ISSUE 1: JANUARY 2014
MechEngNews MechEngNews
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Contents
Welcome
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Profile
Welcome to the first issue of MechEngNews.
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Getting away from it all
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Funding awarded
Dr Shannon Li
The 2014 research away day, and a spot of speed dating
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Find out what grants we’ve been awarded this quarter
Research focus
A new generation of non linear dynamic design tools
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Good News
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Where are they now?
The best bits of the last quarter
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André Ferreira - AirStock
Here come the girls
Elena goes to the House of Commons to talk about Women in Engineering
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A few new faces
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Welcome to the team Green Impact Give it a rest; ways to reduce your carbon footprint
The newsletter will be out quarterly in a bright digital format for you to read at your leisure; on your break at work or at home with a cuppa - wherever you read it, we hope you’ll enjoy it! Our new marketing officer, Kat Buck, joined the team in December and she is looking out for interesting news, exciting research developments, events and activities, awards, funding received and anything else you’d like to share with the department. You can find Kat in the finance office, or email her on k.buck@sheffield.ac.uk Make sure that you follow the department on Twitter and Facebook. Help us to spread the word by liking and sharing our posts, and keep an eye out for our blog which will be coming soon! Follow us:
Widening Participation Welcoming diversity
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This is the place for you to shout about the work you’re doing and find out what your colleagues in the departent are up to.
@SheffMechEng
The Final Word.
A note from the Head of Department /MechanicalTheUniversityofSheffield
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Profile: Dr Shannon Li What made you want to become a mechanical engineer?
During the last year of my high-school in New Zealand, the engineering faculty organised an Open Day for female students only. I went along and really enjoyed the experience. This is when I decided to do engineering.
Where did you train?
Auckland, New Zealand, aka Middle-earth. I studied in the University of Auckland for my undergraduate degree, then the Auckland Bioengineering Institute for my PhD.
What are your research interests?
My research interest is mainly in Biomechanics of the human body, particularly of the musculoskeletal system, to study its function and working mechanism.
What research are you currently working on?
At the moment I am trying to develop my research area in modelling the musculoskeletal system. I have one project looking at the fracture mechanism of bones in very young children. This is in collaboration with Dr Amaka Offiah at the Children’s Hospital. The long-term goal is to create a tool to assist the diagnosis between accidental vs non-accidental injuries. My other area of interest is in the biomechanics of the female pelvic floor, and the effect related to childbirth and incontinence. For this project, I am working with Professor Dilly Anumba at the Jessop Wing of the Hallamshire Hospital.
If there was one MechEng problem that you could solve, what would it be? Build a Star Gate.*
What words of advice would you give to your student-self about the future? The lecturer is not as scary as you think.
* In case you were wondering, a Star Gate is a portal device within the Stargate fictional universe that allows practical, rapid travel between two distant locations. Now you know.
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The lecturer is not as scary as you think!
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Getting away from it all The academic research team started 2014 as they mean to go on with a thought provoking away day in January. The aim of the event was to encourage collaborative thinking and networking amongst the department. In the last two years a large number of new academic staff have been appointed to the Department of Mechanical Engineering. These appointments cover a diverse range of expertise, some are new to the Department, some complimentary, while the rest are similar to that which existed prior to those appointments. The Research Away Day, which was organised by Chris Drew and Neil Simms, provided a great opportunity for academic and research staff in the Department to understand better the expertise which now exists in the Department, find common research interests, share research ideas and conspire new collaborative proposals for future research funding building up on strengths.
Rob Dwyer-Joyce said of the event, “Once again I found the away day most stimulating. This was the first time we got together as our expanded department to think strategically about research. Strategy tends to be something I do in a sealed room with a selected group of colleagues and we produce a vision document or similar at the end - which may or may not get read and acted on. Much more important, is that we have live and relevant conversation - so planning research, identifying opportunities, and working with colleagues in new areas happens naturally.” After a talk from Carmen O’Dell from the Open Access team, the afternoon was spent working in pairs to write grants and form new working groups.
The department would like to thank Vanessa Speight from Latis Associates for her contribution and efforts on the day of the event, and Carmen O’Dell for her informative talk.
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Speed Dating What better way to get to know someone than to go on a date with them? Even more so when you’re given a time limit and you know you need to find out the most important bits first, no small talk. Exciting? Stressful? Add to that, then, an element of pictionary and what do you get? A morning of giggles, bemused expressions and a lot of enthused conversation. But this was not your usual speed dating, no one was searching for their soulmate (or were they?), this was about understanding your colleagues, finding out about their research, overcoming problems together and discussing possible collaborations. “The department has undergone a lot of change recently with lots of new members joining the team, so we thought it was important to give everyone the chance to learn about each other’s research interests, discuss grants and find ways to work together,” says Chris Drew, Business Development Manager and organiser of the event. “We were really impressed with some of the drawings that came out of the day, it was hard to choose the best! It was great to get everyone really thinking about what they do and then simplifying it into one or two simple doodles.” Professor Kirill Horoshenkov, the brains behind the speed dating concept, said, “Speed dating was an excellent way to facilitate information exchange between such a large number of staff and quickly identify areas of interest which can be developed into joint grant proposals. A similar event took place in the Pennine Water Group at Sheffield and was successful in terms of the new collaborations and grants which have been developed subsequently. “There is early evidence that the original discussions which took place at, and immediately after, this away day are gathering momentum and developing into a number of new grant proposals within this Department and beyond.”
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Funding awarded:
A quick look at funding received this quarter Rob Dwyer-Joyce received £201,000 from £ Professor DECC for his project, ‘Sensing Oil Film Load and Damage in Wind Turbines’
Lewis was awarded £8,300 by OVE ARUP for £ Roger his work on ‘RSSB Wet Rail’ Smith received EPSRC funding of £164,461 £ Patrick for his research, ‘Direct digital fabrication via multisystems integration of advanced manufacturing processes - MIAMP’ Fairclough received £272,255 from TSB for £ Patrick his knowledge transfer project, ‘Structural Colour’ Wagg was awarded EPSRC funding to the £ David tune of £3,768,933 for his research into engineering nonlinearity (see this month’s research focus) Blakey received £98,469 from Rolls-Royce £ Simon Plc for his project, ‘UAS catalytic O reduction in fuel’ 2
Hopkinson was given £286,965 by TSB for his £ Neil project, ‘CRD in additive manufacturing’ Fletcher got funding of £111,838 from EC for his £ David research project, ‘Capacity4Rail’
Total funding received this quarter: £4,912,221 What happens next? Once you’ve written and submitted your grant and received confirmation that your funding has been awarded, Lisa Gardiner will be on hand to support you on the financial side throughout the term of your project. The first step is visiting Lisa for a Start-up meeting. Here, Lisa will ensure that the Research account has been set up correctly and that the correct staff are assigned to the grant. She will also check that a recruitment process has commenced to appoint staff, if they are required. She will identify when expected equipment purchases will take place and advise on procurement requirements. To ensure that the grant is not overspent and that staff costs are being fully utilised, Lisa will hold regular review meetings, on a quarterly to six monthly basis. These meetings offer you the opportunity to flag any problems relating to spend management, staffing or miscoded items. Lisa is always available to offer advice and support, should you need it.
Ask Lisa:
l.m.gardiner@sheffield.ac.uk 0114 222 7813
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Research focus:
A new generation of nonlinear dynamic design tools. Professor David Wagg has received over £3million of EPSRC funding this quarter for his research into nonlinear dynamic design tools. The performance of engineering structures is controlled by how well they behave in their working environment. In many cases, such as wind or wave power generation, medical robotics, aerospace and large civil structures, nonlinear dynamic effects have a big influence on the operational performance. However, understanding and exploiting nonlinear effects in structural dynamics presents serious difficulties and is acting as a bottleneck in the design progress of many structures. A collaborative research team led by Professor David Wagg has been awarded a grant by the EPSRC to create new nonlinear dynamic design tools for engineering structures. The aim of the project is to create a step change in the understanding and exploitation of nonlinearity in structural dynamic systems. The team intends to develop novel modelling and control techniques that can be used directly in the design processes for structural systems and which the group will demonstrate on a series of industry based experimental demonstrators. These design
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a new type of structural dynamics is urgently needed to enable the most efficient design and manufacture of the next generation of engineering structures.
Even with the benefit of high power computing, which has enabled engineers to carry out detailed simulations, interpreting results from these simulations is a fundamental bottleneck, and it would seem that our ability to match experimental results is not improving, due primarily to the combination of random and uncertain effects and the failure of the linear superposition approach. “As a result a new type of structural dynamics, which fully embraces nonlinearity, is urgently needed to enable the most efficient design and manufacture of the next generation of engineering structures.”
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tools will enable a transformation in the performance of engineering structural systems which are under increasing demands from technological, economic and environmental pressures.
Nonlinearity occurs quite naturally in many applications, but despite this it has traditionally been avoided in the design of engineering systems. However, the capability of all engineering structures is being pushed in response to the urgent need in society to find technological solutions for global issues such as climate change. As a result understanding and controlling nonlinearity is becoming increasingly important in many engineering applications. A current topical example is the dynamics of large wind turbines. Understanding nonlinearity is crucial for ensuring that we have safe, reliable and efficient structures. Visit http://www.engineeringnonlinearity.ac.uk
Professor Wagg, speaking about the grant award, said: “The complexity of modern designs has outstripped our ability to fully understand their dynamic behaviour.
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Congratulations! Professor Alejandro Frangi has been named 2014 IEEE Fellow for his outstanding record of accomplishments and contributions to medical image analysis and image-based computational physiology. The total number of IEEE Fellows conferred by the IEEE Board of Directors selected in any one year cannot exceed one tenth of one percent of the total voting membership. IEEE Fellow is the highest grade of membership and is recognised by the technical community as a prestigious honor and an important career achievement.
In the news. Dr David Fletcher was in the news in December for his work developing guidelines for train station design to increase resilience to terrorist threats. The SECURESTATION project is producing a handbook which will include new design advice based on the results from chemical dispersion modelling, blast modelling, fire and smoke simulations, and will build upon existing guidelines in these areas. The SECURESTATION project is funded by the EU as part of their Framework 7 programme of research.
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Goodbye! Goodbye and good luck to our 2013 graduates who celebrated the completion of their degrees in January. We love to stay in touch and hear what our alumni are getting up to and how they’re getting on. We’ll feature one of them in each issue in our ‘Where are they now?’ section. So if you’re doing exciting things since leaving us, please let us know!
In film. The Low Carbon Combustion Centre (LCCC) has been involved in filming this month for a British Airways short documentary about their GreenSky project: Fuelling the Future. The film will be shown at a Summit as well as being included in their in-flight entertainment schedule and on the web. LCCC have been working with BA, Rolls Royce, Velocys and Solena Fuels in developing a biofuel for commercial aviation use. Whilst the airline industry only constitutes 2% of carbon emissions, British Airways are leading the way by taking steps towards reducing it.
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Where are they now? André Ferreira graduated from Mechanical Engineering in 2008 and after leaving us went on to study a 1 year MSc in motorsports at Cranfield University. Since then, André’s career has gone from strength to strength with the launch of his drone operating company, VuAir, two years ago and more recently, the beginning of a new venture with colleagues Giles and Manu to start their company, Airstock. With clients ranging from estate angents to the BBC, André became aware of a gap in the market for a dedicated platform for drone operators to share their footage and maximise their revenue, and so, Airstock was born. Using his contacts at the University, André and his team decided to enter their idea first into Startup Weekend Sheffield (run by University of Sheffield Enterprise) and, later, into a Global Startup Battle. Airstock came first in the University challenge and squeezed into the top 15 (out of 235 other strartups, world wide) in the Global Startup Battle. Their goals for the future are simple: gather funding to ensure they can put everything in place to start trading, and from there, the team hope to become the market leader for high quality drone footage. André says, “The most important thing I learned at University was probably critical and analytical thinking in general. Having said that, on the more practical sense, the ties and contacts at the university were absolutely crucial in propelling us to the top 15 of the Global Startup Battle.”
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ties and contacts at the university were absolutely crucial in propelling us to the top 15 of the Global Startup Battle.
Left to right; Giles Moore, Manu Matute, André Ferreira
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Here come the girls! “I wanted to be able to help people “I wanted be able to help people with mytodegree. I was going with to be an my degree. I was going to be an engineer, engineer, a mechanical engineer. a mechanical engineer. I was going to be able to help “Whenpeople.”W I started my degree in Mexico, in 1989, my engineering school saw the largest class of female mechanical engineering students ever... 25%.” Elena Rodriquez-Falcon spoke this month, in a room full of influential people from MPs to senior managers of some of the country’s top companies, at the Women in Manufacturing launch at the House of Commons. Elena was there to discuss the lack of women in engineering. Although the ratio of women to men has increased dramatically since her introduction into the industry, 25 years ago, that number has recently been decreasing. She believes that we need to remind ourselves of what engineering is about, “it’s not the person who fixes your washing machine, it’s the people who make our lives better. safer, and more comfortable - and that it is not a boy’s discipline. “Changing perceptions is a mammoth task; it requires a change in the use of the word ‘engineering’ to start with,” Elena says, “It requires a complete change in cultural references to engineering, everything that can impact on these social constructs of women in engineering. “The University of Sheffield is investing a lot of effort to change perceptions and the results, although subtle, are starting to show.” Elena is Director of Enterprise and Education and the Director of Women in Engineering at the University of Sheffield.
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Engineers are the people who make our lives better, safer and more comfortable and that is not a boy’s discipline.
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Welcome to the team Dr James Meredith - Lecturer James came to us from University of Warwick in October as a lecturer in the solids and materials teaching group. James’s research focuses on materials innovation, manufacturing strategy and quality systems across the medical, automotive and aerospace industries. His published research on sustainable materials such as natural fibre and recycled carbon fibre composite led to these materials being showcased on the Lola/ Drayson racing Le Mans Prototype that broke the sub 1000 kg electric vehicle land speed record in 2013. Something you might not know about James: “I do triathlon and I’m hoping to fit in an Ironman this year!”
Dr Shannon Li - Lecturer Shannon joined the department in October from the Department of Computer Science, where she was a research associate investigating cell-based modelling. Shannon’s main research interest is in continuum modelling of the human body and soft tissue mechanics, particularly with application to obstetrics, gynaecology and paediatrics. She is also interested in modelling nonlinear hyper-elastic biological materials undergoing large deformation and the use of contact mechanics in modelling soft tissues. Her most recent work also involves modelling cellular interactions in skin as well as bone mechanics in young children. Something you might not know about Shannon: “I lived in New Zealand for 10 years before moving to the UK.”
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Kat Buck - Marketing and Communications Officer Kat joined us in December after 12 months of working for herself as Managing Director and Editor of Sync City Magazine. Before that, Kat worked in the Communications team at A4e ltd and managed their staff magazine. She is also a travel writer and has written for magazines such as Lonely Planet. Kat will be responsible for the Department’s social media, internal and external communications, website and the production of all marketing materials. You might see her around the department with her camera and a notebook looking for juicy stories for the newsletter and anywhere else she can put them. Something you might not know about Kat: “I once got lost in the jungle, in the middle of the night in Borneo. Without a torch. Or water.”
Also joining us... Visiting Academic: Dr Shuxin Li KTP Associates: Michall Pelegrinis Jesus Alvarez Galindo EPSRC Prize Fellows: Rob Thornton Jon Leary LCCC Apprentices: Bradley Shaw Mitchell Dunstan
Research Associates: Tom Anthistle Andrew Nicholls Charles Lord Ashok Dave Nikolaos Dervilis Adrien Baldit Kewei Duan Daniele Tartarini Yongtao Lu Nicolas Gruel Muhammed Qasim
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Research Fellow: Mehdi Seddighi-Moornani Research Technician: Samuel Chapman
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Green Impact Green Impact
Spring is on its way so when better to get in the mood for going green? And that’s just what three
of our Professional Services team are doing!
Caroline Brown, Cara Stacey and Anne Bradford have all signed up to steer our department towards the Green Impact Silver Award. Last year we managed to bag a bronze award so now we’re setting our standards high! The team is looking forward to continuing the good work done previously, by Sophie Hylands, and intend to set out their targets shortly. Watch this space for further details, or feel free to contact one of the team if you’d like to know how you can get involved. Green Impact is an important part of our Energy Strategy. It is a simple, rewarding and fun sustainability accreditation scheme, run in over 50 universities across the UK and first implemented at the University of Sheffield in 2009 and since then has grown exponentially.
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it’s a simple, rewarding and fun sustainability accreditation scheme which has grown exponentially
How can we all help to make a green impact? There are plenty of things we can all do to bring about change and improve the environment we live in. Here are a few of the simplest things you can try. Give your computer a rest If you know you won’t be using it for a while, especially over night, turn it off. Unplug it. Give it a rest. An average PC with a 17-inch monitor needs between 150 and 350 watts of electricity while it’s being actively used. If you were to leave that computer on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, it would lead to the release of over 1.5 tons of CO2 into Earth’s atmosphere. By unplugging your PC each night for a month, you will reduce your CO2 emissions by a total of 51 lbs. Paper - cut it out Are you an office printaholic? Make it your goal to print less. Reduce your printing a little per day, say by 25%, or go cold-turkey for 5 days to reduce monthly CO2 by 7.6 lbs. Light the way When you leave a room, don’t leave the light on for the spiders! By turning off an unused light every day for a week, you could save 8.13 lbs of CO2.
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Pack it in Make every day a waste free day by packing your own lunch. Doing so for a month could reduce your carbon emissions by 44.6 lbs and save you around £100 per month!
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Widening Participation Widening Participation, or WP, is a countrywide campaign and a major component of the government education policy. It is an an attempt to increase not only the
numbers of young people entering higher education, but also the proportion from so-called “under-represented groups” (those from lower income families, people with disabilities and non-traditional particpants). According to the HEFCE 2011 strategy statement, “Widening participation brings considerable public benefit. A diverse student population is essential to vibrant intellectual enquiry and a resilient knowledge economy.” The University of Sheffield has a long-standing commitment to WP and fair access, not only to its own programmes of study, but also to the HE experience in general. The university has a dedicated WP team who are there to help, advise and support departments in their own WP activities, but overall responsibility lies with individual
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A diverse student population is essential to vibrant intellectual enquiry and a resilient knowledge economy
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departments. Each one has a different approach to WP, and MechEng will develop its own approach over time. Kat Buck (Marketing and Communications) and Caroline Brown (Undergraduate Admissions) are taking the bull by the horns and finding out how other departments and faculties are working, in order to develop a best practice strategy. The small but passionate team have spoken to people in Animal and Plant Sciences and the Faculty of Human Sciences and come away hugely inspired by the work they’re doing. From talks in schools, school visits to departments, annual large scale events attracting over 1000 local kids, to a week long summer school; the ideas are plenty. Looking through folders of photos, posters, handouts and flyers, the team could immediately see the impact the scheme was having on Sheffield’s children and young adults. So now for the hard part: how do we do it? Caroline and Kat will be leading the scheme for MechEng, but they will be on the lookout for volunteers, both staff and students, who would be happy to commit some of their time to the project, whether that be through organising events, assisting on the production of literature, giving talks or guiding tours.
If you think you’ve got what it takes to inspire the next generation of mechanical engineers, please get in touch with either Kat or Caroline: k.buck@sheffield.ac.uk or caroline.brown@sheffield.ac.uk
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The Final Word. I hope you have enjoyed reading this newsletter. The look and feel is down to the skill and creativity of our new Marketing and Communications Officer, Kat Buck. Thanks Kat! The Department of Mechanical Engineering is a big place; we have grown rapidly and there are many new faces. Half of the staff have been in the Department less than two years. This has been great for bringing new ideas and ways of working but it has also meant that we are somewhat fragmented. The situation is made worse by being spread across several buildings. For continuing success, it is essential that we work as a team. A team that delivers excellent teaching, a team that administers business smoothly and simply, and a team that delivers world leading research. A team can only function with effective communication. It is by communicating that we articulate our position, respond to one another’s needs, and understand each other better. This year I want us to make a special effort to remove the barriers to communication and improve Department cohesion. You’ll see some new work from Melanie and Tom on standardising ways we share information (e.g. MEGS and Google Drive), and we are running more workshops and awaydays – even a speed dating session. But the biggest success will come from each of us individually, proactively sharing information, making suggestions, talking and listening. Rob Dwyer-Joyce Head of Department, Mechanical Engineering
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