ISSUE 2: JUNE 2014
MechEngNews MechEngNews
1
Contents
Hello!
03 Introducing Neil Sims - New HOD
We’re back! With even more MechEngNews for you to enjoy.
04
Profile Dr Cecile Perrault
06
Going for gold Les gets his jog on
07
Undergrad of the year Alan Middup grabs the title
We hope you enjoyed our first issue and we’d love to hear your thoughts. A few of you said that it was a bit too big so we’ve decided to go for this dinky little size instead but it’s still jam packed with just as much (maybe more?) good stuff.
08 Leaders of the future RAE Advanced Leadership Awards Can you HEAR it?
This quarter our staff and students alike have been busy winning awards, getting involved in exciting new projects, doing good for mankind and just being generally fab.
09 10
Funding awarded This quarter’s grants
11
Research focus Lighter than air
12
Fun Fact Friday The funnest fun facts
Kat
14
Where are they now? Michael Thorogood - Eadon
Editor k.buck@sheffield.ac.uk
16
Welcome to the team
18 20
MechEng gives you wings Human powered flight
If you have a story you think we all need to hear, don’t keep it to yourself! Get in touch with me, and I’ll make sure it’s covered! Even if it doesn’t go in here, you might see your story appear on our blog!
Kat Buck
Follow us: @SheffMechEng
Changing lives One carrier bag at a time
/SheffMechEng
22 The Final Word. A note from the Head of Department
2
SheffMechEng.blogspot.com MechEngNews
Introducing: Neil Sims The rumours are true, there’s a new Head in town. It’s about time we got to know a bit more about him! Neil, tell us a bit about your career so far... I first came to Sheffield as an undergraduate. I did a brief stint as a graduate engineer in Swansea, before coming back to Sheffield in 1997 to do a PhD. From there, one thing led to another, and Sheffield has definitely become my adopted home town. I became a Lecturer in 2000, held an EPSRC Advanced Career Fellowship from 2003-2008, have been the Department’s Director of Research since 2008, and from 2012-2014 I was the Department and Faculty lead for the Research Excellence Framework 2014 submission. When you’re not being a mechanical engineer and teacher, what are you doing? I am a part time taxi driver (for my children). Other than spending time with the family I enjoy playing tennis, hockey, mountain biking, and occasionally more adventurous sports such as skiing and windsurfing. What do you hope to bring to the Department as our new Head? The first thing is to acknowledge that we are in a really strong position - Since 2008, there has been a worldwide recession, UK unemployment doubled, and (closer to home) the student tuition fees led to massive challenges for students and universities. In the same period, the Department has almost doubled in size (both in the number of employees and the number of students) and
been constantly near the top of many league tables. This is thanks to Rob’s leadership and the contribution of all staff and students over the years. As a consequence of this growth, we need to think carefully about how we are structured, to ensure that we can provide the best teaching and perform the best research. We’ve also got some exciting challenges ahead in terms of our buildings and space: the Diamond and the Atrium / Heartspace projects offer fantastic opportunities for staff and students. But some pain is inevitable, as anyone who has moved house, or had an extension built, will recognise. Hopefully my experience of the Department and the broader University will help us to navigate such challenges and ensure that the Department is an enjoyable and stimulating environment for staff and students alike. You’re given a screw driver, 5 screws, some Meccano, a lego Darth Vader and a banana. What do you make? Build a catapult from the Meccano, to launch Darth Vader. Screw the 5 screws part-way into the banana, in a circular shape, to create a Vader-catcher. Attempt to launch Vader as far as possible and still catch him in the Vader-catcher. The winner gets the banana. If you were stuck on a remote desert island, what famous mechanical engineer would you want to be stranded with to ensure your chances of survival? That’s a tricky one. Presumably the island has limited natural resources, which means that engineers from/since the industrial revolution would struggle until they’ve re-invented iron. The Greeks did pretty well for themselves despite this, so Archimedes would be a good option. He had a good understanding of buoyancy - useful for boatbuilding. Even if he couldn’t help with the escape, he could teach me maths in the sand.
MechEngNews
3
Profile: Dr Cecile Perrault University of Florida. I went on to a postdoctoral fellowship at McGill University in Montreal, Canada and then another one at the Institute for BioEngineering of Catalonia, in Barcelona, Spain.
What are your research interests? I am interested in how forces influence the human body on the small scale, at the level of the cells. We now know that cells can sense shear stress, compression, strain and that they are actually very sophisticated mechanical sensors. I want to understand how they sense and how we can use this information to our advantage. For example, cancer cells can pull very strongly on their surrounding. This is why a mass of cancer cells, i.e. a tumor, can be sensed manually. Which also means that a mass of cancer cells has a different mechanical property than a mass of healthy cells and that we could use that information to monitor its progression.
What made you want to become a mechanical engineer? I wanted to be a medical doctor, yet I was always the one tinkering with the machines at home. I always carried a Swiss army knife, ready to disassemble any machine that wouldn’t work as I wished. After receiving the French baccalaureate in sciences, I registered at the University of Florida (UF) as a pre-med student and was horrified to discover I didn’t need to register for any more maths or physics classes. I really wanted to do something applied, something that I could tinker with. Mechanical engineering was the natural solution and at UF, they had a Mechanical Engineering major with minor in Biomechanics. This was the perfect way to combine both of my interests: engineering and medicine.
Where did you train? I received my bachelor in Mechanical Engineering, Masters and PhD in Biomedical Engineering at the
4
In order to study cellular mechanics, most of the tools we use must be able to deal with small forces and small dimensions. In the laboratory, we use microfluidic systems to exert shear stress and maintain cells alive during compression cycles. We are able to create our own custom microfluidic systems from scratch and the typical time to go from design to prototype is around 4 hours. This allows us to explore a lot of new designs for tissue engineering and biomechanical testing.
What research are you currently working on? At the moment, we use mechanical forces to influence stem cells, in the hope of creating bone. Similarly to the body, we use flow and compression to stimulate the cells. What we to try to find most precisely is the frequency, intensity and timing of stimuli to transform stem cells into bone.
MechEngNews
We also study how the geometry of a stent deployed in an artery can influence the hemodynamics (blood flow) of that artery. This change in flow will influence the repair process and the arrival of new cells around that stent. We want to be able to inform which pattern will be most advantageous for future stent design. Finally, we are also trying to create the next generation of in-vitro testing device: an organon-a-chip. We try to create an assembly that can combine different cell types, reproduce forces found in the body (such as the stretching of cells in the lung when we breathe, or the shear stress from blood flow), and the mechanical rigidity of the cells’ environment. Ideally, with such a setup, we can reproduce an organ and explore the impact of drugs on diseases and normal function.
If there was one MechEng problem that you could solve, what would it be? To create a device that recreates the mechanical and chemical environment of cells, mimicking the organs of a patient with his/her own cells and to monitor/predict more accurately disease progression and the effectiveness of therapy.
What words of advice would you give to your student-self about the future? Patience. Enjoy each moment and stress less :)
“
The Insigneo Institute for in-silico Medicine, a joint initiative between the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, held its first Showcase in May, at The Edge. The event, attended by 200 people, including representatives from academia, industry, the health and research sector and important funding bodies, celebrated Insigneo’s successful partnerships with industrial and clinical partners. The day included talks from key researchers in the field of in-silico medicine, collaborative presentations and exhibitions demonstrating current research activities in Insigneo. Insigneo is a multi-disciplinary institute involving over 123 academics and clinicians from the Faculties of Engineering, Science and Medicine, Dentistry and Health who collaborate to develop computer simulations of disease processes and the human body that can be directly used in clinical practice to improve diagnosis and treatment. Further information can be found on their website: www.insigneo.org
We are trying to create the next generation of in-vitro testing device: an organ-on-a-chip
” MechEngNews
5
Going for gold Les Morton is our very own claim to fame with his name appearing in history as a competitor in many worldwide athletics competitions, including two Olympic games. The Mechanical Engineering technician has always had a keen interest in how things work, as a school boy he loved messing around with bikes and would drill holes in the frame with the idea that it would make the bike lighter and therefore go faster. It may not have improved his speeds, but it sure played a nice tune in the wind. He later joined a cycling club and had some success winning races and going sub 22 minutes for the 10 miles time trial. It was in his 30s that he competed in the 1988 (Seoul) and 1992 (Barcelona) Olympic Games in the 50km Race-walk which is over 31 miles. His best performance was in the 1991 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo where he came 10th.
Les saw fame again in 2001 when he ran as the back end of a camel with Simon Wiles in the Percy Pud 10k, a charity stunt that put the pair in the Guinness Book of Records for the fastest 10km road race completed in a 2 man costume and raised £1000 for the Sheffield Children’s Hospital. Les was a competitive runner for a number of years but after suffering an injury he started cycling again instead. He entered local time trials and ended up joining the Fusion cycling club in Dronfield. When he resumed running he was quicker after all the cycling training; that’s when things got serious. He shed a stone in weight and felt really good. He had a stretch of success, winning his age group at local running races. In February he ran a sub 39 minute 10k, “That’s when I thought, why not try one of those Duathlons: Run, Bike, Run. I decided that the age group sprint Duathlon race in Clumber Park, which happened to be a qualifier for the 2014 ITU Duathlon world championship in Spain, would be ideal. The format is run 5k, cycle 20k ending with a 2.5k run. I trained 6 days a week with a mix of running speed work, to riding 50 miles on Sundays with the cycling club’s fast group,” he says. The hard training paid off and Les finished in 3rd place, just 8 seconds behind 2nd place in his first ever Duathlon and was selected for the Great Britain Team. “Hard doesn’t even come close,” Les laughs. Les now faces a new dilemma: next year he moves up to the over 60s age group where he will have a much better chance of success, the only problem is that it’s in Adelaide, Australia. Best get saving then, Les.
6
MechEngNews
Undergrad of the year! The winners of this year’s TARGETjobs Undergraduate of the Year competition were announced by Sir Trevor McDonald OBE at a ceremony in London in April. And on that list, shining out like
the star that he is was one of our very own... Alan Middup, scooping the prize for Engineering Undergraduate of the year, sponsored by E•ON. Over 36,000 students from 140 universities around the UK entered the competition with only 1 place in each of the 12 categories up for grabs.
Alan is the team principal of Sheffield Formula Racing, University of Sheffield’s Formula Student team. He is also a STEMNET (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Network) ambassador, involved in giving presentations and organising workshops to inspire young people to study engineering. Alan is becoming a well-rounded engineering student, with the aim of pursuing a career as a leader in the engineering profession.
It’s not an easy process and you have to be committed, but the prize of a paid summer internship, with the potential for a graduate job offer starting in 2014 or 2015, plus a one week trip to the Wrigley Global Headquarters in Chicago is well worth the hard work. “I saw that the placement offered involved international travel and exposure to high ranking meetings, as I will work in the HQ. These experiences will be great for my career.” says Alan. “I’m looking forward to enjoying a year in industry, especially the support and routine of working for a big company. Following the experience I hope to be in a better place to make an informed decision about my future and how best to work toward charted status.” Being the best means having a combination of academic excellence, the ability to pass a series of difficult online assessments, good written communication and the interpersonal skills to compete with other students in assessment centres run by the sponsoring organisation. If you think you have what it takes to be next year’s Future Business Leader of the Year, check out the TARGETjobs website to find out how to apply. undergraduateoftheyear.com Applications open in October.
MechEngNews
7
Leaders of the future Each year the Royal Academy of Engineering hands out thousands of pounds for professional development to some of the UK’s most promising students in the hugely competitive Advanced Leadership Awards. Students have to apply for the award themselves by writing a 500 word essay on why they should be chosen for the award as well as answering questions about how they would run a business. Successful applicants are invited to an interview in London where they work in groups to complete tasks as well as having a 1-1 interview with the judges. This year only 75 students from around the country made it to the interview stage with just 35 of them walking away with the prize. Three of those students came from Sheffield with two coming from Mechanical Engineering (and a third who unfortunately didn’t win) plus one from Materials Science and Engineering.
“
It was a very competitive process, I feel really lucky to have got the award.
”
Our winners were Alan Middup (seen on page 7 for his Undergraduate of the Year award) and Rebecca Ede.
Like so many of our students, Rebecca and Alan are involvled in a huge range of extra curricular activities which went towards their success in these awards. 2nd Year student, Rebecca is the president of MechSoc where she recently secured a £1000 industrial sponsorship from Siemens. She is also fundraising secretary of the Sabre Cats, the university’s cheer-leading squad. Mechanical Engineering is not where Rebecca once saw her life going. “I originally wanted to go into law,” she says, “but I did a work experience placement at RAF Brize Norton in the legal department and was given a tour of the base. When I went into the aircraft hangers and saw what they were doing, it just looked so much fun! I decided then that I wanted to be a mechanical engineer. I had done physics at college but not maths so had to do a foundation course first before progressing onto Mech.” Rebecca was asked to advertise the award on the MechSoc social media, “When I read about the award I thought it wouldn’t hurt to apply myself. It was a very competitive process, I feel really lucky to have got it.”
8
MechEngNews
Can you HEAR it? Students who are in undergraduate study at Sheffield in/after September 2012, will receive a Higher Education Achievement Report or ‘HEAR’, to provide a comprehensive report of their university achievements. The HEAR includes academic information about their course, modules and grades as well as extra-curricular activities and awards. The HEAR can be used as evidence of the knowledge and experience gained at university to help demonstrate your skills when applying for jobs or further study. HEAR is a national project, so employers and other universities know about it too.
HEARable activities
Non HEARable activities
Taking part in Widening Participation will help the future generation of engineers AND get you HEAR points! Yay to WP!
Clubbing with friends on a school night. Whilst it is fun, unfortunately it won’t be recognised as a HEARable activity.
Taking part in Sheffield RAG. Raises money for charity AND raises your HEAR points!
Weekend long Wii Karaoke marathon. Your neighbours might HEAR it, but we won’t.
Learn a language! Improve your vocabulary AND your HEARability!
Doing jelly shots in your kitchen at 3am may give you a hangover to remember, but HEAR? Nil points!
Volunteer on the music scene. You’ll help someone learn an instrument AND we can HEAR it!
Back-to-back Hollyoaks on a Sunday afternoon. There’s really no excuse for this, and certainly no HEAR points!
MechEngNews
9
Funding awarded: A quick look at funding received this quarter Qin received £14,659 from the £ Ning European Commission for his project
Blakey received £39,409 by Toyota £ Simon Motor Europe for his preliminary deposition
Meredith was awarded £129,785 from £ James TSB for his KTP with Laminates Limited
Marzo received £30,000 from £ Alberto Devices for Dignity to find a more efficient
assessment and £735,311 from TSB for his project Fuel System Component Lifting
‘Greener Aeronautics International Networking’ (GRAN2)
£
Hui Long received £185,027 from EC for her work on Novel Flexible Sheet Forming for High Value Manufacturing
£
Tom Slatter was given £129,450 from TSB for his KTP with BEP Surface Technolgies Limited
Li was awarded £15,715 by Sheffield £ Shannon Hospitals Charitable Trust for her
research into mitigating chronic pelvic floor dysfunction following childbirth by pelvic floor dynamometry and computational decision support
£
Jem Rongong got funding of £60,000 from Rolls-Royce Plc for his work on vibration control of rigid objects
and dignified continence management device for patients suffering from urinary incontinence
Lewis had funding of £133,646 from £ Roger TSB for his KTP with Bergmann and a further £98,233 for his KTP with ScanCoin
Ridgway, Neil Sims, Matt Marshall and £ Keith Sam Turner received £2,704,043 for their EPSRC CDT in Machining Science
Dwyer-Joyce, Roger Lewis, Tom Slatter £ Rob and Matt Marshall received a whopping £3,512,260 of EPSRC funding for their CDT in Integrated Tribology and another £23,928 for Rob’s project on ultrasonics for online monitoring of castings Mumtaz was given £23,291 £ Kamran by EPSRC for his investigation into
microstructural nucleation and growth of AlCu alloys using layered manufacturing
Alex Frangi received £255,461 from EC for his £ project ‘BALMORAL’
Total funding received this quarter:
£8,390,218 10
MechEngNews
Research focus: Lighter than air The University of Sheffield has received £108,000 from the Technology Strategy Board as part of a wider collaborative project in excess of £2.5M for research into technology and manufacturing capability for a novel Low Carbon aircraft using lighter than air Technology. In order to fly efficiently these craft need to be as light as possible and so carbon fibre composites are used extensively. However, a problem has been identified with these materials at their operating temperature of -55˚c. There is currently global pressure to reduce aircraft fuel usage and emissions to clean up our skies. Lighter than air (LTA) technology will help the UK achieve this. LTA combines ‘free’ helium or buoyant lift, aerodynamic lift from its shaped multi-lobe hull (a novel form of wing) and vectored-thrust from its propulsion units to deliver vehicles that consume less than 50% of the fuel of conventional winged aircraft. The overall project aims to gather sufficient technical knowledge to build a lighter than air vehicle with a 50 tonne cargo capacity and a range of 2300 nautical miles. The airlander 50 will be capable of flying at 100 knots with the ability to loiter at 20 knots, using four 2100 horse power gas turbines using significantly less fuel than comparable cargo transporters. When full, it will contain £0.5M of helium and will sell for $100M. The key areas of the research are the optimisation of aerodynamic and propulsive efficiency, automation of control avionics towards pilotless operation, manufacturing process optimisation and the development of a tool to assist in the design of large carbon fibre structures operating
at extreme temperatures. “We [The University of Sheffield and the Composites Systems Innovation Centre] will be investigating the low temperature performance of the huge carbon fibre structures, below -50˚c, and helping enhance the airlander’s operational capability.” says Primary Investigator, Dr James Meredith. There are enormous opportunities for the UK to capture a share of the $4.5 trillion civil aerospace market over the coming decade. Innovative thinking and excellent engineering will help to maintain the UK as the number one aerospace manufacturer in Europe. James says, “It’s a fascinating project and a great opportunity to keep the UK lead in this field. “It has many interesting applications such as opening up new mines for precious metals, diamonds, oil and gas in previously unviable areas, to provide internet access to far flung parts of the globe or even for coast guard search and rescue.”
MechEngNews
11
Fun Fact Friday By now you’ll have all seen Fun Fact Friday somewhere around the Department and plastered all over our social media. You might be wondering what it’s all about. No one gets more excited about Mechanical Engineering than mechanical engineers. And that’s great, we’d be worried if they didn’t. But what if we could get everyone excited about it? What if we could show our friends and neighbours what engineering as all about? Engineering doesn’t have to be about complicated mathematical formulas and detailed algorithms. It can be simplified and condensed into manageable bite sized chunks that even your old granny could understand. Here are some of the funnest-fun-facts so far!
*
t
ac
Did you know that your thigh bone is stronger than concrete? Bone is extraordinarily strong — ounce for ounce, bone is stronger than steel, since a bar * of steel of comparable size would weigh four or five times as much. A cubic inch of bone can in principle bear a load of 19,000 lbs. (8,626 kg) or more — roughly the weight of five standard pickup trucks — making it about four times as strong as concrete.
f
* Product development research has shown that:
t
ac
f
*
3000 ideas result in 1000 discussions, 125 projects, 1.7 products launched and 1 product success.
* The wheel bearings in your car run with a film of oil that is less than 0.1
t
ac
micrometer thick. So the weight of the car, mum and dad in the front, the kids in the back, and all the shopping in the boot are all sitting on a layer of oil 1000 times thinner than a piece of paper. Scary – you bet!
f
*
*
f
12
* The world record for throwing the javelin is 105m, but if that same javelin had
t
ac
been thrown in a vacuum (not in the presence of air) it would only have travelled 95m. This is because the javelin is inherently aerodynamic (the positive effects of lift outweigh the negative effects of drag).
MechEngNews
ar e h o ! t k e fact e w h ring c a e e t i e s n i i V g n e n u f a Follow us!
sheffmecheng.blogspot.com /SheffMechEng @sheffmecheng
MechEngNews
13
Where are they now? Sheffield MechEng graduate, Michael Thorogood, left us in 2001 to work at an independent engineering consultancy where he met another MechEng graduate, Dave Price. When the consultancy they worked for was bought out by one of the UK’s largest firms the pair, along with another colleague, realised that there was still a market for an independent consultancy of that type which could compliment the work of larger firms, fabricators, manufacturers and contractors.
The team believe in taking engineering design back to basics and offer their clients solutions that are based on sound engineering principles and experience. “A picture says a thousand words,” says Michael, “and from an early stage in a project we start to draw. This enables us to understand the problem and issues quickly, developing working concepts that ensure that proposed solutions are practical and achievable.”
Photo: Patrick Reynolds
Michael says, “I had built up a reputation within the moving bridge sector and knew that there was a need for the services we provided. The other founding members had equally strong reputations
in their fields of expertise and so the decision to set up Eadon Consulting was made.”
14
MechEngNews
Photo: Patrick Reynolds
group projects, which were very enjoyable to participate in due to the differing skills that each person brought. At Eadon Consulting building teams of great people or being part of a bigger team enables us to win and deliver work which can make a significant and noticeable difference to the world around us.”
“
Working as a team can accomplish great things
As with all start-up businesses, Eadon has seen challenges. “The first challenge was establishing the company and getting our name out there. The internet has helped new clients from all over the world find us for jobs including the recently completed moving bridge in New Zealand. The internet has also allowed us to find potential clients and build relationships with them. “The second challenge was ensuring the balance of work between design and analysis is right. We now have several clients that can feed us plenty of analysis work but core to the business is the design aspect. I think everyone in the office enjoys the challenge and satisfaction that comes from solving engineering design problems and hence we push to keep this aspect of the work growing. There is nothing more rewarding than seeing something that you have been involved with go from a quick sketch in a meeting through to the fully functioning solution.”
”
The team at Eadon have now come full circle from the early days after they graduated and are now proud to offer newly graduated young engineers the opportunity to establish themselves within their firm and have even taken on Sheffield graduates. “It’s great to employ graduates and be able to offer students jobs as they complete their studies. This year we took on several people via the RISE scheme and may plan to do the same in the near future. Our key aim is to ensure that the graduates that join us get the support and mentoring they require.” Still a small team of just 15 people, Eadon’s main goal for the future is to ensure that the firm remains an enjoyable and rewarding place to work whilst growing at a steady and maintainable pace. We see great things for the future of Eadon Consulting; one to watch, we reckon.
Michael attributes part of Eadon’s success to his time at university and the skills he developed while he studied with us. “As well as all of the engineering knowledge gained the most important thing that I learnt at uni was probably how working as a team can accomplish great things. As part of my degree there were several
MechEngNews
15
Welcome to the team Left to right; Nick Hughes, Suzanne Lightfoot, Kim Matthews, Stevie Bratt, Stephen Chase
Stephen Chase - Research Support Officer Stephen Chase was raised by dolphins, he stowed away on board a tugboat traversing the high seas, to live first amongst the gauchos on the high pampas of the Gran Chaco preparing their elevenses, tracking overdue books at the library of Palau, cleaning the teapots of Mount Hua Shan, working the lost property desk at B&Q in Bishops Stortford, finally spending his twilight years as a product tester at the talcum powder mines of Bhutan. In his spare time he has written and performed both kinds of music: slow and boring. Now, he is covering Research Support Officer for PhD students (covering Caroline Rotchell’s role during her maternity leave), and assisting with administration for the Department’s Knowledge Transfer Partnership projects. He joined us from SSiD (Student Services Information Desk) where he worked for mfmhmgf years since being a student in the music department. He still puts on gigs and events in obscure corners of the city but no longer swims with dolphins.
16
MechEngNews
Stevie Bratt - Finance Cluster Manager Stevie was born at the bottom of a beanstalk and was later employed as Jack’s offical bean counter so a career in finance was the next logical step. When the golden goose stopped laying and Jack had to make cuts, Stevie found a job in the church where she counted their beans. Always one for a challenge, she joined our team where she splits herself between Mech and Civil engineering and plans to merge the two groups into one happy, if dysfunctional, family.
Nick Hughes - Senior Research Support Officer In his early years, Nick ran away to the Himalayas to ‘find himself’, instead, he lost himself and had to be rescued by Sherpas after an expedition gone awry. You’d think that would frighten the adventurism out of him, but no. Years later, he sped around Newzealand trying to beat the world record speed for returning a hire car. His award was 2 speeding fines in five hours. Since having kids, Nick has settled down somewhat and now works as Lisa Gardiner’s trusty sidekick.
Suzanne Lightfoot - Project Officer After missing the boat as Sporty Spice by a cat’s whisker Suzanne decided a career in journalism was more up her street, her genre and background is crime and disorder and parental moaning, often both at the same time. When chasing hardened crims with a notebook bored her she decided to give babysitting a try, which is how she ended up looking after David Wagg and Keith Worden, providing admin support for the engineering nonlinearity project.
Kim Matthews - iT-CDT Centre Manager Kim was scarred for life after being inadvertently abandoned by her brownie group in a country lodge while they went on a camping trip. She was found the next morning, eating her cornflakes with a spoon she’d fashioned from a brick and a bowl made from plasticine. After the experience Kim was awarded all of the survival skills badges known to man. As if that wasn’t enough excitement, she now works for us and Leeds University supporting academics in the iT-CDT Management and Executive Committees and participating departments to set up the Centre and help manage Centre activities. MechEngNews
17
MechEng gives you wings We all know the story of Icarus. A boy so excited by the wings his father, a mythological engineer, built him that he ignored warnings not to fly too close to the sun. Overcome by the giddiness of flying, Icarus continued to soar into the sky, closer and closer to the heat of the sun. Soon enough, his father’s worries became reality and the sun’s powerful rays melted the wax holding the wings together and burned through the delicate feathers beneath. Icarus continued to flap his wings but soon realised all that was left was their singed remains and the only thing holding him above the sea was his bare arms. Icarus dropped into the waters below, an ocean which now bears his name, the Icarian Sea. Inspired by Icarus’ fateful tale, the Royal Aeronautical Society launched the Icarus cup for human powered flight, a competition that will see teams complete a series of challenges designed to test all aspects of human powered flight. The competition is open to anyone with full flying membership of the BHPA, and this year, the University of Sheffield will be one of only three universities in the UK taking part. The small team of just 15 regular members has spent the last three years designing and building their aircraft, named Volaticus from the Latin word for wind. The huge structure, measuring 22m and constructed of aluminium and carbon fibres weighs just 27kg. Founding member, Ramon Fuentes, says, “If it isn’t about to break then it isn’t light enough. There’s a very fine line.” The plane can support a pilot weighing up to 70kg who powers the plane from the tiny bucket seat cockpit using a simple set of bike-like pedals.
18
“
If it isn’t about to break then it isn’t light enough
”
The team has members from all over the uni including Mechanical, Material and Aeronautical Engineering as well as maths and physics. Ramon says, “Between us, we’ve developed a very complicated and completely custom design. For a start, we’ve removed the tail so ours is different to any other human powered aircraft ever built before. Removing the tail has made the craft lighter, more efficient, very stable and easy to fly. Hang gliders fly on the same principle. But this means more work has had to go into the wings to compensate.” “None of us are in it for the prize,” he says, “Building the craft and attending the competition is a huge achievement in itself. However, winning would mean that we are ready to progress and further develop our aircraft to attempt the Kremer Prize.”
The competition rules state that the plane can only fly to a maximum height of 15m. No worry for our guys, then, of flying too close to the sun.
MechEngNews
This year’s competition, organsied by the British Human Powered Flight Association, will last 7 days and will take place at Lasham Airfield in Northampton from 28th June to 6th July. The event is open to all so do go along and show your support! http://tinyurl.com/mx8qxgq
MechEngNews
19
Changing lives one carrier bag at a time Jonny Morris is one of a team of 169 members in student run Sheffield company, Enactus, which aims to empower local and international communities through the positive power of social enterprise. The team recently won the Enactus UK nationals and Jonny took time out to have a coffee with MechEngNews and tell us all about it. You may have already heard of one of their main projects – Blankets for Bolivia – where they taught local Bolivian women to make thermal blankets from used crisp packets. As well as being 2 times warmer than the standard thermal blanket, they are 3 times stronger and use 977 times less CO2 over their lifetime (in terms of production, distribution, waste etc). In the life of the project, the team have calculated that they have saved 64 tonnes of CO2 – that’s enough to fly their presentation team around the world twice! Their latest project will use recycled plastic bags to produce mosquito nets that, like the crisp packet blankets, could be easily and cheaply produced by locals in the areas they are most
20
needed. This will give the locals who produce the nets a sustainable source of income, as well as provide opportunities for education about ways to prevent malaria. Each year, malaria kills over 600,000 people, mostly African children. Malaria is a preventable disease, but unfortunately, the mosquito nets sent by aid companies often never reach the most needy areas, so enabling people to make them for themselves from a readily available, and otherwise unwanted, material could potentially save thousands of lives. Jonny says, “In Kenya alone, where we plan to implement the project, over 100 million plastic
MechEngNews
bags are distributed by supermarkets every year, a large portion of which are simply left on the ground outside villages. That’s 651 tonnes of plastic waste – if laid side by side, they could cover an area of 27 square kilometres each year! The feedback we’ve had from aid workers in rural Kenya is that the communities really have no idea of recycling, and extremely little is done.”
The ENACTUS competition took place on 14th April in London with 53 teams competing in the UK. Sheffield took the prize in 2010 and have come runner up for the past 3 years so were thrilled to come first again this year. This success has now moved the team on to the world cup where 36 countries will compete for first place. If you’d like to know more about the work being done by ENACTUS, both here and abroad, visit their site: http://www.enactussheffield.org
FACT. •
Malaria kills over 600,000 people world wide, each year.
•
In Kenya alone, there is enough plastic waste from discarded carrier bags each year to cover an area of 27 square kilometres.
•
The population of homeless people in the UK stands at more than 400,000 men and women.
•
Outside London, Sheffield has one of the largest homeless populations in the country.
•
Over its lifetime, a crisp packet blanket uses 977 times less CO2 than the standard thermal blanket.
•
The Blankets for Bolivia project has recycled 30,000 crisp packets since it began.
•
ENACTUS’ project HOPE Nigeria has improved 800 lives.
•
ENACTUS Sheffield has 169 members and has run 27 projects.
MechEngNews
21
s a e d i t h Brig
22
MechEngNews
ineeri n g n E l ica chan e M
MechEngNews
g
23
The Final Word. After six years as Head of Department, my term of office comes to an end in August this year. The start of my term as HoD coincided with the faculty structure that we are now so familiar with. But at the outset, I remember a great deal of concern that we all shared about how our daily lives would be affected. For the most part, change has been good for the Department. We are a different place in many respects; more staff, better facilities, new research groups, greater diversity, more students of course, but I think also a more exciting place to work. However, in so many other ways I can still see the same Department that I joined 20 years ago – the teamwork and comradeship amongst staff, the care in the student experience, and the genuine interest in science and engineering. Our students remain a credit to us, and I have taken great pleasure in being a small part of their achievements – the cases in the newsletter are just a few amongst many examples I can think of over my term in office. I am proud of having had the opportunity to be Head of Mechanical Engineering – and being part of a great heritage. This has also probably been the most exciting time in my academic career. It has not always been easy and at times I have almost wept with frustration, but I remain deeply grateful to my colleagues both within the Department and outside for having given me this opportunity. Whilst part of me is sad to be stepping down, I am delighted that Neil Sims takes over and will bring his own style to the role. He will be the 15th head and I have full confidence that the Department will flourish under his leadership. He and I have been working closely to ensure a smooth transition. I am sure you will join me, both in wishing Neil well, and giving him all the real help and support he needs to ensure our great Department thrives.
Rob Dwyer-Joyce
Head of Department, Mechanical Engineering
24
MechEngNews