̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Rolls-Royce

Flight path to net zero

plc32 — Sun, 22 Sep 2024 22:18:18 +0000

Global aviation could be on a flight path to net zero if industry and governments reach just four goals by 2030, according to a new report from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Raising ambition in net zero flight – A briefing from COP28

plc32 — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 15:39:43 +0000

Professor Rob Miller, Director of the Whittle Laboratory, shares his thoughts on COP28 and the ambition for zero emission aviation.

Making things happen: the importance of knowledge exchange

skbf2 — Mon, 08 Nov 2021 16:00:33 +0000

Knowledge exchange has been a personal passion for me, ever since my first job as a Teaching Company Associate (Now Knowledge Transfer Partnerships), managing a knowledge exchange project with Cardiff ̽��ֱ�� and a tech start-up company. That experience sparked my fascination with the impact of university research on the wider world. Since then I’ve been fortunate to pursue this interest, working with universities and businesses across the UK in a range of different roles. I was delighted to get the opportunity to come to Cambridge where there are so many exciting opportunities for knowledge exchange.

̽��ֱ��rewards of the job

It is hugely satisfying when you are able to identify and nurture synergies between businesses and universities to achieve things neither could do on their own. For example, one of my tasks is to manage the EPSRC IAA Follow-on Fund at Cambridge. I am often told by academics how critical a relatively small injection of cash at the right time can be in helping them move an idea on to the point where it can attract more significant investment or industry support.

Fluidic Analytics, a spin-out from the Department of Chemistry, is a fantastic example of this. During the course of his research, Professor Tuomas Knowles invented a new method for studying proteins and their behaviours which he turned into a lab-scale prototype. It was thanks to the IAA Follow-on Fund that he was able to keep the project going until he could secure the investment needed to commercialise it. ̽��ֱ��company now employs more than 60 people and has raised more than $40 million in funding.

̽��ֱ��IAA has also played a pivotal role in collaborations with two of the ̽��ֱ��’s business partners, Rolls-Royce and Arm. An IAA Knowledge Transfer Fellowship enabled Bryce Conduit at Rolls-Royce and James Taylor in the Whittle Lab (pictured above) to use machine learning to predict how much damage an aeroengine’s compressor blades can sustain before they need to be repaired or replaced. To solve the problem, the pair developed a radical new approach to rapid prototyping that has the potential to revolutionise the way engineers design and optimise turbomachinery.

IAA Funding also enabled two postdocs to be seconded to Arm for a year to help it assess the feasibility of building a ‘proper’ industry-scale prototype of the ground-breaking digital security concepts being developed at the ̽��ֱ��’s Department of Computer Science and Technology. If adopted, this will affect virtually all of us, improving the security of the billions of phones, computers and myriad devices that rely in Arm technology.

Sometimes we talk about technology as if is a discrete entity that can be boxed up and exchanged for money. In practice, of course, it is not that simple. Technology is also about the know-how that resides in a researcher’s head. People are at the heart of knowledge exchange, whether it is someone from Rolls-Royce coming to work in the Whittle Lab or ̽��ֱ�� researchers going to work at Arm. In both cases, it gives them an opportunity to immerse themselves in a different world which can be hugely beneficial for the individuals concerned as well as paving the way for future collaborations.

Making connections

We are fortunate at Cambridge that we have a strong track record of both entrepreneurship and collaboration with industry and other external partners. Many academics have achieved amazing things through the commercialisation of their research – and are expert at doing so. But how do you make sure, in an organisation of our size, that everyone who wants to get involved in knowledge exchange knows how to? That’s where the ̽��ֱ��’s network of knowledge exchange professionals comes in. One of our roles is to unearth that tacit knowledge within the ̽��ֱ��, share it widely and develop best practice so that everyone can benefit. ̽��ֱ��other is about trying to connect, translate and mediate between the different worlds of academia and business and policy.

Laying the groundwork

An often overlooked aspect of knowledge exchange is the importance of timing. An external partner has to be at exactly the right point in their development lifecycle to need our input. That need has to align with an academic or research group having the interest and capacity to pursue the research problem. There is a certain amount of luck involved in getting the timing right but, to borrow a well-worn phrase, ‘the harder I work, the luckier I get’.

As knowledge exchange professionals, we spend a lot of time and effort doing the groundwork, forging connections and sharing information, often without a clear idea at the outset of what will bear fruit. You know something will happen, you just don't know what. Both sides - universities and businesses – have to be prepared to make this kind of investment of time and resources.

A lot of people are in academia because of their natural curiosity: they want to understand how things work and why they are the way they are. By connecting them with the outside world, I can give them access to interesting new problems and help them turn their ideas into realities that go on to make a difference to people’s lives. Making that happen is a genuinely rewarding task: I still can’t quite believe my luck that I ended up here.

Claire McGlynn, Head of Impact Acceleration, Research Strategy Office

November 2021

Read all our Business and Enterprise blog posts here

Bryce Conduit (left) and James Taylor in the ̽��ֱ��'s Whittle Laboratory

Cambridge-led team developing a simulator to help reach net zero flight

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Aug 2021 08:00:00 +0000

̽��ֱ��simulator will capture the whole aviation sector, from the sources of renewable electricity and raw materials to the production and transport of fuel, and the introduction of new aircraft technologies and operations. Leaders in industry and government will gain an understanding of the potential for change and the trade-offs between decisions. ̽��ֱ��simulator will guide innovation, investment and policy action, and provide educational benefits.

̽��ֱ��AIA is led by the Whittle Laboratory and the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL). “Achieving an aviation sector with no climate impact is one of society’s biggest challenges,” said Professor Rob Miller, Director of the Whittle Laboratory and co-lead of the project. “Solving it will require a complex combination of technology, business, human behaviour and policy. We have assembled a world-class team of academics and industry experts to take on this challenge.”

Users of the simulator will be able to simulate future scenarios to 2050 and calculate the resource requirements, such as renewable electricity and land use, the climate impact, both CO₂ and non-CO₂, and the cost of flying.

Options include the type of energy used, such as hydrogen, batteries and a range of sustainable aviation fuels, the type of aircraft and aircraft technologies, the way in which aircraft are operated, and the value judgments made by the public and government. ̽��ֱ��simulator will take a whole system approach – from the source of the electricity to the methods of fuel production and transport – to the passenger journey.

“International travel helps people and societies connect,” said Clare Shine, Director of CISL. “To retain this opportunity for future generations, we must urgently address aviation’s environmental impact as part of systemic decarbonisation of the economy. This calls for imaginative and inclusive innovation, which is why the Aviation Impact Accelerator brings together insight from industry, policy and civil society.”

̽��ֱ��AIA team also includes the Air Transportation Systems Lab at ̽��ֱ�� College London and the Melbourne Energy Institute at the ̽��ֱ�� of Melbourne. ̽��ֱ��AIA is in partnership with HRH ̽��ֱ��Prince of Wales’s Sustainable Markets Initiative, ̽��ֱ��World Economic Forum, Cambridge Zero, MathWorks and SATAVIA, and is supported by industry advisors Rolls-Royce, Boeing, BP, Heathrow and Siemens Energy.

“ ̽��ֱ��transition to a zero-carbon future requires a bold response to climate change,” said Dr Emily Shuckburgh, Director of Cambridge Zero. “ ̽��ֱ��Aviation Impact Accelerator is such a bold response, bringing together multidisciplinary expertise to inform decision making and enable meaningful change.”

̽��ֱ��simulator was conceived in early 2020 at a roundtable hosted by HRH ̽��ֱ��Prince of Wales and attended by senior industry leaders, government and academia.

“ ̽��ֱ��Aviation Impact Accelerator will play a vital role in highlighting the action required to achieve net zero aviation and support Heathrow to ensure 2019 is our year of ‘peak carbon’,” said John Holland-Kaye, CEO of Heathrow Airport. “ ̽��ֱ��first priority is accelerated use of sustainable aviation fuel. Government can act to unlock SAF through a mandate stimulating supply, plus incentives to drive demand. ̽��ֱ��prize is a new British growth industry and UK leadership in the race to net zero.”

̽��ֱ��official launch of the Aviation Impact Accelerator will take place at COP26 in November.

Adapted from a CISL news story.

̽��ֱ�� announces launch of Aviation Impact Accelerator (AIA) – a team of experts in aerospace, economics, policy, and climate science, who are building an interactive simulator to help achieve net zero flight.

Achieving an aviation sector with no climate impact is one of society’s biggest challenges: solving it will require a complex combination of technology, business, human behaviour and policy

Rob Miller

Photo by Pascal Meier on Unsplash

Plane landing in Zurich

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Strategic partner: Rolls-Royce

skbf2 — Mon, 16 Dec 2019 16:48:25 +0000

Researchers at Cambridge are working with Rolls-Royce to make aeroengines greener.

Green-sky thinking for propulsion and power

Anonymous — Wed, 04 Dec 2019 08:20:18 +0000

We’re seeing a transformational change in the propulsion and power sectors. Aviation and power generation have brought huge benefits – connecting people across the world and providing safe, reliable electricity to billions – but reducing their carbon emissions is now urgently needed.

Electrification is one way to decarbonise, certainly for small and medium-sized aircraft. In fact, more than 70 companies are planning a first flight of electric air vehicles by 2024. For large aircraft, no alternative to the jet engine currently exists, but radical new aircraft architectures, such as those developed by the Cambridge-MIT Silent Aircraft Initiative and the NASA N+3 project, show the possibility of reducing CO₂ emissions by around 70%.

A common thread in these technologies and those needed for renewable power is their reliance on efficient, reliable turbomachinery – a technology that has been central to our work for the past 50 years. Currently we’re working on applications that include the development of electric and hybrid-electric aircraft, the generation of power from the tides and low-grade heat, like solar energy, and hydrogen-based engines.

We’re also working on existing technologies as a way of reducing the carbon emissions, like wind turbines, and developing the next generation of jet engines such as Rolls-Royce’s UltraFan engine, which will enable CO₂ emission reductions of 25% by 2025. A great example is Dr Chez Hall’s research on a potential replacement for the 737. This futuristic aircraft architecture involves an electrical propulsion system being embedded in the aircraft fuselage, allowing up to 15% reduction in fuel burn.

A key element of meeting the decarbonisation challenge is to accelerate technology development. And so, over the past five years, our primary focus has been the process itself – we've been asking ‘can we develop technology faster and cheaper?’ ̽��ֱ��answer is yes – at least 10 times faster and 10 times cheaper. Our solution is to merge the digital and physical systems involved. In 2017, we undertook a pioneering trial of a new method of technology development. A team of academic researchers and industrial designers were embedded in the Whittle and given four technologies to develop.

̽��ֱ��results were astonishing. In 2005, a similar trial took the Whittle two years. In 2017, the agile testing methods took less than a week, demonstrating a hundred times faster technology development.

We describe it as ‘tightening the circle’ between design, manufacture and testing. Design times for new technologies have been reduced from around a month to one or two days using augmented and machine-learning-based design systems. These make use of in-house flow simulation software that is accelerated by graphics cards developed for the computer gaming industry.

Manufacturing times for new technologies have been cut from two or three months to two or three days by directly linking the design systems to rows of in-house 3D printing and rapid machining tools, rather than relying on external suppliers. Designers can now try out new concepts in physical form very soon after an idea is conceived.

Testing times have been reduced from around two months to a few days by undertaking a ‘value stream analysis’ of the experimental process. Each sequential operation was analysed, enabling us to remove over 95% of the tasks, producing a much leaner process of assembly and disassembly. Test results are automatically fed back to the augmented design system, allowing it to learn from both the digital and the physical data.

There’s a natural human timescale of about a week whereby if you go from idea to result then you have a virtuous circle between understanding and inspiration. We’ve found that when the technology development timescale approaches the human timescale – as it does in our leaner process – then innovation explodes.

̽��ֱ��New Whittle Laboratory will house the National Centre for Propulsion and Power, due to open in 2022 with funding from the Aerospace Technology Institute. A national asset, the Centre is designed to combine a scaled-up version of the agile test capability with state-of-the-art manufacturing capability to cover around 80% of the UK’s future aerodynamic technology needs.

Key to the success of the Whittle Laboratory has been its strong industrial partnerships – with Rolls-Royce, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Siemens for over 50 years, and with Dyson for around five years. So another component of the new development will be a ‘Propulsion and Power Challenge Space’. Here, teams from across the ̽��ֱ�� will co-locate with industry to develop the technologies necessary to decarbonise the propulsion and power sectors.

̽��ֱ��length and depth of these partnerships have so many benefits. They’ve enabled technology strategy to be shared at the highest level, and new projects to be kicked off quickly, without the need for contract lawyers. Joint industry–academic technology transfer teams move seamlessly between industry and academia, ensuring that technologies are successfully transferred into product.

Most importantly, the partnerships provide a source of ‘real’ high-impact research projects. It’s these long-term industrial partnerships that have made the Whittle the world’s most academically successful propulsion and power research laboratory.

We are at a pivotal moment, in terms of both Cambridge’s history of leading technology development in propulsion and power, and humanity’s need to decarbonise these sectors. Just 50 years ago, at the opening of the original Whittle Laboratory, research and industry faced the challenge of making mass air travel a reality. Now the New Whittle Laboratory will enable us to lead the way in making it green.

A bold response to the world’s greatest challenge
̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge is building on its existing research and launching an ambitious new environment and climate change initiative. Cambridge Zero is not just about developing greener technologies. It will harness the full power of the ̽��ֱ��’s research and policy expertise, developing solutions that work for our lives, our society and our biosphere.

Read more about our research linked with Sustainable Earth in the ̽��ֱ��'s research magazine; download a pdf; view on Issuu.

A rapid way of turning ideas into new technologies in the aviation and power industries has been developed at Cambridge’s Whittle Laboratory. Here, Professor Rob Miller, Director of the Whittle, describes how researchers plan to scale the process to cover around 80% of the UK’s future aerodynamic technology needs.

A key element of meeting the decarbonisation challenge is to accelerate technology development. And so, over the past five years, our primary focus has been the process itself – asking ‘can we develop technology faster and cheaper?’

Rob Miller

Whittle Lab

Yes

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.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes