy. The Engineering Department is a centre of excellence in aeronautical engineering, in particular, aerodynamics. Both students are working on the aerodynamic qualities of the design as their fourth year project. Tom Shearn of Fitzwilliam College is being supervised by Dr Holger Babinski.Tom is using the low speed wind tunnel to test a quarter-scale model to look at stall effects at low speeds with the aim of creating an aircraft that is very safe. Mark Wolfenden of Churchill College is being supervised by Professor Bill Dawes. Mark is working in parallel with Tom using the most advanced computer techniques to analyse the same design. Both students are then comparing their results which gives them a direct comparison of the two approaches as well as helping to improve the overall design of the aircraft in the future. “Tom and Mark at the Engineering Department have provided us with vital data on the aerodynamics of e-Go that has helped us improve its design. They've made a very significant contribution to the The stabiliser is at the front, which prevents stalling and minimises weight. The two projects project,” said e-Go creators Tony Bishop optimised the aerodynamic interaction between the canard and the wing. and Giotto Castelli. e-Go was started by Giotto and Tony by the Civil Aviation Authority, and won a who both live in Cambridge and work with design competition run by the Light Aircraft More information about the e-Go a group of volunteers who are helping on Association. It is a single seater aircraft that project, including ways in which you the project. It was started as the result of a weighs less than 115kg, but flies at over can get involved, is available on the new deregulated class of aircraft announced 115mph. company website: www.e-go.me/ Best turbomachinery paper award A 2008 best paper award of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the International Gas Turbine Institute (IGTI) Turbomachinery Committee has been made to Dr Jonathan Ong and Dr Robert Miller. Dr Ong is a Senior Research Fellow and Dr Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, was to increase surface. The originality of the work lies in Miller is Reader in Energy Technology at the the efficiency and durability of the industrial the fact that it represents the first time that Department's Whittle Laboratory. The work gas turbines used in power stations. Higher cooling air ejecting from a stationary was undertaken as part of Dr Ong’s PhD efficiency can be achieved by increasing the blade row has been used to specifically thesis supervised by Dr Miller. The winning operating temperature of the turbine by target high temperature regions of a paper is entitled “Hot Streak and Vane improving the effectiveness with which the downstream rotating blade row.