ISSUE 11: October 2016
MechEngNews MechEngNews
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Contents.
Hello!
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Evolve winer There’s an app for that gap
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Profile Professor Shuisheng He
Welcome back for another year full of exciting Mech Eng stories! Not that we really went anywhere, we’ve been busy all summer!
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Year abroad Samuel Wakerley
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Whitworth Society Ben passes the baton
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Where are they now? James Eatwell
There's been a lot of travel for our staff and students, with one student spending time at the University of Michigan working on their Formula Hybrid team, one of our technicians spent time in Shanghai on a knowledge exchange and one of our Professors visited the University of Adelaide in Australia for a month.
10 Planes, Trains and automobiles Our students this summer
Our students have had challenges at things like Formula Student and Railway Challenge over the summer with plenty of lessons learned for next time.
12 We are international Jamie Booth & Elena Rodriguez-Falcon cross continents
And we’ve had students win awards for their innovative ideas... read on for more!
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Research Focus Reactive inkjet printing
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End of an era Highlights from graduation
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A new chapter Celebrating 100 years
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Read all about it!
Kat Buck
Editor k.buck@sheffield.ac.uk
Follow us:
The Final Word.
@SheffMechEng /SheffMechEng This publication is produced using 100% recycled FSC certified paper
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MechEngNews
There’s an app for that gap The universal struggle to find a free parking space could be over for good thanks to an innovative app idea thought up by one of our students. Yan Jin Loh, a second year MEng Mechanical Engineering student, won this year’s University of Sheffield Enterprise (USE) Evolve competition with her idea ‘ParkToGather’, an app which would allow drivers to book a space in a car park in advance and pay for it with the touch of a button. The app would also let people who have a parking space at their house which is available when they take their car to work to rent this out to drivers who work nearby and struggle to find a spot. “I got the idea quite spontaneously, I just knew that parking is a big problem and that we have to solve it,” said Yan Jin, a second year Mechanical Engineering student. “I struggled to find a parking space myself when I was driving in my home country. Engineers are always working to utilise resources, which is how I came up with this idea.” Yan Jin said that she never thought she would win the competition when she entered, having heard about it at a meeting of the University of Sheffield’s Entrepreneur’s Society. “When I was chatting with the other participants I told them I wasn’t expecting anything, and they told me that spontaneous ideas are the best. It turns out it really was!” She said.
L-R: App creator Yan Jin Loh with judge Louisa Chan
said she really enjoyed the whole experience. “I always have a lot of ideas, so I like that the competition gave me a platform to pitch my idea and actually get something from it,” she said. Yan Jin is hoping to use her prize money to help her carry the idea forward, and would like to find a co-founder. “I want to start it now, because throughout the competition votes I got a lot of positive feedback and people told me to start now and not wait. Technology is one of those things where if you don’t start now there will be someone else doing it soon,” she said. The Evolve competition is run by USE, who offer support to students and graduates of the University of Sheffield who are looking to develop their ideas, found their own startups or develop enterprising skills.
Yan Jin found the second round of the competition, where the ten semi-finalists pitched in front of a camera for their own Youtube videos, the most challenging part of the competition, but
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Profile:
Professor Shuisheng He
What made you want to become a mechanical engineer?
My father was a self-taught mechanical engineer who was involved in the building of several large-scale hydroelectric power stations in China. Despite being retired for many years, he still talks very proudly and enthusiastically about his work given any opportunity. I suppose I was strongly influenced by him.
Where did you train?
I read Thermal Power Engineering at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) in Wuhan, China, and received a BSc and an MSc after a total of seven and a half years of hard work. Subsequently, I studied turbulence for my PhD in the Nuclear Engineering Laboratory at University of Manchester.
What are your research interests?
We conduct applied as well as fundamental research in the general field of fluid flow and heat transfer combining computational 4
simulations with experimental investigations. We have developed and maintained a suite of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software using conventional (RANS) and more advanced (DNS, LES, and LBM) approaches. We make use of the national and regional super-computers (ARCHER and N8 Polaris) as well as the group’s high performance computer (HPC) clusters. Experiments are conducted using flow facilities equipped with LDA, PIV and hot-film anemometry. Currently, our group’s research focuses on nuclear (reactor) thermal hydraulics, lowcarbon technologies (e.g., CO2 power cycles and CO2 sequestration), and turbulence and transition.
What are you working on at the moment?
The Advanced modelling for nuclear fuel route thermal hydraulics analysis project is aimed at developing a novel threedimensional computational fluid dynamics
MechEngNews
(CFD) model for the fuel route operations of advanced gas-cooled reactors (AGRs) to complement the current one-dimensional correlations-based approach. The UK currently has fifteen nuclear reactors, fourteen of which are AGRs (unique to the UK) and one is pressurised watercooled reactor (PWR), providing around 20% of the electricity of the country. The new methodology and simulation results developed from this project will inform safety assessment supporting the continued operations of the AGRs. This project is jointly sponsored by EDF Energy, EPSRC and the University of Sheffield. A number of projects are being carried out to better understand and model heat transfer to supercritical fluids in support of the development of novel inherently safe nuclear reactors. The Supercritical Water-Cooled Reactor (SCWR) is one of six most promising designs selected by the Generation IV International Forum to be developed for deployment in the next 10 to 20 years. A key enabling factor for the successful development of the SCWR is improving the understanding of supercritical pressure heat transfer and developing reliable and robust engineering analysis and modelling capabilities in this area. Our research in this field includes (i) performing numerical ‘experiments’ using Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) and Large eddy simulations (LES) to study turbulence and heat transfer characteristics of supercritical fluid flow so as to deepen our understanding of the physics; (ii) benchmarking and improving the performance of turbulence models used in conventional RANS CFD and (iii) developing and improving engineering correlations for mixed convection under supercritical conditions.
Ever since the publication of the pioneering work of Osborne Reynolds in 1883 defining the concept of laminar and turbulent flows, the subject has remained a central theme in fluid mechanics due to its fundamental importance to the subject and its relevance to engineering applications and the natural world. Recently, we made some ‘surprising’ observations which led to a radically new interpretation of transient turbulent flows, seemingly deviating from the conventional turbulence theory. We have shown that the transient flow following a rapid increase of flow rate from an initially turbulent flow is characterised by a time-developing laminar boundary layer followed by laminarturbulent transition even though the initial flow is turbulent. Currently we are working to generalise the theory for broader flow scenarios/conditions and to explore their applications in flow control and turbulence modelling. The work has been primarily funded by EPSRC.
If there was one Mech Eng problem you could solve, what would it be?
It would have to be ‘optimising thermal energy system with the aid of computer simulations’. In most cases, this means maximising the energy output by improving the efficiency, whereas for nuclear reactors, ensuring safety takes first priority.
What words of advice would you give to your student-self about the future?
It is not terribly important what (modules) you’ve chosen to study, but work hard to achieve the best on whatever you’ve chosen to do. It is important that you demonstrate to your potential employers as well as yourself what you can achieve.
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. E U L B go . N E E R G e driv Written by Samuel Wakerley Michigan. The home of Detroit, also known as Motown, and – most significantly – Motor City. Just down the road is Ann Arbor, a bustling community recently named as America’s #1 College Town. As one of Sheffield’s study abroad students, I was lucky enough to attend the University of Michigan, via the IIE Global Engineering Education Exchange programme. During my stay, my studies gained a new focus within the field of Mechanical Engineering – sustainability. But in addition to this, I took on a key extracurricular commitment in joining the Formula Hybrid team who, each year,
design and manufacture a Formula SAE approved racing vehicle with both a conventional and an electric powertrain. At the end of term, I went with the team to compete at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Working within the internal combustion engine division and collaborating with the controls team, my responsibility was to design and build the electronic throttle control for our vehicle. This essentially involved mating a ‘pull-wire’ motorbike throttle to an electronic servo actuator, which would then be controlled as a wired output from our dSpace Micro-Auto control box, nestled below the driver’s legs. Having researched OEM solutions and with limited resources to work with, I began design efforts in Solidworks CAD software. After several design iterations, the final solution proved to be both secure, effective, light and hard-wearing. Manufacture involved following dimensions to the millimeter, many metric unit conversions, and operating both mills and lathes in the Wilson Student Team Project Center. The next phase, once the car had come together following a series of all-nighters by the whole team, was to test our systems. As a driver, I had the chance to test the electronic throttle control, electronic clutch control, and electronic shifting first-hand. Driver communication with the controls division was essential to improve drivability – similar to the calibration work done
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Whitworth Society The Whitworth Society was set up in the late 1800s using funds bestowed by Sir Joseph Whitworth who wanted to continue his legacy of supporting apprentices into higher education when he awarded the first Whitworth Prize scholarship.
with hybrid Formula 1 technology at present. This also gave me a chance to see Simulink in use in a real-world application – and put my faith in the coding! My journey with Michigan Hybrid Racing led to me making many new friendships and truly enjoying my time abroad. From travel buddies to going out to a good bar with the boys, membership of a team with such a tough mandate inevitably brings people together. Having opted not to use my involvement as academic credit in order to leave capacity for additional classes in both renewable energy and sustainable design, the many all-nighters spent with the team in the workshop didn’t help to improve my grades! However, in my third and final year on a student racing team, the opportunity to collaborate with great minds on a truly interdisciplinary engineering project was too good to pass up. Formula Hybrid may have been a labour of love, but boy, was it worth it. Sadly, at competition it turned out that the team was to be hampered by a series of high-voltage powertrain problems, and despite the internal combustion engine being good to go we were denied the chance to go racing, due to the tough rules of Formula Hybrid. However, a silver lining is that the team plans to further develop our current vehicle and make a two-car entry to Formula Hybrid in 2017. With the electronic throttle control having been a successful element of the car, my throttle design may yet end up on track!
Since then, the Society has supported apprentices world wide to achieve their degrees. One such scholar was our very own Dr Ben Hughes from the Energy 2050 group who became President of the Society last year. Ben says, “ Being President was an opportunity to give back to the Society that helped fund my PhD with a Whitworth Senior Scholarship in 2007 (A total of £21k cash award) and allowed me to leave my employment with Shell where I started as a 16 year old apprentice in 1994 and move into Academia full time, where I was then elected a Whitworth Senior Scholar (Wh.S.Sch) in 2009. After handing over the presidential reins to Lee Griffiths at Rolls Royce this year, Ben now sits on the awards panel for Scholarships. “This year we awarded 17 Scholarships to former apprentices pursuing higher education at University. Standard of applicants was exceptionally high, former apprentices with expectations to achieve 1st class degree, in some cases already achieved this and now moving onto Master programs.” says Ben. There are less than 20 senior scholars and around 400 Scholars world wide. For further information about the scholarships, visit http://goo.gl/xtW8FD. This year’s Whitworth Society event outside AMRC’s Factory 2050
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Where are they now? James Eatwell graduated from the Department in 2003 with an MEng in Mechanical Engineering. James is now Chief Engineer at Cox Powertrain Ltd where they are developing a highly novel design of lightweight diesel engine with initial application into the marine outboard sector. James visited six or seven universities while deciding where he wanted to study, all with excellent rankings in Mechanical Engineering but, for him, Sheffield stood out for its positive and welcoming attitude not only as a department and a university but also as a city and with the added advantage for a keen mountain biker of being very close to the Peak District National Park! “There’s no doubt that engineering degrees are not the easy option when it comes to picking a course but four years at Sheffield left me with a lot of very positive experiences and a great technical background on which to build.” says James. James was lucky enough to be sponsored through his university course and was given summer placements by Ricardo UK so he was able to quickly apply what he’d learnt at university to a work environment and vice versa. After graduating James went to work for Lotus Engineering (the consulting side of Lotus Cars) and after 12 months of graduate rotations, took his first permanent position as a Powertrain Calibration Engineer tuning engine control strategies for optimum power, fuel consumption, emissions and drivability. James is now Chief Engineer for Cox Powertrain Ltd where they are developing a highly novel design of lightweight diesel engine with initial application into the marine outboard sector.
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Four years at Sheffield left me with a lot of very positive experiences and a great technical background on which to build.
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“I have ultimate technical responsibility for the product and as such I have a team of over 30 engineers and technicians working for me covering a range of tasks including mechanical design, thermo-fluids and structural analysis, systems engineering, prototype engine build, engine and boat tests.” says James. “What we are developing is on the cutting edge of internal combustion engine design and on a daily basis we are trialling concepts and approaches that have never been applied to internal combustion engines. Combined with that there is the excitement of building up an engineering team from small beginnings which has probably entailed the steepest learning curve of my career so far but which has also rewarded me with some of the most exciting challenges. “I’m very happy to say that there is no such thing as a typical day for me in my current job and that’s one of the attractions. Generally, most days will start with a whole engineering team briefing to run through progress from the day before and objectives for the day ahead. Beyond that the variety is huge and can involve overseas or domestic visits to suppliers, design
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reviews to approve new concepts, reviewing test data from our engine dynamometers or test boats, legislative reviews, manufacturing reviews, meetings with our commercial team to understand new customer requirements, preparation of reports to our board of directors, planning reviews with our programme management team…the list goes on.” James has had many memorable and exciting moments during his career, but one sticks out. “The best moment in my career? Probably seeing the first of the Cox Powertrain engine prototypes fire up and run for the first time. The sheer hard work involved in getting a prototype engine from a clean sheet of paper design through to that first fire event can’t be under estimated and the satisfaction from the whole team of seeing and hearing that engine fire for the first time is invaluable.”
James’ focus is very much around making Cox Powertrain the success it deserves to be. “We still have some challenges to overcome before we go into production with the first engines but once that milestone is reached I shall already be looking forward to the next Cox Powertrain product. Despite all his hard work James is a big believer in maintaining a healthy balance between your life and your work. His advice to future engineers: “Being successful in engineering as with any career involves hard work and sacrifices but it’s easy to assume that working longer hours always means that you’re being more productive. Learn when to call it a day and go and do something you enjoy because you can be sure that by doing so you will be better equipped to deal with the challenges the next day brings.”
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Planes, trains There was no rest for our students this summer, with many of them taking part in student-led activities such as Formula Student and Railway Challenge. Let’s find out how they got on.
UAV Challenge
Human Powered Flight
The IMechE Unmanned Aircraft System competition, challenges teams of Undergraduate students to design, build and fly a UAV capable of autonomously transporting a payload of fragile medical supplies over a 2km course in under two minutes.
Sheffield’s Human Powered Flight Team, Volaticus, unfortunately did not make it off the ground this year. Four teams took part in the annual competition at Lewisham Airfield and only two teams managed a take off, with one of them crashing.
This year the team built on 2015’s successful quadcopter design, to produce a fully carbon fibre hexacopter with a unique octagonal arm structure. In order to guide the aircraft, the team created aerial optical character recognition software capable of searching for a desired target symbol on the ground and then guiding the aircraft to a hover over the target and deposit the supplies.
Ramon Fuentez, team leader, said, “the days were generally quite windy and that can make it difficult and dangerous to handle the aircraft around the airfield so we decided to pack up early and bring our aircraft back without a scratch, which is a first for us.”
In July this year the team flew against 17 other International Universities at the final competition in Worcestershire. After a thoroughly enjoyable week, the team came away with the first place prize for the most viable business proposition.
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Despite some technical issues, including a problem with the plane’s balance, the team actually did very well. Given that this is the first time the team comes back without having to make major repairs, this next semester the team is going to focus on practising flying, and will be testing the aircraft on a nearby airfield soon.
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automobiles. Railway Challenge
Formula Student
A team of students from the Department have competed for the second year in the IMechE Railway Challenge.
Our Formula Student team made history this year with their biggest ever weight reduction, taking their car from a hefty 200.5kg last year to a tiny 168.5kg. The massive weight loss was due, in part, to a new engine and suspension.
The event, held at Stapleford Minature Railway invtes teams from universities and industry to build a 10 3/4” locomotive and compete in a number of categories such as traction, ride comfort and innovation. Our team had the third fastest time in the maintainability challenge, removing and replacing a wheel set in only 7 minutes. However, the team were hampered by control systems issues throughout the event, causing them to miss several of the dynamic events, leaving them in seventh place overall. Dr Adam Beagles from the Department said: “The team were congratulated on having the best-looking loco, and the innovative design including centreless pivots and quick-release radial arms was really well engineered. The team should be proud of their achievements and have learnt a great deal from the experience.”
Team Principal Gabriel Bracken says, “The team can be incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved this year. A weight reduction of 32kg for the seventh iteration of a car is practically unheard of, and the performance of the car - with its limited testing - was something to behold.” Despite this, though, the results didn’t reflect the performance of the car after a series of bad luck during scrutineering. “Unfortunately, a combination of ill-preparation and luck caused us to miss out on some crucial points, but the car itself is fantastic and will make an excellent base for next year’s team.” says Gabriel. We did however pass the noise test first time; another first for the team. After missing the accelleration and skidpad tests due to the delays in scrutineering, the team pulled in at 18th place out of UK universities and 59th in their class of all teams.
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#WeAreInt
You will have seen the University’s social media campaign #WeAreInternational in which we post photos of ourselves with international friends and colleagues. We in the Department of Mechanical Engineering are all about building those relationships to share knowledge and skills across continents. As a result of one of those relationships, Jamie Booth, one of our technical staff, recently had the opportunity to spend a month in China on a knowledge exchange at Shanghai Jiaotong University learning about specialist software and designing models or parts through to production. Jamie has been supporting Dr Hui Long’s research in Incremental Sheet Forming (ISF) through the development of new processes in Vibration assisted ISF and carrying out experiments on his CNC machine, so when the opportunity came up Hui put him forward. Jamie said, “The trip was a great opportunity to advance the skill set in the Department and provide continuity when PhD students leave in order to retain the knowledge in the Department and enable us to pass it on to future students.
On the left, Jamie Booth and PhD student Zhao Hua Li from SheffMechEng. On the right, the Shanghai team.
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Although not directly related to my day-today work, the skills I learnt in Shanghai Jiaotong such as SolidWorks and use of the CNC machine are transferable.” Hui has had contacts with the Metal Forming Research Group in Shanghai Jiaotong University since 2005 through an EPSRC funded project. That collaboration was enhanced by the start of two EU funded projects, MatProFuture, which funded Jamie’s visit, and FLEXFORM, which funded Dr Bin Lu to come to Sheffield. We now have very close collaborations and frequently exchange PhD students with the University, funded by MatProFuture project, aiming to support the development of academic and research staff including technicians. Hui says, “The visit to Shanghai has enabled Jamie to know the updated ISF development and their equipment, software and CNC controls. Our new equipment developed by Dr Lu here has the same software and controls thus Jamie can provide future support to PhD students in Sheffield.”
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ternational At the start of the summer Professor Elena Rodriguez-Falcon was invited to Adelaide University in Australia as Stephen Cole the Elder Fellow. During her stay Elena was working on engineering education when a TV channel asked her to speak about Women in Engineering and made national TV. The purpose of Elena’s trip had been to work with the University on developing learning and teaching technologies and to be a critical friend. It didn’t take long, though, before they realised that Elena has many strings to her bow, and soon started to make the most of her stay. Engineering students partnered with Elena to explore ‘learning’ in the broadest sense of the word. They challenged traditional approaches to teaching and assessment and as a result, the Faculty of Engineering at The University of Adelaide are looking at making significant changes to the way they have done things in the past. Always an advocate for diversity, Elena was also asked to look at Women in Engineering and LGBT during her visit with an open invite to do anything she wanted. Her first move was to email everyone in the Faculty with the subject header I look like an LGBT engineer, inviting anyone who wanted to speak on the subject to meet with her. People warned her she may not get many, or any, responses as LGBT is still a very taboo topic there, but Elena was astounded by the response she did receive. “I had responses from all ends of the spectrum,” says Elena, “people wanted to talk but were scared because of homophobic remarks. In the end, 9 turned up. The meeting
Elena speaking to ABC News about Women in Engineering
was anonymous but everyone who attended signed up to be a part of a charter group and have since gone on to create an LGBTQIA network.” When word got out that Elena was in town, she was approached by ABC News to speak about Women in Engineering, a topic that she is world renowned for. “Sometimes it’s good to step out of your day to day job so that you can appreciate what you have - we do amazing things here at Sheffield.” Says Elena. “I was very welcomed in Adelaide, I was embraced as a person, a colleague and a friend. I was invited into people’s homes, introduced to their families, and even bumped into old friends including our old Head of Department and now Dean at University of Adelaide, John Beynon.”
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Research focus: Reactive Inkjet printing The Department of Mechanical Engineering is once again being recognised for its collaborative and multidisciplinary research with a joint research paper between academics in the Department and those in the School of Dentistry being selected as September finalist for the prestigious 2016 Cahn Prize. Dr Patrick Smith from the Advanced Additive Manufacturing Research Centre (AdAM) published the paper ‘Biocompatible silk fibroin scaffold prepared by reactive inkjet printing’ with his team in June. When the Journal of Materials Science named their paper as the September finalist for the Cahn Prize, Patrick was naturally ecstatic, “This is a great result for my group and lab as well as for the Department. This year the reactive inkjet printing concept has already resulted in two high quality papers.” Population aging, increased diseases and unexpected accidents will result in huge demands of tissue/organ transplantation over the next decade. However, the demands are unlikely to be met due to the significant lack of donation and immune mismatching. The breakthrough of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine will offer remarkable success in building threedimensional tissues suitable for transplantation. 3D porous scaffolds play important roles in tissue engineering not only as structural templates for tissue fabrication but also providing complex signaling cues to cells and facilitating oxygen
and therapeutic agent delivery. Therefore, the availability of excellent 3D scaffolds has become one of the aspects that constrains the fast developing of tissue engineering. Production of excellent 3D scaffolds highly relies on suitable fabrication technology and excellent candidate biomaterials. Patrick’s research seeks to harness the emerging additive manufacturing technology (reactive inkjet printing, RIJ) and the unique biomaterial (regenerated silk fibroin, RSF) for the fabrication of smart 3D tissue culture scaffolds. Silk fibroin (a FDA approved biomaterial) is well known for its good biocompatibility, biodegradability, and excellent mechanical properties, therefore, is an ideal candidate as scaffold for tissue engineering/ regenerative medicine. One of the applications that have attracted much attention is to develop biomaterials suitable for the fabrication of tissue scaffolds. However, the current RSF scaffolds made through traditional methods (e.g. casting, freeze-drying, electrospinning) have simple structures that are only suitable for lab research or very basic tissue engineering. As a versatile manufacturing method, inkjet printing is used in applications as diverse as organic electronics, ceramics, tissue engineering and protein-based diagnostics. The proportions of reactants can be readily controlled due to the high degree of reproducibility in the size, number and placement of droplets on to a substrate. Inkjet printing builds structures layer by layer, which gives greater control over the finished product and, if required allows a substrate to be selectively patterned.
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Research funding received
Innovate UK £362,964
Industry £362,050 EPSRC £125,185
European funding £1,316,197
£2,166,396 Recently, regenerated silk fibroin (RSF) has been used as a building block for the fabrication of biomedical devices. By building up layers of bilayers, silk nests can be produced and used for cell entrapment. The advantages of RIJ are not only the computer assisted design (CAD) that offers the precise delivery of pico-litres (1e-12 litre) of ink at predetermined locations and that allows the fabrication of complex 3D architectures but also the alternate delivery of different inks (through different print heads) that allows the control of reactions during manufacturing and manipulation of the compositions and the properties of the scaffolds. Therefore, the combination of RSF material and the RIJ technology provide a promising opportunity for fabricating better 3D scaffolds for future regenerative medicine. Read the full paper at: http://bit.ly/2b3cgJX
our top 5 research grants this quarter: Professor Marco Viceconti, Dr Shannon Li, Dr Alberto Marzo - A Centre of Excellence in Computational Biomedicine (CompBioMed) - £570,461 from Horizon 2020. Professor Rob Dwyer-Joyce - ATI Large Landing Gear of the Future - £362,964 from Innovate UK. Dr Lin Ma, Professor Mohamed Pourkashanian - SWIP Wind Tunnel Turbine Development and Demonstration - £258,881 from Horizon 2020. Dr Simon Blakey, Dr Eshan Alborzi - Fuel Deoxygenation - £244,004 from Horizon 2020. Professor Mohamed Pourkashanian - Reliable and Efficient Combustion of Oxygen / Coal / Recycled Flue Gas Mixtures - £242,851 from EC EP7
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f o d n e a r e n a We say it every year, but we really are sad to see our students leave at the end of their studies. This year, we hosted a photo booth at our graduation ceremony as a bit of fun before the students go off into the sensible world of work. Donned in silly hats and glasses, students, families and tutors got snapping to produce an album of a day they will never forget. The photo booth wasn’t the only highlight of the day. More than 20 students received awards, including ‘best student award’ with some students winning several! As always, we are very proud of our graduates this year, with 77% of them leaving us with a score of 2:1 and above. It was lovely to see all of their hard work finally paying off, not to mention so many proud parents and relatives being there to enjoy it with them.
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A new chapter. It’s a time of change in the Department right now; not only do we say goodbye to the familiar faces of our students graduating, and hello to a host of new ones, but we also say a temporary goodbye to the building in which our Department was born. As we spread ourselves across campus, we walked the empty halls with fond memories of the years we’ve spent in the Sir Frederick Mappin Building. At the end of our 99th year, this is the start of something new, something fresh and exciting. We are putting the heart back into Mappin and we can’t wait to share it with you when we move back in 2018. But what of the last 100 years? Those memories won’t be swept away with the dust and rubble as the Mappin we once knew morphs into the new Engineering Heartspace that we’ve been talking about for so long. We invite you, our staff, students, alumni and partners to share your memories and join us in celebrating our history, as well as our future, with a series of 100 events for 100 years (#Mech100) starting in January 2017. Yes, you read that right, we’ll be hosting an event
for every one of our 100 years. So everything we do over the next two years will be in celebration of our centenary. From our open days to outreach and research events. The events aren’t bound to Sheffield either, or even the UK - we are also asking alumni and students abroad to hold pop-up research events to promote their work, or hold networking events and reunions so if you’re reading this in another country and would like to hold an event, please get in touch! Two dates for your diary: 21st June 2017 - Centenary ball celebrating 100 years since the Department was formed.
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12th October 2017 - Centenary exhibition celebrating 100 years of research and discovery
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#Mech100 Over the next two years, we will be celebrating our centenary with an event for every one of our hundred years. If you’d be interested in hosting an event please get in touch: k.buck@sheffield.ac.uk
Putting the heart back in engineering: the Engineering Heartspace, coming September 2018.
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insigneo placement programme The Insigneo Institute for in silico Medicine is one of the largest research institutes in the world entirely focused on “in silico medicine”. Insigneo has this year launched its first placement scheme offering 2nd and 3rd year students the opportunity to work on a real life research project in the field of in silico Medicine. There is a small but growing jobs market in biomedical companies and in the broader “body industry” sector (all products that interact with the human body, such as sport apparels, law-enforcement vests, workplace ergonomics, vehicle safety, etc.) for engineers with good hands-on skills with in silico medicine technologies, which are used in the design and assessment of these products. Large research hospitals in the NHS and other top-class healthcare providers in the world are starting to recruit engineers with this skill-set, as the first in silico medicine technologies enter the clinical practice. The scheme was set up to give students a taste of what in silico medicine is all about. The students are trained to use one or more specific software tools required to fulfil data processing/modelling and assigned a particular task under the supervision of a Post-Doctoral Research Associate or a PhD student based in Insigneo, working to process the data necessary for Insigneo research projects. The placements last 443 hours, including 10 weeks full time during the summer; with 18 applicants and 13 successful students, this first round has been a huge success. We caught up with some of the students and supervisors to find out what the scheme means to them. Andre Castro is a post doc in the Department
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Gloria and her supervisor Sara discussing thei r research of Mechanical Engineering, he has supervised students before but says that these ones are different. “These students really want to learn new software and skills as well as gaining something for their CV. If my student continues to progress as he is, his work can be used in a research paper in the future.” Gloria Lin, a 2nd year student in Mechanical Engineering was one of the successful applicants. “I had never really had an interest in this field before; I applied because I didn’t know what research was about and I was interested to know more - it turned out to be fun! As a result of this scheme, I am now considering doing a PhD in the field of in silico Medicine at the end of my undergraduate course so this has really shaped my future. I’d definitely recommend the scheme to other students. I’ve received a lot of support from my supervisor and learnt a lot - not just on the technical side, but also how research is done.” Gloria has been supervised by Sara Oliviero, a PhD student based in Insigneo. Sara says, “As well as giving the students the opportunity to gain experience using new software, this has been a great experience for me, too. It’s given me very useful experience of supervising a student, as well as producing valuable results that would be very time consuming for me to obtain by myself.” For further information contact Lesley Statham l.statham@sheffield.ac.uk
MechEngNews
engineering researcher of the year Raman Maiti was nominated by the Department recently for the Engineering Researcher of the Year award organised by the Engineering Research Society (ERS) and the Faculty of Engineering for his outreach work, research outcomes, colleague support, supervision, teaching, grants and publications. Raman is a researcher in the Department of Mechanical Engineering who is heavily involved in outreach activities in the Faculty and recently developed a large scale friction experiment for use at our open days. A mini version of this saw Raman win the Faculty of Engineering Public Engagement competition last year where applicants pitched their ideas in front of a team of judges in a ‘Dragon’s Den’ style event. In June Raman was named Engineering Researcher of the year in the Faculty of Engineering event and walked away with a cash prize, trophy and certificate, Raman says, “The award gives you motivation for doing extra work on top of your research. It will be a great addition for job applications.” Congratulations Raman!
Mech Eng needs you! Our Industrial Advisory Committee are an essential panel of alumni or friends of the department currently working in industry who act as a critical friend to usefully inform Department strategy and operations in teaching and research. The group provide perspectives on current and future industry needs for Mechanical Engineering graduates, contribute to discussions on professional accreditation and act as ambassador for the Department, helping to raise the department’s profile and reputation within industry. We are currently refreshing the format and membership of the Committee and would like to invite expressions of interest from any alumni or friends of the department currently working in industry, and would particularly welcome those who have a role in graduate recruitment. If you are able to give up one or two days of your time per year, and have an interest in contributing to the future of the Department, please send a 2-page CV and covering letter to Anne Bradford at j.a.bradford@sheffield.ac.uk by 31st October 2016.
Send your stories and photos to Kat Buck at k.buck@sheffield.ac.uk
MechEngNews
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The Final Word. It’s been a whirlwind of a summer with many of our staff packing up their things and moving to their temporary new homes around the campus. Pierre Ricco holds the record for the most boxes moved (40) from an office, although he was praised by the removal team for his strategic packing. However the biggest challenge has been relocating some of our research laboratories - including a wind tunnel and an aeroplane wing! Overall the move couldn’t have gone so smoothly without the help and support of so many of our staff - there’s too many to mention here, but thank you to everyone who has helped to make this happen. It’s not all been about the move, though, our students have had some fantastic experiences in activities such as Formula Student and Railway Challenge. We always love to see how the things we’ve taught them translate into their extracurricular activities, and we always wait in anticipation to hear how they’ve all done. Congratulations to the Green Impact team who have once again secured our Bronze status within the Department and added a bit of colour to our offices with the addition of some new plants. Of course, we had to say goodbye to all of our final years in July, which is always with mixed emotions. But in letting go of one group, we welcome another with open arms and look forward to getting to know each of them over the coming year.
Neil Sims
Head of Department, Mechanical Engineering
This publication is produced using 100% recycled FSC certified paper
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