̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - aerospace

̽��ֱ��King breaks ground on Cambridge’s New Whittle Laboratory

sc604 — Tue, 09 May 2023 14:26:07 +0000

His Majesty was in Cambridge to break ground on the New Whittle Laboratory, where he also met with staff and researchers, leaders from the aviation industry and senior government representatives.

̽��ֱ��New Whittle Laboratory, a £58 million facility, will be the leading global centre for net-zero aviation and energy. Its mission is to halve the time to develop key technologies to support a sustainable aviation industry.

Alongside the ground-breaking, senior figures from government and industry gathered for an international roundtable as part of an initiative led by Cambridge and MIT. This will present insights based on global aviation systems modelling capabilities developed through the Aviation Impact Accelerator, a project led by the Whittle Laboratory and the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.

Today, it typically takes six to eight years to develop a new technology to a point where it can be considered for commercial deployment in the aerospace and energy sectors, recent trials in the Whittle Laboratory have shown this timeframe can be accelerated by breaking down barriers that exist between academia and industry.

̽��ֱ��New Whittle Laboratory will incorporate the Bennett Innovation Laboratory – made possible through a philanthropic gift from the Peter Bennett Foundation – to bring together a critical mass of talent, giving them the right skills, tools, culture and working environment to solve complex multidisciplinary challenges. It will also be home to the UK’s National Centre for Propulsion and Power, built around a fast feedback model pioneered in Formula One, to cut the time to develop technologies from years to months.

Participating organisations in the roundtable included the UK Government, UK Aerospace Technology Institute, the US Federal Aviation Administration, NASA, EU Clean Aviation Joint Undertaking, Airbus, Boeing, Rolls-Royce, and the Sustainable Markets Initiative.

As ̽��ֱ��Prince of Wales, His Majesty previously visited the Whittle Laboratory in January 2020, and March 2022, to encourage the acceleration of sustainable aviation, as well as hosting an industry roundtable in February 2020 in London with the Sustainable Markets Initiative and World Economic Forum to explore solutions for decarbonising air travel.

Professor Rob Miller, Director of the Whittle Laboratory, said:

“We need to completely transform the innovation landscape in the aviation and energy sectors if we are to reach net zero by 2050. ̽��ֱ��new Whittle Lab has been designed as a disruptive innovation laboratory targeting the critical early stages in the lifecycles of technologies, where there are windows of opportunity to translate scientific strengths into global technological and industrial leadership.

“ ̽��ֱ��Lab is designed to work at the intersection of cutting-edge science and emerging engineering applications, providing fast feedback between the two, and dramatically cutting the time to deliver zero-emission technologies.”

Grant Shapps, the UK Government’s Energy Security Secretary, said:

" ̽��ֱ��UK is leading a revolution in aviation, looking to new technologies to cut emissions.

"Having established the Jet Zero Council three years ago by bringing together government, industry and academia, I strongly welcome the Whittle Laboratory being at the forefront of that endeavour today.

"This will further help the best minds from the fields of energy and aviation push ever-further and faster with the latest innovations in order to solve the problem of environmentally friendly and affordable flying."

Mark Harper, the UK Government’s Transport Secretary, said:

“Having already invested £165 million into the production of sustainable aviation fuels, this Government is determined to harness the economic benefits of flying while supporting industry and academia to create cleaner skies for the future.”

“ ̽��ֱ��breaking ground of Whittle Laboratory is great news for the UK's world-leading aviation sector, representing another step towards the UK hitting our Jet Zero goals.”

Peter Bennett, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge alumnus, philanthropist and founder of the Peter Bennett Foundation, said:

“To tackle the most complex challenges, we need to take a whole systems approach, where innovative technologies can be explored within the context of the realities that may impact their roll out. Rigorous testing using models such as the Aviation Impact Accelerator expedites the process of innovation and implementation.

“We need new ways to work together at speed, which is why the Bennett Innovation Lab will bring together global experts from government, industry and academia, enabling radical collaboration. I believe by using Cambridge’s convening power, this can make a real difference, fast.”

Grazia Vittadini, Chief Technology Officer at Rolls-Royce, said:

“ ̽��ֱ��Whittle Laboratory and Rolls-Royce have worked together for 50 years. Over this time the partnership has delivered hundreds of technologies into Rolls-Royce products. Deep technology partnerships like this are critical if the UK is to maintain its role as a science superpower and to create high value jobs in the UK. ̽��ֱ��New Whittle Laboratory offers an exciting opportunity to raise this ambition by bringing together cutting-edge science and engineering application in one building with the aim of meeting the challenge of net zero flight by 2050.”

Jim Hileman, Vice President and Chief Engineer, Sustainability and Future Mobility at Boeing said:

"Boeing's partnership with the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge is central to the effort of making aviation carbon neutral. As well as helping us to find technology solutions, it is bringing together different companies and academic disciplines from across the sector to drive change at the system level. We are excited by the way in which the New Whittle Laboratory has been designed to break down silos, bringing together a wide range of disciplines to take on the most challenging net zero aviation problems.”

Eisaku Ito, Chief Technology Officer at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, said:

“At Mitsubishi Heavy Industries we have a goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040, through our Mission Net Zero initiative. But we know that we can only reach this through accelerating the pace of innovation, and scaling up the development of net zero technologies. We have benefited from a strategic research partnership with the Whittle Laboratory since the 1980s, so we are excited to see work begin on this new facility that will become an important global centre for collaboration and disruptive innovation.

“We look forward to continuing our relationship with the Whittle Laboratory over the coming decades, and we want our engineers to think of the new Lab as their European home – a unique environment where they can participate in a culture that brings together the best global ideas, expertise, software, tools and testing facilities that can help solve the challenge of climate change.”

For more information on energy-related research in Cambridge, please visit Energy IRC, which brings together Cambridge’s research knowledge and expertise, in collaboration with global partners, to create solutions for a sustainable and resilient energy landscape for generations to come.

His Majesty ̽��ֱ��King visited the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge today, in his first public engagement following the Coronation.

Lloyd Mann

̽��ֱ��King at the groundbreaking for the New Whittle Laboratory

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From atoms to jet engines – extreme materials on display at summer exhibition

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 10:02:07 +0000

̽��ֱ��ever-increasing demand for air travel while simultaneously reducing carbon emissions constitutes a huge engineering challenge. Greater efficiency requires engines to run hotter and faster, but today’s best materials are already running close to their limits.

̽��ֱ��metals inside a jet engine must operate in a gas stream about a third as hot as the sun’s surface while enduring centrifugal forces equivalent to hanging a double-decker bus from each turbine blade.

At the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, researchers are designing new alloys that are able to withstand even more extreme conditions of stress and temperature, as Dr Cathie Rae at the Cambridge Rolls-Royce ̽��ֱ�� Technology Centre (UTC) explains: “In jet engines, we currently use special metals called superalloys that are created by mixing together nickel with other elements.

“They are called superalloys because they exhibit exceptional high-temperature mechanical properties and resistance to corrosion. In fact, they actually get stronger as we heat them up. We’re trying to make materials that are even better than these superalloys!”

Visitors to the Engineering Atoms exhibit at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition from 30 June until 5 July will be able to see how the atomic structure of materials affects their properties, and will be able to handle real jet engine components.

In the Rolls-Royce UTC, scientists work in close collaboration with one of the world’s leading engine manufacturers, Rolls-Royce plc, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to design and make new high-temperature materials. To achieve this, they need to understand everything from the shape and design of the component right down to the behaviour of individual atoms in the metal. By engineering the arrangement of the atoms, varying their type, position and size, researchers can radically change how these metals perform.

This involves the use of powerful microscopes that use electrons instead of optical light to examine materials on the atomic scale. By using these electron microscopes, researchers can look at individual rows of atoms and identify their composition. ̽��ֱ��Engineering Atoms stand will have a working scanning electron microscope, the Phenom ProX, so visitors will be able to look at alloys on the micrometre scale.

Engineering Atoms will also be exhibiting amazing materials that ‘remember’ their original shape after they’ve been deformed. These ‘shape-memory’ alloys, made from titanium and nickel, can be used to control and optimise airflow in jet engines where conventional hydraulic or electrical control systems would be difficult to operate.

̽��ֱ��Summer Science Exhibition will be open to the public from 30 June to 5 July 2015.

At any one time over half a million people are flying far above our heads in modern aircraft. Their lives depend on the performance of the special metals used inside jet engines, where temperatures can reach over 2000˚C. Cambridge researchers will be exhibiting these remarkable materials at this year’s Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition.

In jet engines, we currently use special metals called superalloys that exhibit exceptional high-temperature mechanical properties and resistance to corrosion

Cathie Rae

Engineering Atoms

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

A jet engine turbine blade.

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Yes

Engineering atoms inside the jet engine: the Great British Take Off

lw355 — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 07:30:21 +0000

Inside a jet engine is one of the most extreme environments known to engineering.

In less than a second, a tonne of air is sucked into the engine, squeezed to a fraction of its normal volume and then passed across hundreds of blades rotating at speeds of up to 10,000 rpm; reaching the combustor, the air is mixed with kerosene and ignited; the resulting gases are about a third as hot as the sun’s surface and hurtle at speeds of almost 1,500 km per hour towards a wall of turbines, where each blade generates power equivalent to the thrust of a Formula One racing car.

Turbine blades made from ‘super’ materials with outstanding properties are needed to withstand these unimaginably challenging conditions – where the temperatures soar to above the melting point of the turbine components and the centrifugal forces are equivalent to hanging a double-decker bus from each blade.

Even with these qualities, the blades require a ceramic layer and an air cooling system to prevent them from melting when the engine reaches its top temperatures. But with ever-increasing demands for greater performance and reduced emissions, the aerospace industry needs engines to run even hotter and faster, and this means expecting more and more from the materials they are made from.

This, says Dr Cathie Rae, is the materials grand challenge. “Turbine blades are made using nickel-based superalloys, which are capable of withstanding the phenomenal stresses and temperatures they need to operate under within the jet engine. But we are running close to their critical limits.”

An alloy is a mixture of metals, such as you might find in steel or brass. A superalloy, however, is a mixture that imparts superior mechanical strength and resistance to heat-induced deformation and corrosion.

Rae is one of a team of scientists in the Rolls-Royce ̽��ֱ�� Technology Centre (UTC) at the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy. ̽��ֱ��team’s research efforts are focused on extracting the greatest possible performance from nickel-based superalloys, and on designing superalloys of the future.

Current jet engines predominantly use alloys containing nickel and aluminium, which form a strong cuboidal lattice. Within and around this brick-like structure are up to eight other components that form a ‘mortar’. Together, the components give the material its superior qualities.

“Even tiny adjustments in the amount of each component can have a huge effect on the microscopic structure, and this can cause radical changes in the superalloy’s properties,” explains Dr Howard Stone. “It’s rather like adjusting the ingredients in a cake – increasing one ingredient might produce one sought-after property, but at the sake of another. We need to find the perfect chemical recipe.”

Stone is the Principal Investigator overseeing a £50 million Strategic Partnership on structural metallic systems for advanced gas turbine applications funded jointly by Rolls-Royce and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), and involving the Universities of Birmingham, Swansea, Manchester, Oxford and Sheffield, and Imperial College London.

̽��ֱ��researchers melt together precise amounts of each of the different elements to obtain a 5cm bar, then exhaustively test the bar’s mechanical properties and analyse its microscopic structure. Their past experience in atomic engineering is vital for homing in on where the incremental improvements might be found – without this, they would need to make many millions of bars to test each reasonable mixture of components.

Now, they are looking beyond the usual components to exotic elements, although always with an eye on keeping costs as low as possible, which means not using extremely rare materials. “ ̽��ֱ��Periodic Table is our playground… we’re picking and mixing elements, guided by our computer models and experimental experience, to find the next generation of superalloys,” he adds.

̽��ֱ��team now have 12 patents with Rolls-Royce. One of the most recent has been in collaboration with Imperial College London, and involves the discovery that the extremely strong matrix structure of nickel-based aluminium superalloys can also be achieved using a mixture of nickel, aluminium, cobalt and tungsten.

“Instead of the cake being flavoured with two main ingredients, we can make it with four,” Stone explains. “This gives the structure even better properties, many of which we are only just discovering.”

“We’ve also been looking at new intermetallic reinforced superalloys using chromium, tantalum and silicon – no nickel at all. We haven’t quite got the final balance to achieve what we want, but we’re working towards it.”

Stone highlights the importance of collaboration between industry and academia: “New alloys typically take 10 years and many millions of pounds to develop for operational components. We simply couldn’t do this work without Rolls-Royce. For the best part of two decades we’ve had a collaboration that links fundamental materials research through to industrial application and commercial exploitation.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by Dr Justin Burrows, Project Manager at Rolls-Royce: “Our academic partners understand the materials and design challenges we face in the development of gas turbine technology. Improvements like the novel nickel and steel alloys developed in Cambridge are key to helping us meet these challenges and to maintaining our competitive advantage.”

̽��ֱ��Cambridge UTC, which was founded by its Director Professor Sir Colin Humphreys in 1994, is one of a global network of over 30 UTCs. These form part of Rolls-Royce’s £1 billion annual investment in research and development, which also includes the Department of Engineering’s ̽��ֱ�� Gas Turbine Partnership. Rolls-Royce and EPSRC also fund Doctoral Training Centres in Cambridge that help to ensure a continuing supply of highly trained scientists and engineers ready to move into industry.

̽��ֱ��UK aerospace industry is the largest in Europe, with a turnover in 2011 of £24.2 billion; worldwide, it’s second only to that of the USA. Meanwhile, increasing global air traffic is estimated to require 35,000 new passenger aircraft by 2030, worth about $4.8 trillion.

For the researchers, it’s fascinating to see global engineering challenges being solved from the atom up, as Rae explains: “ ̽��ֱ��commercial success of a new engine can be dependent on very small differences in fuel efficiency, which can only be achieved by innovations in materials and design. There’s something really exciting about working at the atomic scale and seeing this translate into innovation with big powerful machines.”

Inset image: Thermo cycling.

̽��ֱ��Periodic Table may not sound like a list of ingredients but, for a group of materials scientists, it’s the starting point for designing the perfect chemical make-up of tomorrow’s jet engines.

Increasing one ingredient might produce one sought-after property, but at the sake of another – we need to find the perfect chemical recipe

Howard Stone

Engineering Atoms

Rolls-Royce Plc

Rotor

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Yes

Watts up - aeroplanes go hybrid-electric

sc604 — Tue, 23 Dec 2014 06:00:00 +0000

Researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, in association with Boeing, have successfully tested the first aircraft to be powered by a parallel hybrid-electric propulsion system, where an electric motor and petrol engine work together to drive the propeller. ̽��ֱ��demonstrator aircraft uses up to 30% less fuel than a comparable plane with a petrol-only engine. ̽��ֱ��aircraft is also able to recharge its batteries in flight, the first time this has been achieved.

̽��ֱ��demonstrator is based on a commercially-available single-seat aircraft, and its hybrid engine was designed and built by engineers at Cambridge with Boeing funding support.

̽��ֱ��aircraft uses a combination of a 4-stroke piston engine and an electric motor / generator, coupled through the same drive pulley to spin the propeller. During take-off and climb, when maximum power is required, the engine and motor work together to power the plane, but once cruising height is reached, the electric motor can be switched into generator mode to recharge the batteries or used in motor assist mode to minimise fuel consumption. ̽��ֱ��same principle is at work in a hybrid car.

“Although hybrid cars have been available for more than a decade, what’s been holding back the development of hybrid or fully-electric aircraft until now is battery technology,” said Dr Paul Robertson of Cambridge’s Department of Engineering, who led the project. “Until recently, they have been too heavy and didn’t have enough energy capacity. But with the advent of improved lithium-polymer batteries, similar to what you’d find in a laptop computer, hybrid aircraft – albeit at a small scale – are now starting to become viable.”

̽��ֱ��hybrid power system in the Cambridge demonstrator is based on a Honda engine, in parallel with a custom lightweight motor. A power electronics module designed and built in the Engineering Department controls the electrical current to and from the batteries - a set of 16 large lithium-polymer cells located in special compartments built into the wings. ̽��ֱ��petrol engine is optimally sized to provide the cruise power at its most efficient operating point, resulting in an improved fuel efficiency overall.

“Our mission is to keep our sights on finding innovative solutions and technologies that solve our industry’s toughest challenges and continually improve environmental performance,” said Marty Bradley, Boeing’s principal investigator for the programme. “Hybrid electric is one of several important elements of our research efforts, and we are learning more every day about the feasibility of these technologies and how they could be used in the future.”

While the Cambridge demonstrator is an important step in the development of hybrid or fully-electric aircraft, more research is required before commercial airliners will be powered entirely with electric motors. For example, if all the engines and all the fuel in a modern jetliner were to be replaced by batteries, it would have a total flying time of roughly ten minutes.

Test flights for the project took place at the Sywell Aerodrome, near Northampton. These tests consisted of a series of ‘hops’ along the runway, followed by longer evaluation flights at a height of over 1,500 feet.

Robertson’s team, which includes PhD students Christian Friedrich and Andre Thunot and MEng student Tom Corker, is conducting ongoing test flights to characterise and optimise the system for best performance and fuel economy.

̽��ֱ��Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates aviation is responsible for around 2% of global man-made carbon dioxide emissions. ̽��ֱ��aerospace industry made global commitments to take action that will see carbon neutral growth from 2020 and a net reduction in CO2 emissions of 50% by 2050 compared to 2005 levels. Boeing is a member of Sustainable Aviation (www.sustainableaviation.co.uk), which is responding to these goals in the UK.

An aircraft with a parallel hybrid engine – the first ever to be able to recharge its batteries in flight – has been successfully tested in the UK, an important early step towards cleaner, low-carbon air travel.

Although hybrid cars have been available for more than a decade, what’s been holding back the development of hybrid or fully-electric aircraft until now is battery technology

Paul Robertson

Planes go hybrid-electric

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

Demonstrator aircraft

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Yes

Lighter planes are the future

sc604 — Tue, 16 Dec 2014 15:56:39 +0000

̽��ֱ��study, by the Universities of Sheffield, Cambridge and UCL ( ̽��ֱ�� College London), is the first to carry out a comprehensive life cycle assessment (LCA) of a composite plane, such as the Boeing Dreamliner 787 or Airbus 350, and extrapolate the results to the global fleet.

̽��ֱ��LCA covers manufacture, use and disposal, using publicly available information on the Boeing Dreamliner 787 fuselage and from the supply chain – such as the energy usage of the robots that construct the planes. ̽��ֱ��study compares the results to the traditional – and heavier – aluminium planes.

Emissions during the manufacture of composite planes are over double those of aluminium planes. But because the lighter aircraft use significantly less fuel, these increased emissions are offset after just a few international flights. Over its lifetime, a composite plane creates up to 20 per cent fewer CO2 emissions than its aluminium equivalent.

Professor in Advanced Materials Technologies at the ̽��ֱ�� of Sheffield, Alma Hodzic, says: “This study shows that the fuel consumption savings with composites far outweigh the increased environmental impact from their manufacture. Despite ongoing debates within the industry, the environmental and financial savings from composites mean that these materials offer a much better solution.”

̽��ֱ��researchers fed the data from the LCA into a wider transport model to gauge the impact on CO2 emissions as composite planes are introduced into the global fleet over the next 25 years, taking into account other factors including population, economic prosperity, oil prices and speed of adoption of the new technology.

̽��ֱ��study – published in the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment – estimated that by 2050, composite planes could reduce emissions from the global fleet by 14-15 per cent relative to a fleet that maintains its existing aluminium-based configuration.

Professor in Energy and Transport at UCL, Andreas Schäfer, explains: “ ̽��ֱ��overall emissions reduction for the global fleet is lower than the reduction for an individual plane, partly, because by 2050, not all the fleet will be of composite construction. New planes entering the fleet before 2020 could still be in use by 2050, but the faster the uptake of this technology, the greater the environmental benefits will be.”

Dr Lynette Dray from Cambridge's Department of Architecture agrees: “Given that global air traffic is projected to increase four-fold between now and 2050, changing the materials used could avoid 500 million tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2050 alone, a value that roughly corresponds to current emission levels.”

Professor Hodzic adds: “ ̽��ֱ��industry target is to halve CO2 emissions for all aircraft by 2020 and while composites will contribute to this, it cannot be achieved by the introduction of lighter composite planes alone. However, our findings show that composites – alongside other technology and efficiency measures – should be part of the picture.”

A global fleet of composite planes could reduce carbon emissions by up to 15 per cent, but the lighter planes alone will not enable the aviation industry to meet its emissions targets, according to new research.

Given that global air traffic is projected to increase four-fold between now and 2050, changing the materials used could avoid 500 million tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2050 alone, a value that roughly corresponds to current emission levels

Lynette Dray

indianadinos

Airbus A350 XWB MSN001

Yes

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