IMechE PE Issue 4 2022

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PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERING

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TIME TO TALK

A SPECIAL REPORT ON MENTAL HEALTH IN ENGINEERING Issue 4, 2022 • www.imeche.org

INSIDE

INSIDE A HELICOPTER FACTORY / MEET THE NEW IMECHE PRESIDENT SUPERCHARGE YOUR CAREER

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CONTENTS Issue 4, Volume 35. July/August 2022

3 From Birdcage Walk – IMechE deputy president Giles Hartill discusses the Institution’s new strategy

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The forces shaping engineering 5 The Institution’s popular Formula Student competition returns to Silverstone this year after a break caused by the pandemic 6 Ella Podmore introduces new materials at McLaren Automotive, where she’s in her dream job 9 Engineered by Nature: Julian Vincent finds inspiration for engineering innovation from a starfish 11 Big numbers reveal the biggest stories in engineering – and we look back at the history of the Institution’s summer meetings held during the 19th century 13 IMechE 175: Celebrating engineering innovators – Sir Herbert Nigel Gresley, inventor of the fastest steam locomotive 14 Your Voice – readers have their say on heat pumps, designing for safety, HS2 green credentials and tidal power

FEATURES

16 Testing times for choppers A visit to Leonardo Helicopters in Yeovil reveals the rigorous testing needed to develop these complex aircraft 22 Breaking point Levels of work-related stress among engineers surveyed are higher than two years ago – but there are also signs of hope

26 Wired for success Automating the manufacturing and assembly of wiring looms using robotics and additive technology gives greater design freedom 30 Powering up New IMechE president Phil Peel reveals his plans for the year ahead 48 The definitive guide to 3D printing Get the latest advice and information from leading companies 64 Weird Engineering Cargo drone is equipped with novel aerial propulsion system

INDUSTRY PULSE

The heartbeat of your sector 33 Battery technology is revamped to allow greener manufacturing 37 Innovative desalination unit is portable and uses little power 39 Advances in technology helped to deliver the Elizabeth line 41 Centre of excellence aims to create smarter factories in Wales 43 Bio-engineered bricks could help cut construction’s emissions 45 Engineers face challenges in developing hypersonic weapons 47 Tiny device transplants organelles between living cells

SUPERCHARGE

Your engineering career 57 Cornelius Mpesi brings water supplies to villages in Malawi 61 The skills that manufacturing engineers will need in the future 62 Job prospects of a 41-year-old on returning to work in the UK after 17 years of employment abroad Professional Engineering • www.imeche.org

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Birdcage Walk

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Professional Engineering is published

by Think on behalf of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

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FROM BIRDCAGE WALK

IMechE deputy president and strategy committee chair Giles Hartill discusses the Institution’s new strategy

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ABOUT IMECHE The Institution of Mechanical Engineers is the professional body overseeing the qualification and development of mechanical engineers. It has 115,000 members in 140 countries. Visit imeche.org for more information about membership and its benefits, or email membership@imeche. org.uk. Views expressed in Professional Engineering are not necessarily those of the Institution or its publishers.

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I was recently talking to one of my best friends about what I do for the Institution.

I explained we’re a charitable organisation that supports and registers professional engineers with the Engineering Council and we promote engineering and innovation.

My friend, being a lawyer, understood the registering professional engineers element easily enough; but then he asked “but what do you do as a charity?”. This is such a simple question, but one that I think we have collectively struggled to define well enough over the years, and this has been an important part of what the Institution’s strategy committee has been exploring since its inception back in February 2021.

The committee was set up following the Institution’s 2019 governance review which highlighted that having a clear strategy is core to any organisation’s success. The Institution must be able to develop its strategy and articulate it to all members, staff and external stakeholders if it is to stay effective in a world that is seeing the pace of change accelerate.

Since taking over as chair of the committee in May 2021 it has been an honour to work in close partnership with such an amazing team of trustees, members and staff to establish both a strategy development process and the strategic content. We have collected and analysed information from a wide range of sources to understand factors that will influence our future and formulated this into a highlevel strategy that was presented to the trustee board and council last autumn.

Since then, we have set up working groups to develop the more detailed and prioritised strategic objectives, to feed into future business plans, enabling us all to work together to achieve common goals.

Our mission is “Improving the world through engineering” and our vision is “To

be a world-leading, global and inclusive engineering membership organisation”. We aim to achieve our vision by focusing on two strategic goals:

n Developing, representing and supporting all engineers and technicians to be their best for a more inclusive and sustainable world; n Maximising the impact of our members to promote engineering, inform opinion and stimulate innovation for the benefit of society.

These goals are underpinned by our four values – integrity, impact, innovation and inclusion.

But what does this mean in practice? We aspire to be the global engineering standard for accreditation and qualifications, building a thriving international community of engineers and technicians, engaging through events, and deliver more relevant, personalised digital services to all members. We will do this by building an inclusive network of partnerships to promote engineering as a career, shape the public and engineering debate on our policy priority areas: climate change and sustainability, future transport, infectious disease control, and education and skills.

Why do we seek to do this? As a charity, our aim is to support engineers and technicians who can contribute to solving the huge global challenges we face.

Our members have contributed to some of the most outstanding developments in mechanical engineering. Our aim is to ensure this continues. n For more information, look on the About section of our website or email us at strategy@imeche.org Professional Engineering • www.imeche.org

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T HE F ORC E S SHAPING ENGINEERING

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FORMULA STUDENT RETURNS

The Institution’s biggest educational event returns to Silverstone in July ART

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With Covid restrictions lifted, spectators will be back in full force at Silverstone for Formula Student, which will take place at the famed circuit across the weekend of 9-10 July. For the first time in two years, more than 130 teams from over 30 countries will have the chance to showcase the results of their hard work in formal presentations and dynamic events at the home of British motorsport.

The longest running of the IMechE’s student events, the annual Formula Student competition challenges university students to design, manufacture and run a singleseater race car. With thousands of students participating each year, it is a kitemark for real-world engineering experience, combining practical work with soft skills including business planning, teamwork and project management, helping to prepare a

new generation of talent to enter the workplace.

Most notable for 2022 is the large number of electric vehicles taking part, with nearly half the teams so far having submitted vehicles in this category. This includes many teams that have fielded strong petrol combustion vehicles for many years and will be debuting their first electric vehicles, such as the University of Birmingham, University of Southampton, Heriot-Watt University, Queen’s University Belfast and University of Liverpool. This emulates the trends seen in industry.

Similarly, the competition’s FS-AI event has grown in step with the increasing demand in industry to meet level 5 vehicle autonomy, with 15 teams from around the

world taking part this year. Using either the competition’s ADS-DV vehicle or their own scratch-built cars, teams must develop autonomous driving systems to undertake several real-world driving scenarios for an AI driver to complete, covering track drive, acceleration and skid-pad track events.

There are always plenty of stories to watch unfold over the course of the competition. Last year’s winners from the University of Sheffield are quietly confident that their latest combustion car will be able to stave off the challengers. There are also honours up for grabs in the electric competition, with the title holders from the University of Nottingham facing a tough group of rivals as they adapt to a new powertrain type.

n It’s not too late to plan to attend. Book tickets online at silverstone.co.uk/events/ formula-student, or follow all the action on the Formula Student YouTube channel.

We’ll have all the results in the next issue of Professional Engineering.

Professional Engineering • www.imeche.org

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WHAT I’ VE LEARNED

ELLA PODMORE

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Fault analysis engineer at McLaren Automotive, her dream job, where she is introducing new materials

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The signs were there from a young age that my future lay in engineering within the automotive industry. My dad was a tinkerer who was always taking stuff apart and encouraging my two brothers and I to ask questions about the various components and how to put them back together again. He was extremely passionate about cars, and we all couldn’t help but inherit this passion from him too. Combining this love of engineering with my love of chemistry, I decided to study a masters in materials engineering at the University of Manchester.

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One of the key reasons I was particularly drawn to this course was its 12-month industry placement during the third year.

When applying for this placement, I initially approached traditional materials companies. Then one day I looked up from my desk at the poster above my bed of a McLaren P1 – my favourite car ever – and thought, why not approach McLaren Automotive for a placement? And so I did.

There wasn’t a specific opening for a materials engineer but I took a chance and wrote a letter detailing my knowledge of materials and passion for supercars. Five months later I was invited for an interview and was subsequently offered a placement.

Joining McLaren as an intern engineer in 2016 I spent 12 months solving materials-related problems. This experience also inspired an exciting thesis topic around body-panel

corrosion, a keen issue for all automotive companies. If I solved this problem during my thesis I asked whether they’d offer me job security upon completion of my degree. They agreed. Needless to say it was a fraught few months while I wrote it.

But hard work pays off. Having graduated, I joined McLaren as a materials engineer and had a materials engineering department created just for me. That was in September 2018 and I’m still implementing the learnings from my thesis into the work I do today.

It was daunting stepping into McLaren as a materials engineer in a brand-new department. I felt like I really had to prove myself, and even more so being a woman. The automotive industry is still predominantly male dominated, and often I was the only woman in the room. It was tough at the start and I thought that to succeed I needed to become a more aggressive, non-emotional and ruthless version of myself. But people soon saw straight through that facade and I learned that I didn’t have to mould to a stereotype and change who I was.

During that time my confidence was also boosted by placing trust in the science. Here I was, this young woman fresh out of university, telling people who have been doing the same thing for many years to now all of a sudden change the materials they were using. But you can’t argue with the science. I made sure that I had the data to

‘Hard work pays off. Having graduated, I joined McLaren as a materials engineer and had a materials engineering department created just for me’

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prove why certain materials would be a smarter choice. I soon gained their trust.

Winning the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s Young Woman Engineer of the Year Award in 2020 suddenly thrust me into the media. After I was announced the winner I had countless interviews, starting with BBC Radio Surrey at 6am the very next morning. But I love using this platform as an opportunity to get into a young girl’s head, or boy’s, that engineering is an exciting career. As a STEM ambassador for McLaren I also give a lot of talks at schools and I’m increasingly involved in other media activities around STEM, such as being one of McLaren’s judges on the BBC Blue Peter Supercar of the Future children’s design competition.

While I do believe role models are important I always tell young people that they do not need to wait for someone who looks like them before they decide to follow a certain role. If that was the case I would never have started working at McLaren. If there is a company you want to work for, take a chance and reach out.

What do you have to lose?

Over the past five years working in the automotive industry I’ve noticed that things are changing for the better in terms of diversity.

Products are also getting more diverse.

Take electrification, for instance, which requires bringing in different talents above and beyond those more traditional roles.

Companies need to diversify their workforce and it’s very exciting to see that change happening. I’m here for it.

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RIDE THE STAR CONVEYOR Julian Vincent finds inspiration for mechanical innovation in a rock pool ENGINEERED BY NATURE

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Because there is no all-embracing basic theory of biology in the way that there is with chemistry and physics, biologists have to watch carefully and observe. It’s not just the watching; it’s allowing the observations to generate patterns.

Our brains are specialised to extract patterns from what we see, hear and feel, and use those patterns to predict what might happen next. It’s probably why so many people like Agatha Christie novels, crosswords, poker or music. They allow us to play with pattern and prediction in a safe environment (except for poker. . .) and so hone our skills in an important part of our survival strategy – who or what will attack next, and from what direction? When should I plant the oats/barley/root crops?

The incoming information is compressed, generalised, and feeds analogies. The analogies feed our experience and skills. They are our education.

Biologists should be good at analogies.

They have trained themselves to observe a complex world in need of simplification in the cause of understanding. I’m a biologist.

I love solving problems. I also have some skills in engineering. My analogies roam everywhere, especially on the seashore.

Rock pools are a marvellous incubator for invention.

where the arms meet. Now drop a tiny stone, or the ex-winkle’s shell, onto the tube feet and they reject it, casting it to one side. Can the tube feet distinguish between food and shell dropped next to each other?

Embedded sensors

These and other observations suggest the concept of a two-dimensional conveyor.

With embedded sensors this could be used to sort, dismantle or assemble objects. The surface of the conveyor could be made of starfish-like tube feet using composite hydrogels (but possible only under water and a bit slow); or cylindrical rollers as used in airports for loading cargo into the holds of aircraft; or spherical rollers like computer trackballs; or segments of carpet with the nap pointing in different directions (four segments in a unit with the nap mutually orthogonal – vibrating the segments in different patterns to make an object move in the desired direction).

The objects have to be labelled – RFID possibly. Or sorted by weight. Sensors embedded in the conveyor units respond individually under computer control.

It’s a Sorting, Transporting And Reconfigurable (STAR) conveyor.

The STAR conveyor takes up much less space than an array of unidirectional conveyors and is far more adaptable.

Adding an extra sorting stream requires an extra conveyor belt in a unidirectional system, but needs only a change to the sorting and directions of transport across the STAR conveyor – which can be done very quickly from the computer control and requires no extra information. The items to be sorted know where they have to go.

When you’re down on the beach this summer, turn a starfish over in a rock pool and you’ll see lots of feet waving around

Star performer

Let’s take a starfish as an example. Like its close relatives, sea urchins, it has a bony shell-like skin through which poke large numbers of hydraulic tube feet. When you’re down on the beach this summer, turn a starfish over in a rock pool and you’ll see lots of these feet, several millimetres long, waving around, apparently aimless.

If you leave the starfish long enough, it will curve the tip of one arm around so that its tube feet can attach to the underlying rock of the pool, and pull itself back to its normal position. But try dropping a small piece of food (a winkle taken out of its shell, for instance) onto the tube feet, and you’ll see them convey the food to the mouth, which is in the middle of the area Professional Engineering • www.imeche.org

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THE NEWS IN NUMBERS The biggest stories in engineering in numbers

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passengers travelled on the Elizabeth line in its first week of operation. The Crossrail project finally opened in May after years of delay

Scottish cities are introducing low-emission zones to improve air quality – Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee

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long machine is being used to build UK’s longest railway bridge as part of HS2. The 700-tonne machine will inch forward as the two-mile bridge is built

£40m

government competition will kick-start commercial self-driving services and target self-driving buses, delivery vans and pods

UK households could face blackouts and energy rationing this winter, in worst-case scenario plans drawn up by Whitehall officials

$3.99

cost of having your Walmart shopping delivered by drone, as the retail giant trials the programme in 37 stores across the US

£28

cost of a hand-spun washing machine developed by Bristol engineering students, which could save millions of people 20 hours a week

-40.5%

UK aerospace manufacturing output compared to February 2020, but orders are starting to pick up, with the best April for new orders since 2018

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UK companies with more than 3,300 workers are trialling a four-day week until the end of 2022

FROM THE ARCHIVE: SUMMER MEE TING PROGRAMMES The founding rules of the Institution stated that there should be three ordinary meetings and one general meeting each year.

Initially all four meetings were held in Birmingham. In 1851 the first meeting away from Birmingham was held in London to coincide with the Great Exhibition.

From the mid-1850s the decision was made to regularly hold the summer meeting away from Birmingham and the first was held in Glasgow in 1856. The first overseas summer event was in Paris in 1867.

The summer meeting allowed attendees the opportunity to visit a town or city to discover more about the local industry. The summer meeting would take place over a week. A detailed programme of talks, works visits and excursions would be put together and an Institution dinner was held on the first evening.

In 1897 the Jubilee summer meeting (marking 50 years since the foundation of the Institution) was held in Birmingham. The programme listed 27 companies in the city that were open to visits by members.

l The programme for that meeting, along with a selection of other summer meeting programmes, have recently been digitised and added to our online Virtual Archive: https://archives.imeche. org/archive/institution-history/ summer-meetings

Professional Engineering • www.imeche.org

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Sir Herbert Nigel Gresley CBE

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Inventor of the fastest-ever steam locomotive and 51st president of the IMechE

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On the morning of 3 July 1938, most of the Mallard 4468 crew had no idea they were about to make history.

According to the National Railway Museum, which now houses the locomotive, it was not until the train was about to leave Wood Green in north London that the technical team was told what driver Joe Duddington and fireman Thomas Bray already knew – that the purpose of the journey was to set the British speed record for steam locomotives.

Not even Duddington and Bray knew that a world record would still be standing 84 years later, and was likely to stand forever.

The attempt had been authorised

by Sir Herbert Nigel Gresley, designer of the Mallard and other pioneering locomotives. Born in Edinburgh in 1876 and educated at Marlborough College, Gresley’s career in rail started with an apprenticeship at the Crewe works of the London and North Western Railway.

He joined the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway in 1898 and was put in charge of the test room following an apprenticeship. After becoming manager of the Newton Heath Carriage Works in 1902, he moved to the Great Northern Railway, where he became locomotive engineer at Doncaster in 1911, a role that was renamed chief mechanical engineer. With the grouping of rail companies in 1923, Gresley became chief mechanical engineer of the newly formed London and North Eastern Railway (LNER).

Innovative designs

The journey to the world speed record started in 1912, when Gresley’s first original locomotive design – a two-cylinder 2-6-0 engine – was built. Ten years later he completed the first of the famous threecylinder 4-6-2 Pacific engines, many of

making the 232-mile journey from London to Darlington in three hours and 18 minutes.

Three years later, the Silver Link was followed by the Mallard, another A4 class. “Its innovative streamlined wedge-shaped design bore no resemblance to the preceding A3 class (of which Flying Scotsman was an example) and was very much a product of 1930s Britain,” according to the National Railway Museum. “At this time speed was seen as the ultimate symbol of modernity.”

The streamlined 4-6-2 engine clinched the world record as it raced down Stoke Bank, south of Grantham in Lincolnshire.

The crew maintained a speed of 120mph for five miles, with a short burst to 126mph that secured the locomotive’s place in the history books.

Locomotive legacy

which were built by the LNER in Darlington and Doncaster. These were regularly improved with modifications such as increased boiler pressures.

In 1925 he introduced the Mikado, a 2-82 locomotive for heavy freight traffic. That design was adapted nine years later for the Cock o’ the North, a larger wheeled engine for heavy express work.

In 1935, the Silver Link locomotive was built and entered service on the first completely streamlined train in the UK,

He received a knighthood in 1937 and also served on several government committees, including on automatic train control and the electrification of railways

The establishment of a locomotive testing station in Rugby was another major achievement for Gresley. “He had long believed this to be of great importance to locomotive engineering in the country,” according to the IMechE archive. Work commenced in 1937, but was postponed by the outbreak of war – unfortunately, Gresley did not live to see its completion.

His efforts during the First World War, to reorganise the Doncaster works for the production of munitions, were rewarded with a CBE in 1920. He received a knighthood in 1937 and also served on several government committees, including on automatic train control and the electrification of railways. He was made president of the IMechE in 1935, and was twice president of the Institution of Locomotive Engineers. He died in 1941 at the age of 65.

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YOUR VOICE

We want to hear from you. Get in touch by email at profeng@thinkpublishing.co.uk or tweet us @ProfEng

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Build a robust supply chain

Cut speed to lower emissions

Whilst it’s great to see heat getting a mention in the magazine, it is after all 40% of our carbon footprint and needs much more attention (“Is the UK’s heat pump goal just hot air?” Professional Engineering No 2, 2022).

There is a UK heat-pump manufacturing base, and we are driving innovation.

Our innovation focus at Clade is on the integration of heat pumps with the wider energy system via smart connections and grid flexibility. Achieving the highest efficiency, at the lowest cost of energy, is of the highest importance. Innovation in data and continuous improvement engineering will enable us to succeed.

Heat pumps and their sister technology refrigerators have been with us for a long time and “new” types are rare. The hightemperature heat pump mentioned in your article is a CO2 heat pump. This is not new; the use of CO2 as a refrigerant dates from 1850. The optimisation of CO2 for heat pumps and the engineering to contain the higher pressures and temperatures is coming over from refrigeration, led by companies like Clade.

The biggest issue affecting the sector is the supply of materials and component parts. Not only are there raw material and semiconductor shortages but the global

It is good that HS2 has set out its plan to achieve “net zero”, but I cannot help thinking that they have missed a trick to reduce its carbon footprint further by operating at 200km/h instead of the 360km/h it is being built for.

It is estimated that the traction power requirement to run each HS2 train at 360km/h is a little over 13MW, whereas the typical power requirement to run at 200km/h is 6MW. That is a saving of over 50% in traction power per train.

There is no reason why HS2 cannot operate at 200km/h, which is the speed most other mainline services run. The current restriction on improved journey times is one of capacity of the railway network. The new dedicated railway will create considerably more capacity and will enable trains to run unimpeded by slow running, stopping or commuter trains.

Even at 200km/h, a new dedicated railway will enable any train to run at significantly improved journey times, competitive against air and road travel.

The Oakervee Review of HS2 does conclude that “the primary need is for capacity; speed, although an important factor in economic benefits, should not be in and of itself the primary driver of decision making”. That said, no one to my

heat-pump market is expanding at an exponential rate.

The UK government’s expectation is that cost reductions will come about in a similar manner to the cost reduction of solar photovoltaics, but this is different.

Refrigeration, chill and air-conditioning share the same well-established supply chain which has already been subject to value engineering and competitive pricing for many decades.

The UK’s policy focus should shift from price reduction to building a robust supply chain that can deliver 40% of the country’s carbon reduction commitment using existing and scaleable technology.

We welcome the £30m recently announced to support heat-pump manufacturing and supply chain and hope it is the start of this transition.

Tim Rook, Chief Markets Officer, Clade, Bristol

STAR LE T TER

Celebrate engineering’s long history A recent article is headed “Sir Charles Parsons, inventor of the steam turbine” (Forward Thinkers, Professional Engineering No 2, 2022). A more appropriate title would be “perfector of the steam turbine”.

A sketch showing the concept of a reaction steam turbine (the type Parsons produced) was made by the Greek Hero of Alexandria in 200 BC. In 1629, Giovanni Branca published a gazette of machinery and among the items he depicted was the first description of what is now known as an impulse steam turbine.

Of course, at the time, the technology to produce either invention did not exist.

Parsons was able to use his engineering background and evolved technology to perfect the ideas that had existed for many hundreds of years.

Dr Terry Noble, Deeping St James, Lincolnshire

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‘No doubt it is a magnificent feat of manufacture but it seems to me wrong for the regulator, in any field, to specify the exact design of a safety feature’ knowledge has ever questioned the speed at which HS2 will operate.

With the need to reduce emissions, surely it is now time to ask that question?

Rob Tidbury, Bristol

Time to turn the tide I have long wondered why the UK has not developed tidal power systems. While solar and wind power have long been undermined by the sceptics as unreliable, depending on lack of cloud cover and the wind blowing, as they do, tidal power only depends on the moon continuing to orbit the earth; not likely to stop and completely predictable.

A significant challenge is corrosionresistant material selection, but if only the drive systems were submerged and carbon-fibre technology and phosphor bronze used where necessary this would be less of a problem. Turbines could be housed above water level.

Why could we not make use of the foundations and tower being designed and installed for offshore wind turbines, albeit that these would need to be adapted to a dual role for wind and tidal power? There must be economies to be had in combining the two foundations, superstructure, seabed cables, onshore switchgear, construction costs, distribution, to say nothing of the more efficient and continual use of the installed assets.

Peter Ingamells

Ditch the barrage for a barge It seems to me that the two major problems with a tidal barrage are: (1) that the vast majority of the infrastructure (the barrage) is not used to generate power, but to give a head of water for the turbines; and (2) that the barrage is the source of most of the problems (such as massive environmental damage).

Get rid of the barrage and you get rid of the vast amount of the problems, as well as a huge amount of cost (both financial and carbon, from the cement used and

MACHINING IN F1 EXCELLENCE

ent ort safety equipm reports piece of motorsp A life-saving Austin-Morgan to make. Tom is challenging MANUFAC TURING

Innovating for safety

some high-profile There have been 1 in the past 12 incidents in Formula reminded fans and have months or so that is still dangerous, drivers that motorsport measures. safety despite increasing French driver In November 2020, fiery crash that he had a Romain Grosjean from relatively was lucky to escape 2021, rivals Max unscathed. In September collided, Lewis Hamilton Verstappen and skidded driver’s rear wheel and the Dutch helmet. across the Briton’s for the precision If it hadn’t been g and testing of aped engineering, manufacturin device, a wishbone-shof the halo safety fitted to the chassis structure that is cars, these incidents racing open-wheel not fatal. life-changing, if fans could have been controversy with it The halo caused Grosjean – when including – and and drivers Fans called it “ugly” was introduced. they couldn’t identify complained that their helmets. obscured it bed drivers because from his hospital In a video message his Grosjean retracted the after his crash, for halo: “I wasn’t opposition to the it’s the ago, but I think halo some years Formula we brought to to greatest thing that speak to be able 1. Without it I wouldn’t you today.”

protection titanium driver was lucky to Above: SSTT’s Romain Grosjean crash in 2020 system. Left: this horrifying escape from

machining a billet, The reason for sourcing pre-made rather than simply titanium drawn tube 5 tubing, is that grade the lead and source within is hard to make Also, the FIA’s times required. are exacting, and dimensional tolerances drawn been met with unlikely to have have allowed SSTT to tube. Machining of the halo’s dimensions. better control chassis mounts to the Where the halo of head and in front that behind the driver’s there are fittings the steering wheel, from grade 5 titanium are also machined halo and bolted and the and welded onto teams. chassis by the doweled into the tolerances were FIA, at the project at the Henry added: “The the mounting up heading was between Prix that year.” extremely tight a weight the British Grand there was also with SSTT’s points, ±0.1mm, The FIA was impressed2017 approved and, obviously, that was critical in August and tolerance diameter Italy’s capabilities inside/outside CP Autosport and It tolerances on the SSTT, Germany’s was quite a challenge. halos for F1, Formula of the tubes. That V System to produce step to hit those their next E for the start of took a final machining 2 and Formula in March 2018. tolerances.” championships the design of the The FIA stipulates it is made from materials Tricky to bend said that halo, from the 5) to the is tolerances, Henry Halo trio Ti6Al4V grade were Aside from the Technology (SSTT) s (titanium alloy and the tube bending UK-based SS Tube of the device (13.5kg that manufacture the timeframes 5 titanium overall weight and because grade one of three companies device. as set dimensions also challenging, ±0.1kg), as well of four low ductility and the halo head protection halo is made up has high strength, motorsport’s tolerances. “The back.

Upon hearing that intended to ,” Henry explained. there’s exhibits spring as the FIA components slowly, the key is body very governing t cars in pylon, which ” “It has to be bent onto open-cockpi ahead “There’s the central to bend it successfully, at introduce halos to the monocoque a strain rate factor the V-transition is engineering director part that mounts that 2017, Nick Henry, then FIA the V-transition he continued. “Also, expensive Charlie Whiting, of the driver, then pylon to the main machine. It’s an SSTT, emailed complicated to you don’t delegate, and connects the central are gun drilled and to start with so director and safety billets lump of titanium and what his company hoop. Then two It takes 30 to 40 each bent introduced himself tubes, which are want to get it wrong. each part.” the machined into for could do. together to create hours of machining quicker than I to 90° and welded “He replied much to get said. “We managed who 180° main hoop.” thought,” Henry Mellor, him and Andy a meeting with

the halo some ‘I wasn’t for I think it’s the years ago, but that we greatest thing 1’ brought to Formula

I read with interest the article on the Halo safety feature on Formula One cars (Industry Pulse, Professional Engineering No 1, 2022). No doubt it is a magnificent feat of manufacture but it seems to me wrong for the regulator, in any field, to specify the exact design of a safety feature.

Surely it is the job of the regulator to specify the area to be protected and the minimum strength and impact resistance together with requirements related to performance, such as basic dimensions and limits on minimum weight and maximum restriction of forward field of view. This would allow designers the freedom to meet these requirements in any way they chose.

The Halo is only as strong as the structure to which it is attached so, following the same logic, the design of the car structure down to the base of the driver’s seat would need to be defined by the regulator in similar minute detail.

I can imagine that some of the less well-financed teams may prefer to make a less costly steel-tube version with equal strength and accept the weight penalty in order to spend the money on other features of the car or the team.

A good example is motorcycle helmets where the regulator specifies the level of protection required and innovation has produced numerous designs, all of which comply with the laid-down requirements.

John Hardaker, Skipton, North Yorkshire 36

org • Professional

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the transport of the rock). With modern electronics, we can operate at much lower generator speeds and so no longer require such high heads of water to produce the power (otherwise wind turbines wouldn’t be viable).

An average wind speed of 7m/s is regarded as excellent for wind turbines, or about 12 knots. There are many places where tidal streams are 4-5 knots daily, or 2.5-3 times less. With power the square of speed, that is 6-9 times less power at 4-5 knots than at 12 knots. However, water is 800 times denser, and the size of the tidal turbine would need to be about 100 times smaller in area, or 10 times smaller

‘The problem with tidal turbines has been difficulty of maintenance, but mounting them on barges would allow them to be towed to port for servicing’

in diameter. In 2020 the average installed diameter of wind turbines was 125m, so a 12.5m-diameter tidal turbine in 4-5 knots of tide should produce about the same power (given the density of water, it might be possible to have more blades to capture more power for the swept area).

A couple of such turbines mounted underneath a barge (could double as a lightship) moored on the edge of the channel in the Solent, Bristol Channel, off south-west Wales, Anglesey and dotted around Scotland would provide continuous power as the tide sloshes around the UK. Mounting turbines under the outer arches of some of the London bridges might work too (river traffic could be limited to the central arches).

The problem with tidal turbines has been the difficulty of maintenance, but mounting them on barges would allow them to be towed to port for servicing.

Charles Armitage Professional Engineering • www.imeche.org

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TANYA WEAVER VISITS LEONARDO HELICOPTERS TO HEAR ABOUT THE RIGOROUS TESTING NEEDED TO DEVELOP THESE COMPLEX AIRCRAFT

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atch a helicopter take off vertically and then marvel at its ability to hover for ages before it flies forwards, backwards and sideways, and often in really inhospitable environments.

Considering what they are capable of, there is little doubt that rotorcraft are extremely complex machines to develop.

Mike Overd, chief engineer for military aircraft UK at Leonardo Helicopters, explains: “Helicopters are subject to so many forces and aerodynamic effects. Take one of these, a phenomenon known as pitch up. As the aircraft moves from the hover into forward flight, the wake from the main rotor hits the horizontal tail. At quite a narrow speed range this suddenly causes the nose of the helicopter to pitch up.

“It can happen almost without warning, which adds stress on the pilots, and so we have to come up with aerodynamic solutions to prevent that.”

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Referring to itself as the home of British helicopters, Leonardo Helicopters UK has a history that dates back more than 105 years. During this time, and as a result of several mergers, its name has changed from Westland Helicopters to AgustaWestland and most recently to Leonardo Helicopters in 2016 when it merged with the Italianowned Leonardo Group, which specialises in aerospace, defence and security.

As helicopters are such complex machines, there is obviously an awful lot that goes into their design, development and manufacture, and Leonardo offers this full end-to-end capability at its UK headquarters in Yeovil, Somerset. Across 220 acres this vast site provides all the skills, technologies and facilities to enable a helicopter to progress from an initial idea through to the finished machine, which then takes off from the runway and is delivered to the customer. The worldwide fleet is also supported from this site, which

also houses training facilities for customers and crews.

Leonardo’s helicopters are deployed in more than 150 countries for a range of missions, from defence to emergency and rescue. The company is also one of the biggest suppliers of equipment to the UK Ministry of Defence.

Indeed, Leonardo has recently put forward its latest multi-role military helicopter, AW149, for the MOD’s New Medium Helicopter requirement, which will see the replacement of the RAF’s Puma fleet as well as other helicopter types.

If Leonardo is successful in this bid, it has an established supply chain and will

‘I’ve worked in rotorcraft all my life but the thing with helicopters is that there’s always a new product, a new challenge and something that you’ve never seen before’

Leonardo, 1 Opposite: Leonardo AW101 search-and-rescue aircraft in use in Norway. Below: Leonardo offers a variety of apprenticeships – covering hardware and software engineering, business and cyber security – lasting from two to four years

install an additional final assembly line for the platform in Yeovil. The platform is currently assembled in Vergiate, Italy.

Development takes skill According to independent reviews audited by the likes of Newton Europe, there are 85-89 separate engineering skills needed to design and develop a rotorcraft. But surely some of these skills are present in the development of fixed-wing aircraft?

According to Overd, there are fewer transferable skills than you might think.

“Take engine integration, for example,” he says. “The simple answer to why engine integration is unique in a helicopter compared to a fixed wing is how many fixed-wing aircraft do you know that can fly backwards? Flying backwards creates a back pressure up the exhaust pipe that can lead to compressor stall.

“Not only that, the location of the engine, which is mounted above

the fuselage, causes challenges in the management of these very hot gases that are stalled when the aircraft is in sideways flight and held against the side of the aircraft. So everything on a helicopter is more difficult.”

The extent of these challenges is something Overd has a great deal of experience in. Having joined Leonardo (or Westland Helicopters as it was known at that time) as an undergraduate as part of his degree course at Brunel University, this will be his 40th year at the company. “I’ve worked in rotorcraft for all my working life but the thing with helicopters is that there’s always a new product, a new technical challenge and something that you’ve never seen before,” he says.

The challenges also extend beyond flight physics and aerodynamics to those around the structural integrity of components, not least of all because rotorcraft have to withstand high-frequency

loads and some pretty extreme climatic and environmental conditions. These can range from flying in sub-zero temperatures, strong winds and over rough seas through to scorching temperatures in a desert where sand can cause difficulties not only in terms of erosion but in how it makes its way into the avionics.

Test, test and test again Faced with all these challenges, key to the design and development process is testing.

This testing takes a variety of forms and is done throughout the process. In the initial digital design phase, testing is carried out using aerodynamic and analysis tools to simulate and predict how components and aspects of the rotorcraft will behave.

Overd says: “While we use some vendor-supplied tools like Abacus nonlinear finite element analysis software, we’ve also developed our own in-house analytical tools, which are core to our Professional Engineering • www.imeche.org

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Leonardo employees are 80% more productive than the UK average. Right: Leonardo has the full range of facilities needed to develop and test rotarywing aircraft. Below right: The company’s training academy delivers courses dedicated to military products

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intellectual property and help give us a competitive advantage.”

These aerodynamic models are then prototyped and further tested in the on-site wind tunnel, which is capable of carrying out 1/7th-scale testing.

Another testing capability used as part of the development process is Leonardo’s impressive on-site simulation facility, which consists of several simulator cells. These perform three key roles: use in research and development, as an engineering tool within the main helicopter programmes, and for training customers and crews.

Cockpit simulation

One of these simulator cells is currently configured as an AW101 Merlin Mark 4, which is being used to train aircrew. It consists of a high-fidelity, ergonomic representation of the cockpit with a projection system that inserts the cockpit into a realistic environment with representative force feedback provided through the controls.

Edward Goddard, head of mission management systems at Leonardo, says: “Our aim is for aircrew to step out of a Merlin on the runway and into our simulator and not question that it’s the same aircraft. Just a few weeks ago, we had

‘We set up rigs together with data acquisition systems and then apply specific sets of loads to a component. This helps us understand the life of that component...’ our test pilots in here flying the Merlins onto the Royal Navy’s aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, which is the first time that’s happened in the UK.” Overd adds: “The simulation is able to predict the complex environment on a ship that is caused by wind blowing over it, known as the air wake. The aircrew flying the simulator are then able to determine how difficult it is to land on these ship types during certain wind and sea conditions. It’s a true flight-physics simulation of that problem.”

The second simulator cell is set up as an AW159 Wildcat configuration. Although it is now being used for aircrew training, it was also extensively used during the early stages of the aircraft’s development, in the design of all the display human-machine interfaces (HMIs).

Goddard says: “We’ve had engineers, the customer and crews sat in this simulator providing feedback on the various interfaces and symbols that

make the mission system come to life. It was an iterative approach to ensure we provided a really high-quality HMI that enables crew to make operation decisions quickly and effectively.” This simulation capability provides vast benefits as part of the development process. The vision, as Goddard says, is to further expand the use of these synthetic environments to the point where they can be used for trials evaluations, and so reducing the amount of real-world trials needed.

Prediction v reality

From a synthetic environment we go into the physical, hands-on environment of the Structural Test Laboratory. This large facility is dedicated to the structural testing of various aircraft components, which is crucial in the development of helicopters owing to the enormous loads they are subjected to.

Matt Goodwin, chief structural test engineer at Leonardo, explains: “In our lab we set up rigs together with the design of data acquisition systems and then apply specific sets of loads to a component.

This helps us understand the life of that component under different flight loads.

“The aim is to catch a failure early before we get complete failure of the Professional Engineering • www.imeche.org

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component. And while tools are good the reality is that we still get failures that were not predicted or expected. But also we want to get failures to make sure that the prediction models are correct.”

The rigs can be pretty substantial.

One that has been running in the lab for a number of years weighs 30 tonnes and the component it is testing weighs just 28kg. “It’s a complicated test because we’re applying many tonnes of load to the component in three directions as well as twisting and bending it,” says Goodwin.

For Overd, this department truly highlights the benefit of having an end-toend capability on site that allows for very short lines of communication between the manufacture of the part and the team designing that part. “Due to the challenges faced in making practical solutions to the rotary problem, having this iterative development loop that enables changes and further testing is crucial,” he says.

Once the aircraft is built, testing

‘We are committed to exploring hybrid power.

It will provide many opportunities, for instance the move towards more multi-rotor configurations’

Top: Leonardo’s academy offers a wide range of training. Inset: The AW149 multi-role craft is the company’s proposal for the UK’s new medium-size military helicopter

continues, as additional problems may only arise in flight. As part of the test campaign, the aircraft is covered in strain gauges and other sensors and, while the test pilots are in the air, engineers in the telemetry ground station are monitoring the aircraft.

Overd says: “We have a big team of very experienced test pilots that are linked to our development engineers. This physical flight testing will confirm whether all our analysis does indeed correlate with the actual measured behaviour. Hopefully it does but if not then, again, we’ve got that iterative loop between testing and modelling that enables us to close that gap.”

Leonardo has recently been on a recruitment drive, expanding its team of engineers from 470 to 515. The reason for this, according to Overd, is the confidence the group has in the future of the Yeovil capability. This future capability will not

only involve developing rotorcraft that can travel further and carry heavier loads but will also involve further investigation into remotely-piloted and autonomous/semiautonomous systems as well as the use of hybrid electric power plants.

Hybrids on the horizon

“At Leonardo we are committed to exploring hybrid power. It will provide many opportunities, for instance the move towards more multi-rotor configurations.

But there are challenges that come with it, including how to distribute power and how to control the electric motors,” he says.

With the Leonardo Group looking to Yeovil to take a lead on hybrid power, this is no small endeavour. It will require much exploration and research because, as Overd makes apparent, everything on a helicopter is that bit more difficult.

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TWO YEARS AFTER AN EYE-OPENING SURVEY REVEALED HIGH LEVELS OF WORK-RELATED STRESS AMONG ENGINEERS, WE REACHED OUT TO READERS TO FIND OUT HOW THINGS HAVE CHANGED. THE RESPONSES REVEAL A WORRYING TRAJECTORY – BUT ALSO HOPE FROM AN UNLIKELY SOURCE. BY JOSEPH FLAIG

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“We just put our heads down and carry on until we feel broken.” That was

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the damning assessment of workplace stress offered by project engineering manager Matthew, in a Professional Engineering survey on mental health and wellbeing.

Sent on 9 March 2020, the survey revealed shocking levels of stress and related health issues among engineers – more than three-quarters (77.8%) said their work was often stressful, while over half (53.7%) said workplace stress had a negative effect on their mental health or wellbeing.

The UK entered lockdown just over two weeks later, uprooting longestablished patterns of working and catapulting employees into an unfamiliar patchwork system of working from home, video calls and countless other adjustments. It’s taken two years for a tentative sense of normality to return.

With many aspects of work and home life returning closer to how they were pre-March 2020, we contacted readers again to see how things have changed. The responses make for grim reading.

“Been on the edge of a breakdown for 10 months now,” says one engineer.

“Slowly bringing myself back from the

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brink. It only takes a few incidents and I’m back on the edge again.”

That precarious feeling was reported time and time again by respondents. Stress remains at crisis levels – but, among the darkness of the pandemic, there were some small glimmers of hope.

Tipping the balance Findings from the 2022 survey of 199 people leave little room for doubt. Of the 179 respondents who are employed in an engineering-related role, nearly half (48.6%) say Covid-19 has made work more stressful.

Only 2.2% of employees say work is never stressful – far less than the worrying 12.3% who say it is always stressful.

For some, the increased independence of working during the pandemic was a blessing. For others, it had countless negatives – difficulties balancing family life and work, emails and meetings bleeding into free time, less spontaneous problem-solving with colleagues, and bigger workloads as team-mates went

Been on the edge of a breakdown for 10 months now, slowly bringing myself back from the brink. It only takes a few incidents and I’m back on the edge again

off sick. Even things as mundane as slow broadband suddenly became significant hurdles to efficient work, with knock-on effects to stress and mental health.

“Hybrid working landed instantly, and with it greater connectivity and the blurring of boundaries between home and personal life,” says one engineering manager. “The use of platforms like Microsoft Teams has connected us, and has also led to everyone being available by instant message to everyone, all of the time… Multi-tasking for more than nine hours a day, five days a week is tiring.”

That experience would likely sound familiar to millions of people working across many different professions, but the nature of engineering work itself brought some unique challenges. Hybrid and virtual work caused delays and spending increases to hands-on projects, while key markets such as aviation slowed down, and supply-chain disruption – exacerbated

by Brexit – caused havoc.

Working during the pandemic meant “fewer resources, both material and human,” says respondent Paul. This led to “constant firefighting” as the team struggled to keep production going with seemingly endless shortages. “It’s exhausting being constantly at a high level of anxiety and stress, with little to no sign that it’s going to get better soon,” he adds.

Mental Health, 1

It’s exhausting being constantly at a high level of anxiety and stress, with little to no sign that it’s going to get better any time soon Professional Engineering • www.imeche.org

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The consequences of increased stress are sadly inevitable. In 2020, just over half (53.7%) said workplace stress had had a negative effect on their mental health or wellbeing – now, four-fifths (79.9%) of employed respondents say it has had a negative effect on their mental health or wellbeing at least some of the time. More than a quarter (26.8%) say it has often had a negative effect, while one in 10 (9.5%) say it is a constant issue.

Andrew, a respondent, says he is “constantly worrying what the next problem will be, while trying to catch up on work. It’s like waves crashing into a beach, endless problems.”

The symptoms of stress are many and varied. Some reported depression and suicidal thoughts, while others developed physical issues such as high blood pressure or irritable bowel syndrome.

Many employees report sleepless nights and difficulty ‘switching off ’, and it is easy to see how untreated stress can cause a dangerous feedback loop, described by respondent Tom as a “vicious cycle”. Disrupted sleep leads to irritability or loss of attention at work, and deadlines build up quickly, leading to more worries about workload.

“Sleep deprivation can lead to problems with punctuality and decisionmaking and may affect your mood too, potentially increasing irritability and frustration – particularly if you find yourself making more mistakes,” says Emma Mamo, head of workplace wellbeing at mental health charity Mind.

“Sleeping too much can also be a sign of poor mental health and can result in feeling lethargic and lacking in energy.”

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Under pressure Stress can seep into all aspects of life, but the most immediate impact is often at work itself. There, too, things have got worse since 2020, when 42.3% said that poor mental health or emotional wellbeing had affected their work; this had risen to 59.2% of current employees in 2022.

Nearly three-quarters (71.2%) have gone to work despite feeling emotionally or mentally unwell, a slight increase

Company has appointed largely untrained members of staff as mental health ambassadors for the site. It’s wholly unclear to most of us what this is supposed to achieve, other than tick a management box whilst management continue with lay-offs despite an increasing workload and order backlog from 67.5%. Of the current employees, a worrying 7.1% say it happens all the time.

“I can’t possibly achieve everything, so I’m struggling to bother with anything.

But then I feel guilty and end up sitting at my desk for far more hours, but still not achieving much,” says a mechanical technology engineer. “I don’t feel like I have much of a life outside work, and yet I also feel useless inside work. It makes me feel pretty useless all round.”

Strategic thinking becomes much harder under intense stress and anxiety, sometimes resulting in a kind of mental paralysis – like a “rabbit in the headlights,” says Stephen, a director. Short-term solutions, poor decision-making and lack of concentration are particularly concerning for engineers working in safety-critical roles.

Tick-box exercises With such high levels of stress, and the potentially devastating consequences, it might be expected that every organisation would put wellbeing front and centre.

But almost one-fifth (19.7%) say their employers do not offer adequate support, while 28.7% simply do not know if their employers offer enough help.

Mental health ‘first aiders,’ selfcheck phone apps and external phone counsellors were among the support options offered to employees, but many were unconvinced of their usefulness.

“Company has appointed largely untrained members of staff as mental health ambassadors for the site,” says David, a respondent. “It’s wholly unclear to most of us what this is supposed to achieve, other than tick a management box whilst management continue with layoffs despite an increasing workload and order backlog.”

Sleep deprivation can lead to problems with punctuality and decision-making and may affect your mood too, potentially increasing irritability and frustration – particularly if you find yourself making more mistakes than usual 24

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Almost two-thirds (64%) now say their employers listen to work-related concerns, but more than two-fifths (42%) say they either do not know if their employers act on those concerns to prevent stressful situations, or that they simply do not act.

“I’ve asked for help,” writes one respondent. “No help so far. Things have only got worse as my subordinate has left, so now I’m on my own covering two jobs.”

Another person put it simply: “There are people to talk with... but talk does not resolve the structural problems.”

Structural issues Despite the huge damage wrought by the pandemic, it was also the unlikely source of at least one positive change. For many, Covid-19 helped open up conversations about emotional wellbeing and mental health with colleagues and managers.

More than half of current employees (55.9%) say the pandemic has changed discussions, with 87% of those saying they have become more open.

That openness can lead to

I don’t feel like I have much of a life outside work, and yet I also feel useless inside work. It makes me feel pretty useless all round improvements elsewhere, says Jo-Anne Tait, who researches the mental health of engineers at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen. “There are practical things that I think can be utilised,” she says, giving the example of going for a walk to clear the head and aid decision-making. “If you’re having those conversations more openly, you get to that quicker, rather than waiting until someone has a meltdown. There will be a whole trail of stuff that’s come before that. If you can address it more clearly, you could be reducing burn-out.”

Employers offering assistance that addresses stress after it has already become an issue – instead of proactively preventing it with changes to workplace culture and work-life balance – was a common theme in both the 2020 and

Mental Health, 2

IN NUMBERS 2.2%

12.3%

45.8%

39.7%

NEVER STRESSFUL

ALWAYS STRESSFUL

OFTEN STRESSFUL

SOMETIMES STRESSFUL

Only 2.2% of employees say work is never stressful.

12.3% say it is always stressful, 45.8% say it is often stressful, and 39.7% say it is sometimes stressful

48.6% Nearly half (48.6%) of employees say the Covid-19 pandemic has made work more stressful

79.9%

2022 surveys, however. “Whilst there has been a significant increase in corporate awareness and communication to managers and employees, there still seems to be very little change to many of the root causes, such as more work with the same, or fewer, people,” says one respondent.

Employers need to survey staff regularly to identify and tackle workrelated causes of poor mental health, says Mind’s Emma Mamo, making sure any initiatives are appropriate and easy to access. “Employees also easily see through tokenism and temporary measures, so employers must make a genuine, longterm commitment to creating a mentally healthy culture,” she says.

“A mentally healthy workplace is one where all staff – including disabled employees and those with mental health problems – feel able to talk about their mental health and know that, if they do, they will be met with support and understanding, rather than facing stigma and discrimination.”

Employees also easily see through tokenism and temporary measures, so employers must make a genuine, long-term commitment to creating a mentally healthy culture Help is at hand

59.2% Poor mental health or emotional wellbeing has affected the work of almost three-fifths (59.2%) of those working in engineeringrelated roles

2020

Four-fifths (79.9%) of employed respondents say that workplace stress has had a negative effect on their mental health or wellbeing at least some of the time 2022

42.3% 59.2% There was a significant increase in the number of people saying that poor mental health or emotional wellbeing has affected their work, from 42.3% in 2020 to 59.2% of employees in 2022

Ultimately, positive change must come from the top down. “I had a one-toone ‘return to work’ meeting with my manager,” writes the mechanical technology engineer, following a few days off sick. “He spent 20 minutes pressing me to complete certain things and complaining that he doesn’t see enough output from our team.

“Having spoken to him again since, I realise he is himself under enormous pressure from his manager and just passed some of it on. So much of the source of our stress is structural.”

The IMechE can help members with counselling, social visits and other support. To apply for assistance or to help, contact the team on 020 7304 6816 or email supportnetwork@imeche.org.

The Institution is running an online Mental Health Awareness training session on 15 September. For more information, visit imeche.org/training-qualifications.

Make sure to check imeche.org/news for more expert insight from Jo-Anne Tait at Robert Gordon University and Emma Mamo at Mind.

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Q5D TECHNOLOGIES IS ON A MISSION TO AUTOMATE THE MANUFACTURE AND ASSEMBLY OF WIRING LOOMS. IT’S USING ROBOTICS AND ADDITIVE TECHNOLOGY, REMOVING THE NEED FOR FASTENERS, WHICH REDUCES WEIGHT AND ASSEMBLY TIME WHILE GIVING GREATER DESIGN FREEDOM. BY TOM AUSTIN-MORGAN 26

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Manufacturing, 1 UK-based robotics company Q5D Technologies intends to transform the wiring process by printing electronics directly onto component surfaces

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urrent manufacturing processes require the wiring in many products – from hairdryers to fighter planes – to be installed by hand. UK-based robotics company Q5D Technologies intends to transform the wiring process. It aims to eliminate human error, improve safety, increase production speed and accuracy, maximise connectivity, lower weight and material costs, and reduce the number of product recalls.

Stephen Bennington, CEO of Q5D Technologies, says: “Our solution lays down the wire or prints the printed electronics directly onto the surface of a component, which could be a vacuummoulded, sheet-metal or injectionmoulded part, and then over moulding if it must be sealed in.

“We use computer-aided manufacture software, which was originally designed for five-axis subtractive manufacture, to control those processes. It’s a fair bit of work, but all the core kernels of the software are already there, so it’s something that we can adapt and work into this new unit for our needs.”

Q5D was spun out of two UK technology companies – CEL-UK, which makes 3D printers, and M-SOLV, a laser micromachining company. (CEL-UK’s

managing director, Chris Elsworthy, is now chief technology officer of Q5D, and M-SOLV’s CEO is Q5D’s chief business development officer.)

The companies were brought together at meetings of the Bessemer Society, an organisation made up of the founders and CEOs of UK engineering and manufacturing businesses, which Bennington was involved in setting up.

CEL-UK’s five-axis platform incorporated a 3D printer and silver-based printed electronics, but its silver paste required an oven to be cured. M-SOLV had developed a technology that could cure and sinter much less expensive copper inks using a laser, requiring no separate ovens.

Bennington explains: “I thought, ‘They’re doing it on a flat sheet – can we adapt and miniaturise it to put it on a fiveaxis machine? I think those two companies ought to come together.’ And so they did, and we span out the new business.”

Q5D was registered in 2018, but its first offer of investment came in late 2019. Then

‘Our solution lays down the wire or prints the printed electronics directly onto the surface of a component’

Covid happened and the company went ‘stealth’ until the beginning of 2021 when it received funding from SOSV, a Silicon Valley venture capital company, taking part in its HAX manufacturing accelerator programme for pre-seed start-ups. Since then, Q5D has completed a second, $2.7m seed-funding round led by Chrysalix Venture Capital with additional support from SOSV and the Rainbow Seed Fund.

Robotic tool Q5D is focused on applications in aerospace – from small space companies such as Oxford Space Systems to multinational manufacturers such as Safran – as well as automotive and consumer electrical businesses. But it says that its technology can be used in almost any sector that is interested in advanced manufacturing.

Bennington points out, though, that Q5D’s five-axis robotic tool unit – the CY1000 – won’t be sitting on a work bench or desktop as it has a footprint of 1.67 X 1.34m, is 2.06m high and weighs 900kg. It will operate in an assembly line where the part will be moved into it from an injectionmoulding machine. The wiring will then be added before the part is moved onto the next step of the manufacturing process.

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However, he adds that the CY1000 will be cheaper than a CNC cutting machine, which can cost between £300,000 and £500,000.

“It’ll be a monthly lease cost,” explains Bennington. “Like your mobile phone contract, at the end of your 36 months you want the latest model with all the refinements – we want to be able to give that flexibility.”

He says this reduces the risk for companies adopting a new technology.

Plus, from an investor’s perspective, it gives Q5D a monthly recurring income which will grow as new customers are added. On top of that, the company will sell services: helping to train staff, help with qualified materials for the machine, and servicing and calibrating the machine. And a range of software licences will offer increasing sophistication.

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Kill the costs Other key areas of focus for Q5D are accuracy and speed. “Whereas a CNC cutting machine needs to be accurate to a few microns, we can get away with accuracies of 20 or maybe 50 microns for most applications,” says Bennington.

“Suddenly the cost drops and you can do things in a completely different way to keep those costs down. If we can keep the takt time low, the speed of the machine fast, and the bill of materials down, we can kill the costs of manufacturing these things.”

Automotive Tier Ones and OEMs put aside around 1% of their revenues for recalls, and almost all recalls are for faults on the electrical subsystem. Most of these failures are from manual wire

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Q5D’s five-axis robotic tool can print electronics directly onto a 3D component in free space and each wire can be printed into its own track so they never touch or they can be over-moulded and sealed so they are never exposed to the elements

harness-making processes, or owing to the insulation becoming damaged, causing tripouts or even fires.

“We want to just eliminate all of these,” says Bennington. “Making wire manufacturing and the systems more reliable, building quality systems into the manufacturing process so production can be monitored and measured, is going to be a really important part of our process.

Everything should be identical every time.”

To protect against arc-over events, Q5D’s technology can embed each wire into its own track so they never touch and can be over-moulded and sealed so they are never exposed to the elements or chemical or physical attack.

Bennington adds: “Over-strain on the wire termination is another common cause of wiring failure. As gaps open up, corrosion occurs, and as the oxide builds

‘Making wire manufacturing and the systems more reliable, building quality systems into the manufacturing process so production can be monitored and measured, is going to be a really important part of our process. Everything should be identical every time’

up so does resistivity, which means the termination starts to get hot. Because our wiring is fixed within the structure of the object, you can do finite element analysis to design-out such errors.”

Q5D’s technology also allows end-users to embed electric cable and wire directly into materials or tune the properties of wires. Functionality can be added more easily and cheaply than is possible by hand.

Accuracy is vital One of the biggest challenges, according to Bennington, has been understanding and getting to the right levels of accuracy and tolerance on the CY1000.

He says: “When you’re on a flat surface,

Manufacturing, 2

laser sintering is relatively easy. You can use certain printing techniques – like syringe pumps – to get a nice, even, flat layer of conductive ink and then track the laser over it afterwards.

“Doing that in free space on an object that you’re not entirely sure of, if it’s vacuum moulded for example, so the tolerances might not be as you expected, is more difficult. We’re having to use different printing techniques. It’s an interesting mixture of automated calibration, all the clever firmware and design of the system itself, and then this miniaturisation of all the laser systems and the ink deposition systems that we’re using.”

Q5D is working with Siemens NX and Ai Build to better optimise the CAM part of the process. Over time the artificial intelligence begins to understand how and why the process is being undertaken and which modules are used for each step, creating an optimised tool chain.

Solving problems One early prospective adopter of Q5D’s technology is Safran which makes, among other things, business-class seats for passenger jets. These are largely made from vac-formed components inside which are contained wiring, lighting and sensors as well as stiffening features that Bennington says can be combined with Q5D’s processes.

“It’s like a coachbuilding problem at the moment for them,” says Bennington.

“Everything’s done by hand. The reason for that is, although they might sell 10,000 seats, which might be to six or seven different customers, each of whom wants

Q5D’s technology uses multiple printing techniques including miniaturised laser and ink deposition systems, and the firm is utilising artificial intelligence to optimise the process

‘We’re rapidly expanding the management, R&D and product development teams and conducting strategic marketing’ something slightly different, so every shape is slightly different. Plus, the aircraft gets narrower to the front, so each seat is slightly different.

“This lends itself to the additive approach we have. You can have a CAD file for each of the different seats and we can adapt it for their individual requirements.

The regulatory environment in aircraft cabins is nowhere near as harsh as the regulatory environment outside the cabin.

I think our technology can go through the DO-160, which is the regulatory hurdle to get it licensed for use in aircraft interiors.”

Another benefit is that, rather than the wiring being held in place by screws, bosses and tie wraps, Q5D can print wire traps onto the panel itself. This can give a lightweighting advantage of 5-10kg per seat, allowing Safran to add more functionality and differentiation for its customers.

In the automotive industry there are

(unnamed) customers that want to fully automate the wiring process on their existing production lines. As well as the lightweighting benefits, the precise nature of the automated process instead of manually passing wires through bulkheads – potentially causing damage – means the correct gauge of wire can be used, and they don’t have to be over-specified.

Viable prototype The company is in the process of ironing out technical problems to get to the next minimal viable prototype which, says Bennington, will be ready for the next investment round in 18 months.

“We’ve got some reference customers that we have already asked to beta test the machine,” says Bennington. “We’re also rapidly expanding the management, R&D and product development teams and conducting strategic marketing to work out its value, who the customer’s going to be and what they actually need. Feed that back into the design and then work out what the value actually is, what can we charge customers for this? But, more than anything, we need to get all the processes working together.”

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POWERING UP NEW IMechE PRESIDENT PHIL PEEL DISCUSSES HIS STORY SO FAR, AND HIS PLANS FOR HIS YEAR IN OFFICE

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hil Peel has been an IMechE member since his student days in the early 1980s, and right through a distinguished career working on steam turbines for GEC, Alstom and now General Electric, on projects such as the nuclear new build at Hinkley Point C. But his involvement in the Institution kicked up a gear when he moved to Switzerland in 2002 – he helped to set up a local group there, and used that as a springboard to join the trustee board in 2016. He spoke to Professional Engineering to discuss the challenges facing the industry and the Institution, and his thoughts on becoming the first IMechE president to be based outside the UK. What are your priorities for the year ahead?

“We’re in our 175th anniversary year and I think that’s a great opportunity for us to really celebrate the achievements the Institution has made over that time. But it also gives us an opportunity to reflect on the future. One thing I think is really critical for us is to look at our strategy and focus and make sure we’ve got that wellgrounded to provide a basis for us moving forward.

“We’ve got four pillars that we’ve identified: inclusion, integrity, innovation and impact. We’ve also identified seven strategic enablers that will really allow us to roll out that strategy. So there are

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going to be quite a lot of activities centred around strategy and implementation over the coming years, and I see my presidential year as a good opportunity to get a solid base to build on for the future.”

What do you mean by strategic enablers?

“Well, they’re things like making sure we’ve got financial resilience, making sure we’ve got sound governance practices in place. There’s making sure we’ve got our values and behaviours firmly established within the organisation, rolling out our commitment to diversity and inclusion.

Liaising with other professional engineering institutions on having a global approach to the engineering challenges we see at the moment, and how we work together to successfully overcome them.”

What are some of those big challenges, and how do you see the Institution’s role in tackling them?

“I think we touched on some of the big issues when we had the COP26 conference. It’s things like climate change, and the way we move to a carbon-

‘Things are changing incredibly rapidly and the sky is the limit in terms of what we can potentially achieve’

neutral economy, the way we address infection control coming off the back of the pandemic, the lessons we can take away from that to make sure we’re better prepared for next time.

“But I also think one of the important things is what the future of engineering is going to look like, longer term. We’re living in a world where things are changing incredibly rapidly and the sky is the limit in terms of what we can potentially achieve.”

You’re the first IMechE president ever to be based outside the UK – how do you see that affecting your role?

“Clearly I can’t be everywhere, physically, at the same time. But I’ve done home office for effectively the last two years, and if you asked me whether it’s had a significant impact on my ability to function in the company that I work for I would say, no, probably not. So I will make myself available as much as I possibly can from a virtual point of view, and I will support physical meetings as best I can.

“I’m not going to be based in London for the whole of the presidency, I’ve got a home here in Switzerland, but I do plan to travel as much as I feasibly can in the framework of that. I’m open to volunteers reaching out to me, and if you wish me to support certain events or activity I’ll do my level best to be there.”

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‘I would like to see a resolution to the question of what we do with the Birdcage Walk building – a subject that has gone on for quite a few years’ What will success look like for you as you hand over to your successor in a year’s time?

“I would like to see the Institution feel that it’s in a more stable position moving forward with regard to some of the activities that we’re working on at the moment. So I would like to see a resolution to the question of what we do with the Birdcage Walk building – that is a subject that has gone on for quite a few years, and we can’t delay it indefinitely.

“I’d like us to get to a position where we’ve taken it to the membership and they’ve given us a very clear steer in terms of the way they want us to go forward, and we’ve started the implementation process for that decision. That would be a nice thing to achieve by the end of my presidency.

“I think also getting the overall strategy kicked off and established would be a good outcome – the feeling that we know the direction that we need to head in as an Institution over the next five years or so, and getting that established and grounded so we can take the first steps.”

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Nissan is looking to shift away from lithium-ion technology to all-solid-state batteries

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BATTERIES GO GREENER

Nissan is revamping its battery technology to make the manufacturing process more environmentally friendly. By James Scoltock AUTOMOTIVE The automotive industry is invested in reducing its impact on the environment.

The most notable example of this is the shift to electrified powertrains. But the move, which is helping reduce harmful local emissions such as particulate matter and NOx and greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, also poses problems.

Electrified powertrains tend to require

battery technology, and batteries chew through a huge range of raw materials and resources when they’re produced.

Lithium, nickel, cobalt and manganese all need to be mined and then brought together in the manufacturing process to produce the final battery pack used in vehicles. The impact on the environment is substantial and undeniable, but OEMs are looking to lessen the effects as battery technologies progress.

Nissan is looking to shift away from reliance on traditional lithium-ion battery technology that uses liquid systems to all-solid-state batteries (ASSBs). The carmaker aims to launch an EV with in-house-developed ASSBs by 2028.

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Nissan is using its prototype production facility to learn how to lessen the environmental impact of the manufacturing process

AUTOMOTIVE to superior charge/discharge performance, and lower cost thanks to the opportunity of using less-expensive materials. Nissan believes all-solid-state batteries can be reduced to $75 per kWh in 2028 and to $65 per kWh thereafter, helping to bring cost parity between EVs and combustion engine vehicles.

Material choices

Nissan is honest about the challenges that ASSBs hold if they are to make an impact on the market, namely making sure they don’t cause more harm to the environment.

The first part of the puzzle is shifting emphasis on material choices, and it’s something Yoshiaki Nitta, expert leader at Nissan’s advanced materials and processing laboratory, pays close attention to.

He said: “In current liquid lithium-ion technology cathode material, we use nickel, cobalt and manganese. If we apply the same materials, we won’t see a lot of benefits, but we can use sulphur or manganese, which are more available in the world, and we can switch to these

materials. If we apply the more-available materials, we can reduce the burden on the lifecycle assessment.”

But solid-state batteries are about more than simply cathode material choices.

Every part of the process needs to be assessed to lessen any possible impact.

Kazuhiro Doi, corporate vice-president at Nissan Research Centre, said: “The materials we consume will be reduced as a result of adopting ASSB, which means the cathode and anode materials. But, at the same time, when we produce ASSB there’s CO2 emitted in the production process.

Today, for the current liquid lithium-ion battery, we have a dry process and, if we can apply that dry process, we can reduce CO2 emissions.”

But tweaking the manufacturing process isn’t just about carbon, and also brings into play other unwanted emissions.

‘Solid electrolyte reacts with moisture and releases hydrogen sulphide so we need to control the humidity in the production process’

Doi explained: “Solid electrolyte reacts with moisture and releases hydrogen sulphide so we need to control the humidity in the production process.

“To make it less humid means that we need energy because we need power to dry it. We need to control this smartly in the small chamber where we produce the battery.

“If you try to maintain a low level of temperature in a big factory, we’ll use a lot of electricity so we need to smartly design the production process because this may increase the emission of CO2.”

Game changer?

Solid-state batteries could be a game changer for the industry, and with all the benefits they offer Nissan expects to use the technology in a wide range of vehicle segments, including pickup trucks, making its EVs more competitive.

Using the prototype production facility to streamline the manufacturing process will be crucial to reducing its environmental impact as well as that of the battery technology itself, helping make Nissan’s ASSBs a commercial success.

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DESALINATION MADE EASY

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A portable device can produce drinking water from seawater cheaply, reports Joseph Flaig PROCESS

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A portable desalination unit can remove particles and salts from seawater to generate clean drinking water using less power than a phone charger, according to its developers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Weighing less than 10kg, the suitcasesized device can be driven by a portable $50 solar panel. It automatically generates drinking water that exceeds World Health Organization quality standards, needing only the push of just one button.

Unlike other portable desalination units that require water to pass through filters, the MIT device uses electrical power to remove particles from water.

Eliminating the need for replacement filters greatly reduces the long-term maintenance requirements, said the developers. This means the device could be deployed in remote areas with limited resources, such as small islands or aboard cargo ships. It could also aid refugees fleeing natural disasters or soldiers carrying out long-term military operations.

“This is the culmination of a 10-year journey that I and my group have been on,” said electrical and biological engineer Jongyoon Han, senior author of a paper on the unit. “We worked for years on the physics behind individual desalination processes, but pushing all those advances into a box, building a system, and demonstrating it in the ocean, that was a meaningful and rewarding experience.”

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M. SCOTT BRAUER

Energy efficient

Commercial portable desalination units typically require high-pressure pumps to push water through filters, which are difficult to miniaturise without compromising energy efficiency, said first author Junghyo Yoon.

Instead, the MIT team’s unit relies on a technique called ion concentration polarisation (ICP), which was pioneered

by Han’s group more than 10 years ago.

Rather than filtering water, the ICP process applies an electrical field to membranes placed above and below a channel of water. The membranes repel positively or negatively charged particles – including salt molecules, bacteria and viruses – as they flow past. The charged particles are funnelled into a second stream of water that is eventually discharged.

The process removes both dissolved and suspended solids, allowing clean water to pass through the channel. Since it only requires a low-pressure pump, ICP uses less energy than other techniques.

ICP does not always remove all the salts floating in the middle of the channel, however, so the researchers incorporated a second process, known as electrodialysis, to remove remaining salt ions. The team shrunk and stacked the ICP and electrodialysis modules to improve their energy efficiency and fit them inside a portable device.

The researchers designed the device for non-experts, with just one button to launch the automatic desalination and purification process. Once the salinity level and the number of particles decrease to specific thresholds, the device notifies the user that the water is drinkable.

Wireless control

Once the salinity level and the number of particles decrease to specific thresholds, the device notifies the user that the water is drinkable

The researchers also created a smartphone app that can control the unit wirelessly and report realtime data on power consumption and water salinity.

After running lab experiments using water with different salinity and turbidity (cloudiness) levels, the team field-tested the device at Boston’s Carson Beach, generating a cup of clear, drinkable water from seawater in half an hour.

“It was successful even in its first run, which was exciting and surprising. But I think the main reason we were successful is the accumulation of all these little advances made along the way,” said Han. The resulting water exceeded World Health Organization quality guidelines, and the unit reduced the amount of suspended solids by at least a factor of 10.

The prototype generates drinking water at a rate of 0.3 litre per hour, and requires only 20W of power per litre.

“We are pushing our research to scale up that production rate,” said Yoon. The team also wants to address water quality issues that go beyond desalination, such as rapidly detecting contaminants in drinking water.

The research was published online in Environmental Science and Technology.

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DELIVERING CROSSRAIL

Advances in technology helped to finally bring the Elizabeth line to completion RAIL

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At 6.33am on 24 May, the first-ever Elizabeth line service from London Paddington left the station packed with excited passengers.

The journey marked the culmination of the mammoth 13-year Crossrail construction project, and many more years of planning. Delays and budget issues have been well-documented, but the line now promises to transform journeys through central London.

Many of the project’s most significant challenges have been civil engineeringrelated, but innovations elsewhere promise to make journeys as smooth, quick and reliable as possible. We looked back through the Professional Engineering archives at some of the novel approaches and advances made during the project.

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‘Internet of Trains’

Adapting an Internet of Things approach – instead of the fractured control systems of the past – the Crossrail data network includes “pretty much every component” on the same fibre ‘backbone,’ from ventilation control and office PCs to voice traffic and CCTV. “The upshot of this modern approach is simple – all of the data collected can easily be fed to a central network management centre, where data from the entire network is displayed together on a dashboard so the railway can be managed more effectively, and data analysed more easily,” wrote James O’Malley.

“The most immediate upshot of all of this data-wrangling is that it transforms the way that maintenance happens – it could see the industry shift from calendar- or kilometre-based maintenance to only intervening when systems say a given component requires it. By using data collected on the component previously, systems can predict when work is needed.”

ALAMY

Virtual site visits

In 2017, we walked down a Crossrail tunnel deep beneath Liverpool Street, inspecting the rails and assessing the structure of the tunnel. The visit was carried out in virtual

reality (VR), in a program developed by Manchester firm Clicks and Links.

Accurate down to a few millimetres and containing 100 million unique points, the virtual model was based on tripodmounted laser scans and photographs and point-mapping from an autonomous drone.

The aim of the system was to allow engineers access to areas that are unsafe or difficult to access, said Clicks and Links CEO Vin Sumner, enabling them to add annotations and take ‘photographs’ to make decisions about possible structural

‘Alstom UK has been a key delivery partner and played a major part in making it possible to open this transformational railway’ problems, without accessing the real tunnels. “Nothing works better than visiting a real project site together with a colleague, so that is the interaction we are striving to deliver through our immersive platform,” said the company.

“Access to the real tunnel is expensive so, if you want to look for snags and problems, it is much better in VR as you can save money,” said Sumner.

Sensory overload

After lagging behind a huge increase in passenger numbers for years, train

operators including Transport for London were well under way with large new train orders by 2019, including for Crossrail.

Maximised doorway passenger flow should reduce station ‘dwell times’ and improve facilities for passengers with reduced mobility, wrote David Shirres.

“Being laden with sensors, the trains should also be more reliable,” he added.

“This, together with condition monitoring stations at depots, provides remote condition monitoring to detect potential faults and unexpected wear rates. This also facilitates a more cost-effective conditionbased maintenance regime.”

Regenerative braking

Based on Bombardier’s Aventra design and built by Alstom at its Derby factory, the Elizabeth line’s Class 345 trains are packed with features aimed at boosting energy efficiency. Lightweight materials were used, and regenerative braking could cut energy use by 30% compared to similar trains.

“Alstom UK has been a key delivery partner in the Elizabeth line and played a major part in making it possible to open this transformational railway,” said London transport commissioner Andy Byford.

“Providing trains, technology, infrastructure and maintenance, they will help ensure Londoners and visitors benefit from reliable and more accessible journeys across the capital.”

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UNLOCKING THE POWER OF DATA

A new centre of excellence is aimed at creating smarter factories in Wales.

Tom Austin-Morgan reports

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The Aerospace Technology Institute has awarded a £3.5m grant to the University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) Cymru to establish a Manufacturing Data Centre of Excellence in Broughton. The centre will develop technologies that will allow Welsh manufacturers of all sizes and across all sectors to leverage the data they generate.

Advanced product verification technologies will also deliver digital innovations that will connect supply chains, increase productivity, drive sustainability and create high-value engineering jobs.

Andy Silcox, AMRC Cymru research director, said: “This centre of excellence is investigating how manufacturers can get all the data they need without it being a cost or time burden, to process it efficiently, and then ultimately make data-driven decisions back on the shop floor.”

The grant has been spent on software and hardware, including metrology equipment to measure accuracy and update robot paths in real time; projected work zones to show live data; motion tracking haptic gloves; a suite of human behaviour sensors to capture biometric data; and a chroma key room to use with the latest mixed-reality headsets.

“We want to demonstrate the power of data to improve manufacturing organisations,” said Silcox. “The kit falls under three categories: data acquisition, data handling and processing, and data visualisation.”

Developing solutions

Technologies developed at AMRC Cymru through the centre of excellence will support projects such as BAE Systems’ Tempest programme and Airbus’s Wing of

‘Those innovations will lead to a digitally connected supply chain and smart factories’ Tomorrow initiative. Sophie Lane, chief relationships officer at the Aerospace Technology Institute, said the centre is targeting several innovations that will make a significant impact on how the UK approaches manufacturing.

She said: “This centre of excellence provides a sandpit environment, independent of any vendor, for industry to develop solutions before they are implemented on the shop floor.

“Those innovations will lead to a digitally connected supply chain and smart factories that will strengthen the competitiveness of the aerospace sector and wider manufacturing sector, and lead to the creation of high-value engineering jobs and increased productivity.”

Sustainability is important for manufacturers large and small, regardless of the sector in which they work, but especially in aerospace.

Lane added: “Designing, manufacturing and assembling aerospace products with the end goal of sustainable aviation must be the focus of the entire supply chain if we are to meet the target of net-zero emissions by 2050.”

Silcox agreed that the key to the meaningful use of data, especially on sustainability, is understanding what data is important and then knowing that it is accurate.

Measuring energy use

He said: “Right now, businesses want to understand where they are in terms of their carbon footprint. It’s all very well saying you need to be carbon neutral, but if you don’t know where you are now how can you ever reduce it to zero?

“Manufacturers need to measure energy consumption at a granular level to understand what is going on in their facilities. Looking at utility bills can only take you so far; it doesn’t tell you as an engineer what you can do about it. The information you need, for example, is that the CNC machine that is 25 years old is drawing three times the current of a new machine, so you can make an informed decision on whether to invest in a new one.”

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GROWING CEMENT

Bio-engineered bricks could be at the centre of low-carbon construction projects. Tom Austin-Morgan reports

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US-based Biomason claims to be the only company in the world that uses microorganisms to grow sustainable, structural biocement in ambient temperatures without emitting CO2.

What’s more, the material is completely salvageable, recyclable and reusable.

“We are on a direct flight to revolutionise the cement industry,” said Ginger Krieg Dosier, the company’s president, CEO and co-founder. “Rather than incrementally improving the traditional methods of cement production that contribute to climate change today, we are curing the root disease – not treating the symptoms.”

Biomason produces precast bricks, called Biolith, using a mixture of 85% recycled granite and 15% bacteria. This is filled into a mould and fed with a nutrient solution. Five days later the solid bricks are removed and ready to use. This method mimics nature’s use of carbon as a building block, creating cement in a biological, circular system, rather than relying on the climate-intensive Portland cement (OPC) production process, which releases CO2 as a by-product.

Robust properties

Concrete, in which cement is the key ingredient, is the second-most consumed material in the world after water. OPC production accounts for more than 8% of global carbon emissions.

Biolith is said to exceed the physical properties of standard building materials for compressive strength, absorption, freeze-thaw, adhesion and dimensional tolerance, while offering the lowest carbon footprint on the market. It is suitable for exterior and interior, vertical and horizontal use in commercial, institutional and residential building projects, and to make paving. The product has been used in various projects in the US and Europe.

Biomason also engineers other products in collaboration with the US Department of Defense. These include

Biomason’s precast bricks, called Biolith, are aimed at reducing carbon emissions

Engineered Living Marine Cement (ELMc) which contains self-sustaining, natural marine microorganisms that source the nutrients they require from seawater.

Dr Blake Bextine, Biological Technologies Office programme manager at the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, said: “Such engineered living materials would also have the ability to respond to their environment in designed ways, self-repairing in response to physical or other stresses, or detecting the presence of specific stimuli such as hazardous compounds.”

Potential applications for ELMc include supportive marine infrastructure, breakwater assemblies and near-shore sediment stabilisation.

Another military solution is Medusa, an agile, soil stabilisation application that enables safe take-off and landing of helicopters in areas where there isn’t a specific landing surface.

NASA is exploring growing structures out of fungi on the Moon, perhaps leading to more sustainable ways of living on Earth

Living materials

There are other institutions researching similar technologies, but they are not in production yet. The University of Colorado at Boulder’s Living Materials Laboratory is investigating a cement-free, living, recyclable building material using cyanobacteria – green microorganisms similar to algae – that use CO2 and sunlight to grow, and help trap carbon.

Researchers at TU Delft in The Netherlands are looking at how the self-healing capacity of concrete structures can be improved by using calciteprecipitating bacteria.

The Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment is a research project bringing together bio-scientists from Northumbria University and architects, designers and engineers from Newcastle University to develop biotechnologies that would help create buildings that are responsive to their environment. The research focuses on producing living engineered materials that would metabolise their waste.

And NASA is exploring technologies that could grow structures out of fungi on the Moon and Mars, and perhaps lead to more sustainable ways of living on Earth.

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Hypersonic missiles will be very expensive so they will be used carefully and strategically

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GOING HYPERSONIC PRODUCTION

Hypersonic weapon development is accelerating, but engineers face several significant challenges. By Joseph Flaig AEROSPACE

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Just three weeks into its invasion of Ukraine, Russia was already facing stalemate on many fronts. Searching for a quick win, it deployed a new hypersonic missile for the first time – the air-to-surface Kinzhal, or ‘dagger’. Russia claimed to have destroyed an ammunitions store in Delyatin, western Ukraine.

Western allies responded quickly to the use of an air-launched missile capable of Mach 5 and above. On 5 April, the Australia-UK-US (Aukus) partnership committed to new co-operation on hypersonic weapons and counterhypersonics.

Hypersonic weapons themselves are nothing new – intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) fly at speeds of about Mach 20. A new generation promises high manoeuvrability at lower altitudes, however, potentially confounding attempts to track and defend against them. These new weapons could offer warring nations a strategic advantage, but engineers have some hurdles to overcome.

Material challenges

Iain Boyd, aerospace engineer and director of the Centre for National Security Initiatives at the University of Colorado, describes the three types of non-ICBM hypersonic weapons in an online article for The Conversation. These are: aero-ballistic,

such as the Kinzhal, which is dropped from an aircraft before accelerating to hypersonic speed using a rocket; hypersonic boost-glide weapons, which launch to a high altitude on a rocket before gliding to their target, manoeuvring during the glide; and cruise missiles, which use a rocket to reach hypersonic speed before an air-breathing engine known as a scramjet takes over to sustain speed.

Each branch of the US military is investigating hypersonic weapons, with a focus on the boost-glide type. Materials are the main challenge, Boyd told Professional

‘The environment around the hypersonic vehicle can get in the way of sensing. There’s this thing called plasma blackout... ‘ Engineering – they need to be cost effective, lightweight and able to withstand extreme temperatures.

“They go so fast that they get very, very hot,” he said. “The materials, the thermal challenges, are what limit the speed.”

A range of materials is being investigated, from metals and carbon composites to exotics made with ceramics such as hafnium diboride and zirconium diboride. Companies are also investigating active cooling, flowing fluid through capillary-like structures near the surface to cool missiles down.

Plasma blackout

The quest for manoeuvrability and the element of surprise compounds the challenges, said Boyd, as new hypersonic weapons might fly through the atmosphere for much longer than conventional ballistic missiles. “These new systems can go to many different destinations,” he said. “It puts a lot more burden on sensing – you have to know where you are, you have to be able to know you know where you’re going and how to get there through manoeuvring.

“The environment around the hypersonic vehicle can get in the way of sensing. There’s this thing called plasma blackout… you get charged particles formed around hypersonic vehicles, ions and electrons, and they can interfere with radio communications.”

The scramjets within cruise missiles are an additional challenge. While the US has successfully tested a Lockheed Martin missile known as the Hypersonic Airbreathing Weapon Concept, there are considerable challenges in consistently sustaining combustion and mixing fuel with air at very high speeds.

Ultimately, said Boyd, these new weapons will be very expensive, so they will be used “very, very carefully and strategically” – attacking high-value targets on the first day of an invasion to clear space for aircraft and troops, for example. “It’s not a silver bullet that ends the war, but it can make a very big difference.”

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UKEF BACKS £160M MEGGER LOAN TO BOOST EXPORTS

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The international electrical testing solutions company has secured a big loan, with government backing, to increase exports and develop digital technologies that will help to decarbonise the grid

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egger, the leading manufacturer of electrical testing hardware and digital solutions, has secured a £160 million loan to expand product lines and increase exports at its global headquarters in Dover. The facility is backed by UK Export Finance (UKEF).

The loan is provided by HSBC and Commerzbank of which 80%, amounting to £138m, is guaranteed by UKEF under the government’s Export Development Guarantee (EDG) programme, designed to support investments for UK exporters.

To receive EDG approval, Megger demonstrated investment in new plant would lead to an increase in exports, the investment would sustain and potentially create new jobs and the products had a carbon-reduction application.

Megger is investing about £15 million to upgrade and expand its factory in Dover, including an extension that will accommodate new production lines of Motor Test products that the UK site has acquired from one of its US operations.

This will further boost exports from the UK. Megger is in the middle of a business

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transformation. It is famous for designing and manufacturing periodic electrical testing equipment for low and high voltage applications. In recent years, Megger has acquired companies that provide accurate analysis of the condition of electrical infrastructure assets, such as cables, transformers, substations. This constant asset health monitoring can help utilities to manage their assets and plan maintenance better. It can predict failures before they happen, reducing customers’ costs and can reduce current losses from the grid, and therefore carbon emissions. The loan facility will help Megger to invest further in developing this smart grid analysis.

Secretary of State for International Trade Anne-Marie Trevelyan said: “The UK is leading the world in backing firms like Megger that protect the planet and help power home-grown energy.

Investment through UK Export Finance will help create high-skilled, well-paid green jobs,” adding that such jobs can help level-up regions of the UK. Jeremy Simpson, chief financial officer of Megger Group, said the loan

guarantee showed that Megger has strong fundamentals, the potential for growth and is committed to becoming business offering both hardware and digital analytics.

“The government, via UKEF, has recognised that Megger is a growing company that designs and makes high value-added products, based in the UK with strong global exports, and growth prospects in new markets,” said Simpson.

“This money will be invested in several areas, including our smart grid solutions and testing technology through growing the company’s product lines, to help fund the Dover factory extension, and to provide additional working capital to help the company fulfil overseas export contracts.”

He added: “The energy market is changing, and our customers need data as much as test and measurement hardware.

Such data will allow customers to spot potential issues in their infrastructure, plan repairs prior to failure and manage electrical loads better. Megger’s products help them do that.”

More information: www.megger.com

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MANIPULATING MITOCHONDRIA

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A tiny new device can transplant organelles between living cells. By Joseph Flaig BIOMEDICAL Known as the ‘powerhouse of the cell,’ mitochondria are also involved in signalling and controlling cell growth.

With responsibility for such important processes, they could hold the key to stem-cell rejuvenation and related biomedical applications.

There is just one issue, however – they are incredibly small, less than a few square microns in area, so manipulating them has been beyond the reach of even the most advanced research departments.

That could change thanks to new work at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, where researchers have successfully transplanted the tiny components between living cells.

With important implications for our understanding of intracellular processes and the evolution of life, the groundbreaking work was enabled by a tiny ‘nanosyringe’ developed for the task.

Tiny pipette

Under an electron microscope, a needlelike tip can be seen protruding from the

end of a ‘cantilever’ on a nanoscale pipette. With a hollow tip to suck in the cellular component, it is capable of working in the femtolitre-to-picolitre range (one-thousand trillionth to one-trillionth of a litre).

“The technology combines atomic force microscopy, optical microscopy and nanofluidics to achieve force and volume control with realtime inspection. We developed dedicated probes that allow minimally invasive entry into cells and optimised fluid flow to extract specific organelles,” wrote the researchers in a paper published in PLOS Biology.

The syringe was designed by Dr Tomaso Zambelli, who combined the high-precision approach of an atomic force microscope with the volumetric dispensing of nanoscale pipettes under optical inspection, providing the forces and volume control needed to manipulate single cells. The syringe was built layer by layer in a micro-fabrication process at SmartTip, a probing specialist based at the University of Twente in the Netherlands.

The outside of the cantilever was built

from silicon nitride, to which a 1-micron layer of polysilicon was added to fabricate the internal channel. Another layer of silicon nitride was added, before chemical etching removed the polysilicon.

“You remain with a hollow space confined between the two layers, like a sandwich,” said Zambelli.

In the mitochondria transplant work, the position of the cylindrical nanosyringe was controlled by laser light from a converted atomic force microscope. A pressure regulator adjusted the flow, allowing scientists to transfer incredibly small volumes of fluid in the femtolitre range during transplants of the organelles.

The researchers pierced the cell membrane and sucked up the spherical mitochondria, before piercing the membrane of a different cell and pumping the mitochondria out of the nanosyringe and into the recipient cell.

Understanding evolution

The transplanted mitochondria had a survival rate of more than 80%, said the researchers. In most cases, the injected mitochondria began to fuse with the filamentous network of the new cell 20 minutes after transplantation.

Both the donor and acceptor cells also survived the “minimally invasive” procedure, said Christoph Gäbelein, lead author of the paper.

The research will have applications in various areas in future, said the team. Led

by Dr Julia Vorholt at the ETH Zurich Institute of Microbiology, they said the technique could be used to rejuvenate stem cells, which exhibit a decline in metabolic activity as they age. The team’s current aim is to increase understanding of the processes that control how different cell compartments co-operate, and to unravel how endosymbiosis develops – a process in which cells join with others to form interdependent communities, which played a major role in the evolutionary development of life on Earth.

With such precise and reliable extraction of the components that underpin key biological processes, the nanosyringe is likely to see wider application in future.

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WITH EXPERT CONTENT FROM PROTOLABS AND STRATASYS Reduce your 3D printing costs / Frontline manufacturing

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As Europe’s defence industry scrambles in the wake of recent events, the need to both modernise and keep older equipment running is driving an increasing need for flexible, agile and cost-effective manufacture and procurement. Can industrial 3D printing offer a solution?

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he conflict in Ukraine has shocked the world, forcing the West to give more focus, attention and priority to its defence readiness after years of slashing budgets during more peaceful times.

In the UK at least, it is about working smarter rather than simply spending more.

Defence procurement can be notoriously difficult to budget and project manage.

There are many inefficiencies, from external factors such as supply-chain disruptions, shortage of key materials and spiralling cost of transport, to internal factors such as long-winded or vague tenders, and the wellknown intolerance to criticism within larger projects’ upper management.

Within the defence industry various industrial 3D printing technologies are used to help engineers solve problems, save time and reduce costs – while supporting operational units with remote manufacturing capabilities for spare parts and negating these disruptions from external forces.

Stratasys, a global leader in polymer industrial 3D printers, use a range of different technologies to cover the full spectrum of potential applications, from early-stage prototyping to end-use ruggedised production parts for use in the field.

“You can find our machines almost anywhere in the defence sector,” says Claire Barker, North & East Europe general manager at Stratasys. “From military bases and repair sites to fighterjet production floors.

“Where they are being used, it is changing the way customers operate, and they want to scale up and do more.

But there is a long way to go before additive technology would be considered mainstream. We are still battling to win the hearts and minds of designers, engineers and manufacturers.”

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Move to manufacture The use of additive manufacturing (AM) is, across the board, moving beyond prototyping and in to manufacture. The

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defence industry has been an early adopter here as the inherent attributes of 3D printing – such as low-to-medium production volumes and the ability to customise at zero additional cost – suit applications here. Stratasys machines give both armed forces and OEMs increasing flexibility and agility when it comes to production, as well as much-needed time and cost reductions.

“Sometimes you simply don’t need large volumes of components,” says Barker. “AM allows engineers to iterate and redesign parts quickly without a big penalty on retooling further down the line in production.

“It may be that you want to tweak the design of a spare part if there is a common failure mode or field use is causing wear in a particular place and you now want to stop that happening with future replacement parts. Additive production enables that agility and flexibility to have the parts you want, when you want them, and also where you need them.”

Decentralising production Additive manufacturing can, where appropriate, allow a shift in production strategy, and indeed mindset. That is, a decentralised approach to manufacture,

“Additive production enables that agility and flexibility to have the parts you want, when you want them, and also where you need them.” CLAIRE BARKER, NORTH & EAST EUROPE GENERAL MANAGER, STRATASYS

Stratasys, 1

meaning 3D printers and materials are deployed to make any number of parts in the field, or aboard a navy vessel, for example.

Spare parts can be kept digitally and just printed on-demand when needed.

No more waiting for parts from one or two centralised factories that are at the mercy of supply chains. Examples here include an end use: wiring conduits and harnesses used in Bell’s V-22 Osprey, where the lead time was reduced from six weeks to 48 hours.

Barker says: “The bottom line is, AM makes it possible to save massive amounts of money and time within the defence sector. Once you enable that additive mindset, you can unlock all kinds of innovation.

“We find customers buy their first 3D printer from Stratasys to generally save money and time in making a particular part. But then they come back and buy their second and third machines as their engineers realise the power and potential of the technology, and what the possibilities are. Whether it’s land, sea or air, Stratasys will have a 3D printer and material that fits your application.”

TECHNOLOGY BREAKDOWN: STRATASYS 3D PRINTING TECHNOLOGIES n POLYJET: The J-Series of 3D printers use UV curable photopolymers to produce full-colour multi-material parts that are perfect for concept, form, fit and functional prototyping. With the ability to print properties ranging from rubberlike to hard materials and transparent to vivid colours – all in one print. These are ideal for product development, to produce accurate mock-ups as well as windtunnel models. n STEREOLITHOGRAPHY: The Neo series of 3D printers are proudly designed and made in UK. Offering bestin-class reliability and repeatability, the open material resins are cured by laser to offer highly accurate, large volume of parts capable of ultrafine details using materials with functional production properties. n FDM: FDM 3D printers use a variety of engineering-grade and highperformance thermoplastic filaments to produce strong functional parts with applications including drone body

structures and unmanned ground vehicles, as well as end-of-arm tooling, metal forming and thermoforming tooling, drill guides and manufacturing aids. n P3: A transformative 3D printer enabling flexible production of end-use parts in a diverse range of high-performance materials. Achieve industry-leading accuracy, consistency, detail and throughput with the P3 (Programmable Photopolymerization technology). Choose from a wide range of single-component, commercialgrade photopolymers. Applications include aerospace-grade components to injection-mould tooling. n SAF: The H350 was designed in the UK to deliver production-level throughput for end-use parts. Using a powderbased additive process, SAF technology can produce tens of thousands of parts. Typical applications include wire routing clips, circuit board brackets, fan housings, covers, housings and more.

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We all know that 3D printing is a fast-changing manufacturing technology that offers engineers all sorts of design and prototyping opportunities, but if cost is an issue what do you do? Protolabs asked their project engineer for additive manufacturing, Tasos Pantelis, for his top tips

Q

with thinner and thinner layers, which increases the build time and the cost.

Sometimes we might even need to use secondary machining operations to get things within the tolerance we were given – again this all adds to the cost.

If you need to achieve small tolerances and a high degree of accuracy it is possible, but, ask yourself whether you need it first.

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What are the easiest ways to cut costs when I am designing a part for 3D printing?

Tasos: There are a number of basic things

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that you can do to optimise your design so that it prints easily and reliably.

Many of these basic rules are the same as they are in injection-moulding projects – use gradual transitions, avoid sharp corners and watch out for tall, unsupported walls. This will make things flow better and look good, so there will be less intervention from engineers and your cost will be lower.

But if you are producing final parts using 3D printing you need to remember what it can achieve. You can also design organic shapes to cut costs using honeycombs, matrices and holes to save material and processing time.

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Is it always a good idea to use less material?

Tasos: It’s generally a good idea if you’re

going to be 3D printing for your finished product. If, however, you are using it for prototypes then you also need to think about what is possible using the final manufacturing method.

Carrying out a manufacturability analysis early on in the design cycle can ensure that what you prototype using 3D printing can still be produced when it comes to manufacturing, which will save you a lot of money later.

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Is there anything that we should try to avoid?

Tasos: Ideally try to avoid any secondary

operations, as these all add to your cost.

This is less of an issue with selective laser sintering – or SLS – as this technology generally doesn’t need much in the way of post-processing. Direct metal laser sintering – DMLS – though, often involves scaffolding structures

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Q

Having covered some of the don’ts, are there any does that we can design to save costs?

Tasos: Most importantly, remember what

With a bit of creative thinking, you can print fewer pieces and take advantage of features that would be impossible with traditional manufacturing techniques to prevent warping, and these need to be manually removed after the part is printed.

Even then, however, you can cut down on the number of secondary operations by considering your part’s geometry. So, for example, try to avoid T-shapes with big arms, and overhangs, as these need a lot of supports. If you do need to include those kinds of shapes you might be able to change the orientation, so, instead of printing a T-shape standing up, turn it upside down.

Another thing to avoid is overtolerancing your parts. While you can specify incredibly precise dimensions, think about what you actually need.

If you aim for something that is more accurate than you need this can force your manufacturer to build your part

3D printing can achieve for you and don’t lose sight of what you want.

3D printing can save you lots of money beyond those upfront costs.

With a bit of creative thinking, you can print fewer pieces and take advantage of features that would be impossible with traditional manufacturing techniques, like internal passages for wiring or cooling. And remember that you don’t need to pay for moulds and tooling either.

And think about how much you might save on shipping costs if you can halve a part’s weight. It might not show up in your manufacturing costs but it will save your company money.

So, think carefully about everything involved and you’ll be able to take advantage of everything 3D printing has to offer and make some savings that are simply not possible using other manufacturing processes.

For further information, please visit www.protolabs.co.uk

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Cornelius Mpesi’s work to bring water supplies to rural communities has an immediate effect on people’s lives

WATER OF LIFE

Growing up with nine brothers and sisters, Cornelius Mpesi was never short of role models. Now, working for Water Mission Malawi, it’s Cornelius’s turn to be the role model. Alex Eliseev reports ENGINEERING E X TREMES Twist a tap and water gushes out. Living in a bustling city, it’s difficult to imagine someone walking for hours, buckets in hand, to reach a water point. And, once there, waiting another hour or two for the borehole pump to pull water to the surface.

With Cornelius Mpesi’s help – and the work of Water Mission Malawi – these

long walks are vanishing, one by one, and hours of waiting are shrinking to minutes.

He and his colleagues are working to install taps for rural communities.

Not all engineers get to experience how their designs touch the lives of people out in the real world. For Cornelius, 29, every project pulls him into that magical place where engineering and humanity collide.

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‘I take pride and joy in helping people get clean and safe water. It’s a joy to see my designs come to life’ Solving puzzles

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Cornelius is the second youngest of 10 children. Growing up in Area 15, in Malawi’s capital Lilongwe, he admired his siblings, and his parents, who piled their love and energy into raising doctors, scientists, accountants, entrepreneurs and engineers.

There’d always be an older brother to help him learn to paint a wall or figure out a plumbing problem. His father, also an engineer, drew puzzles for Cornelius.

The kind of puzzles where he had to count how many squares or triangles were hidden in a design.

“He helped me see things differently,” Cornelius explains on a video call, as the sun beats down and a rooster crows somewhere in the distance. “My dad helped with my maths homework and gave me books to read.”

Mechanical engineering wasn’t his first choice, but that’s the route Cornelius landed up on. He was a bit scared of it at first. But, towards the end of his course at the University of Malawi, he began discovering the beauty of the machines he was studying.

Apprentice becomes designer

The first machines Cornelius worked on produced fizzy drinks and beers at Castel Malawi Ltd. He’d already had a taste of a similar production line at Illovo, the sugar factory where he spent a few months while earning his degree. But this time it was a job, not work experience. He trained to keep the equipment running and fixed it when things went wrong. He loved seeing the process from start to finish – from the ingredients going in, to bottles being sealed. He loved being inside the factory, doing a small bit of maintenance or helping with a major overhaul. In a way, it was like being at home, with so many people teaching him new skills.

After a couple of years, a new opportunity sprung up. There were new kinds of machines, and plenty of process, but no factories. Cornelius’ new job, as a project engineer, was designing and installing water systems in far-flung villages across Malawi.

Each project involves a survey of the

Cornelius works out the cost of water projects before construction begins

land and what lies beneath it, the design and the build. On top of that, Cornelius negotiates with village elders, briefs fellow engineers and technicians, and scopes out how much each project will cost.

He’s already worked with more than 10 communities and on 20 or more designs.

Changing lives

Cornelius remembers how long it took him to finish the first design. He kept double-checking every detail: pump size, pipe diameters, flow rate, water pressure, elevation, solar-power requirements and a hundred other pieces of the puzzle. Working at a non-profitmaking organisation, the design had to be cost‘Excellence is not an act, but a habit,’ says Cornelius

effective and there was no room for mistakes in the budget.

Gradually, the process got easier, and the work more and more rewarding.

“I take pride and joy in helping people get clean and safe water,” he says. “It’s a joy to see my designs come to life, knowing that lives have been changed.”

Water Mission, a Christian engineering NGO, says many women in countries such as Malawi not only spend most of their day walking for miles to reach water, but face waterborne illnesses.

More recently, Cornelius has led a handful of water projects and helped communities in the southern part of the country recover from a cyclone.

Just getting started

An associate member of the IMechE, Cornelius plans to become professionally registered. Like his father, he’s drawn to music and plays piano. His faith is important to him, as are the conversations he has with other engineers. When he meets younger engineers, he tells them to always keep an open mind and break down any limits they’ve set themselves. His advice is: work hard and grab every opportunity.

When he’s not at the office or on site, he’s watching movies (he loves any film about superheroes) or writing poetry.

To finish off the interview, he quotes a couple of lines that have been attributed to different thinkers and writers across the centuries: “We are what we repeatedly do.

Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

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EVOLVING SKILLS

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Institution members have been surveyed on what they think will be the key skills needed by manufacturing engineers of the future

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The world faces a broad set of challenges and an unprecedented rate of change to design and manufacture the infrastructure that will deliver net-zero emissions and provide the nutrition, healthcare, security and lifestyle that an increasingly wealthy global population will require.

This is an exciting time to be an engineer.

The pace at which these technologies must be developed and the broad range of digital tools that will be drawn upon to deliver the products and services of the future mean that the engineering discipline and skill set must rapidly and flexibly evolve to meet these needs.

The role of the manufacturing engineer is changing as silos are broken down, and a range of skills fusing traditional engineering, digital skills and soft skills will become increasingly important.

The suite of skills will change over time so the ability to learn and apply new skills will be paramount, both for the next generation of engineers and for the current workforce.

Changing roles The IMechE and Institution of Engineering and Technology recently commissioned a survey on the future manufacturing engineer profile, questioning their members across different career stages. The topics in the survey questionnaire included how manufacturing engineering roles may change in the future, which competencies will be most important, and where manufacturing engineers can make the most significant contribution to finding answers to some of humanity’s greatest global challenges.

The headline results revealed that skills in automation, robotics and mechatronics are thought to be the most important for manufacturing engineers (84%) in the next 10 years. These skills were followed by artificial intelligence (69%) and sustainable, lean, resource-efficient manufacturing (66%).

Communication skills, creativity and design thinking ranked as the top three non-engineering competencies of ‘highest importance’ for future manufacturing engineers, according to the members surveyed.

Energy, transport and the circular economy were perceived as the top three challenge areas where manufacturing engineers can make the most significant contribution. These are sectors facing rapid change and providing an opportunity for the engineering community.

The findings on automation may also help to allay some fears that mass automation of manufacturing processes will reduce the number of jobs in the sector. Given the rapid pace of change in technology, engineers will have to upskill/ retrain multiple times throughout their careers. Creating a diverse education market to deliver such upskilling and retraining will be required, at scale.

The findings related to AI are in contrast to the relatively low yet rising incidence

The headline results revealed that skills in automation, robotics and mechatronics are thought to be the most important for manufacturing engineers (84%) in the next 10 years

of applied AI in UK manufacturing, at the present time.

Clearly, future manufacturing engineers will want to harness the massive increase in data availability and analytics being enabled through increased investment in digital technology. As AI could be pivotal in the future of design and manufacturing engineering, alongside robotics and automation, more can be done to encourage the UK manufacturing and engineering community to develop AI applications and to implement the technology in their factories.

On sustainability and climate change, future manufacturing engineers will be at the forefront of securing improved nonlabour, resource productivity, and, with that, increased productivity too, making more with less.

Keeping pace One thing that is clear is that the pace of change of technology is increasing and engineers embarking on their careers will need to refresh their skill sets a number of times across their working lives. The research and innovation community can work with industry and training and skills providers to forecast skills needs and future roles, and ensure that education and continuous professional development provision is refreshed to keep pace with the changing needs of the workforce.

A thriving manufacturing sector, one that can add new overseas markets, and build the confidence needed to unlock sustainable jobs and prosperity, is possible.

For businesses to be a part of this, there is a need to invest in new digital technologies, net-zero measures and, above all, invest in people.

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ASK THE ENGINEERS

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Are you stuck in a career rut or planning your next move? Or maybe you’re a student struggling to decide on an industry. In each issue, we’ll put your burning questions to our panel of seasoned engineers

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SPIROS ASKS:

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I’ve worked abroad for 17 years in construction but I’d like to come back to the UK. I have an aboveaverage salary but feel I could do better in the UK and develop more as an engineer professionally. At 41, should I take the risk now or accept my fate and try to make the most of it in the country I am in?

CLIENT

Given the situation in the UK there is plenty of construction going on at the moment. However there may be visa requirements that could be a slight barrier to your coming to work here. I would suggest that nothing should stop you from looking for and applying for jobs here in the UK. Certainly there are exciting projects coming and ongoing.

Stuart P

It’s the ultimate dilemma.

Go to the UK and develop more professionally, or stick to outside where you’re probably in your comfort zone and maybe earn a bit higher. The opportunities in the UK right now are staggering, so there’s plenty to go at, and companies in the UK take staff development pretty seriously.

I think your challenge may be getting a UK company to take you on in terms of your salary and expectations. If you say you want to develop more as an engineer, are there trade-offs you would be willing to make to develop more – for example, taking a salary cut to move across different disciplines or needing to satisfy any further registration requirements?

Neil Henderson

David Haboubi There are lots of good engineering roles in the UK, which will attract a reasonable if not outstanding salary. There are also a fair few bad ones where you will be exploited and have no security. Think about education if you have kids; health care is excellent and free. Good luck.

Ian Kay

Get in touch Do you have a careers question for your fellow engineers? Email

profeng@thinkpublishing.co.uk with your name and question and we’ll put it to our expert panel

As an engineer who is based in the UK, I have been fortunate to travel occasionally for work in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. I have been more tempted by the offers of working as an engineer abroad, learning new cultures and how these play into day-to-day work.

I guess it all depends where you are based and how is your current situation.

There could be many reasons for you to come back to the UK outwith your professional life and you should factor all of these in your decision making.

Ultimately finding a role with the experience you speak of should not be difficult in the UK. Simon The answer depends greatly on where you are working overseas, and whether you consider the UK as ‘home’. If you are in a low-tax region, do not underestimate the level of taxes and other costs payable in the UK. Also, the quality of life varies geographically and needs to be considered. I have worked for over 40 years as an expat outside the UK in various locations and countries, and have valued the wider experiences and development gained in my international career.

Andrew Deacon

One of those huge questions. If you’d like to come back to the UK, there are many opportunities but you need to ask yourself: 1. Do I enjoy doing what I’m doing where I’m doing it? 2. Is the UK still what I think it is? The country has changed enormously over the last 17 years. You won’t be coming back to the same country that you left. I certainly don’t love this country as much as I used to. 3. How stable is the part of the industry that you would like to work in in the UK versus where you are? Lots of research required.

Michael Reid

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SUPER C HA R GE

I think that it can be difficult to give up an above-average salary but this should be looked on as a short-term situation. If you come back to the UK and develop more as an engineer professionally you may finish up earning more than you would have done had you stayed. There may also be other factors, such as job satisfaction and professional status, that have the potential to improve if you return to the UK. So I would start looking at UK job opportunities now, as it may take some months before you find the right job.

Richard Bossom There is always a risk your overseas work will be viewed negatively in the UK. It really depends upon what is making you think of returning to the UK. At 41, you either need to

take the plunge now or risk coming to the UK later but only as a contractor, due to your age. Or stay where you are if you are happy and secure.

John Green Change can be made any time.

I have worked with wonderful people who have shifted industry, location or both in their forties and later. Your experience is something that I’m sure many would love to learn from and equally you will have a fresh challenge.

Also consider that it is always possible that events (life/ world) force you to make the change. Perhaps you could consider whether a change on your own terms moving towards something that you personally want might be an empowering move.

Wilfred

My suggestion is to compare your skill sets against those in your field and the UK market.

The other point is how long your finances will sustain you before you think you will land a job. It will be good to have a fall-back plan, good adaptability and the support of family members. Age looks OK to me, with a fair balance between experience and room for career opportunities.

Richard Fung I do not have experience in your industries but around three years ago (I am 41 myself) I moved from a senior management position to starting my own consulting engineering company. Despite the reduction in salary I am much happier in my life and getting to do more engineering projects that I love.

Money is not always the driver for career changes. Do what will reinvigorate you!

Ashley Kingston Professional Engineering • www.imeche.org

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Weird VERSION

RING W E IRD E NGINE E

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CYCLOTECH-YAMATO CARGO DRONE Delivery craft uses novel aerial propulsion system

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SUBS

efore the Wright brothers took off in 1903, people daydreamed about countless ways to achieve heavier-than-air flight, from flapping wings to corkscrew rotors.

After the successful trials at Kitty Hawk in North Carolina, the template became clearer. Engineers and designers knew the basic principles of how to get their craft airborne, and many of the features we recognise in today’s planes would gradually emerge over the next years and decades. The 20th century saw extensive experimentation and incredible progress, but for the most part there was little reason to completely reinvent the wheel – or the propeller.

This makes it all the more unusual when an entirely new design comes along, such as this unnamed cargo drone system from Austrian propulsion specialist CycloTech and Japanese delivery company Yamato Holdings. The concept uses a new propulsion system aimed at precision landing in confined areas and flight in windy conditions – both key features for urban airborne logistics. But will it ever take off?

ART PRODUCTION CLIENT

Unorthodox design

At first glance, the cargo drone has an unorthodox design. At second glance, it is even stranger. Instead of helicopterstyle rotors, ducted fans or any other recognisable system, the electric craft has six ‘CycloRotors’.

Looking something like barrels with half of their staves removed, the CycloRotors are designed to offer 360° thrust vectoring.

According to a paper written by the two firms, they are based on the same principle as the Voith Schneider Propeller, a highly manoeuvrable marine propulsion system.

As with the marine counterpart, the angle of each of the CycloRotor’s blades can be altered to direct thrust while the rotor structure spins.

“The compact design, and direct and instant control of magnitude and direction

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‘The characteristics of CycloRotors give manufacturers unprecedented freedom in designing aircraft and drones’ of thrust, offer a natural, stable transition from hover to forward flight and superior manoeuvrability,” says a CycloTech and Yamato announcement. “The unique characteristics of CycloRotors give vehicle manufacturers unprecedented freedom in designing aircraft and drones.”

Those unique characteristics were exploited in the design of the unmanned eVTOL concept – compact, capable of carrying a 45kg payload up to 40km, and able to land in areas just 5m in diameter.

The omni-directional thrust should also provide stability in crosswinds of up to 36 knots (18m/s), claims the announcement.

Last-mile delivery

The other half of the design is focused on the detachable cargo pods, developed by Yamato. The Pupa701 pod is designed to allow staff on the ground to quickly and safely load packages for delivery.

“All operations can be handled from one side, be it loading and unloading the payload, complete swap of the pod, or charging or exchanging batteries,” says the announcement. “It ensures flexible, fast, safe and ergonomic handling, minimising hazards to the operator or the vehicle.”

Overall, the system is aimed at efficient ‘last-mile’ deliveries. The partners based the design on ‘extensive’ calculations, wind-tunnel testing, and the first flights of a technology demonstrator, but it is unclear if they will build a full-scale prototype.

It also remains to be seen if regulators and the public will ever welcome autonomous airborne deliveries. A 2019 IMechE poll found that only 23% of adults supported drone deliveries, with 45% saying that thefts were the top concern.

Introducing a new propulsion system seems unlikely to convince an already sceptical population. But, with a persistent drive towards online deliveries and automation of logistics processes, perhaps the CycloTech-Yamato design could be in demand if the public mood changes in years to come.

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MORE WEIRD THINGS WE LEARNED WHILE MAKING THIS ISSUE A starfish can inspire innovation (page 9) Bricks can be made by bio-engineering (page 43) Organelles can be moved from cell to cell (page 47)

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