Hot technology wins SPARK award
The University of Greenwich has won an award to help design engine parts which can operate at temperatures above 1,000 degrees Celsius while themselves glowing ‘yellow-hot’.
Researchers have won the SPARK award for their partnership with Oxsensis, a young company making high-tech sensors which simultaneously measure pressure and temperature. Because the sensors can operate at such high temperatures, they have the potential to make a step change in the efficiency of planes, cars and power stations, saving fuel and reducing carbon emissions.
Professor Chris Bailey and his team will be using computer modelling to predict how the sensors and their components would operate under different variables, for instance fluid flow, temperature and vibration. The research will help Oxsensis with the design, assembly and installation of the highly sophisticated sensors which operate deep inside combustion engines.
Professor Bailey says: “I am delighted that our work with Oxsensis has won this recognition. The aerospace and car manufacturing industries are demanding improved sensors because next generation engines are getting much hotter. At the moment no sensor can work reliably above 800 degrees.
“The university can offer the facilities, experience and knowledge base Oxsensis needs to ensure the highest level of reliability in its processes and products.” The two partners will start working together this month.
The SPARK Awards, which started in 2002, are given to higher education institutions which help small and medium businesses tackle a problem of direct relevance to them. They also aim to encourage longer-term relationships between educational and business organisations.
Editors’ notes:
- Professor Chris Bailey leads the Computational Mechanics & Reliability Group in the School of Computer & Mathematical Sciences at the University of Greenwich. The group is a world leader in the development and application of computer-aided technologies which predict the physical behaviour, performance, reliability, and maintainability of complex engineering systems and products.
- Oxsensis Ltd. was formed in 2003 as a spin-out from Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire. Its sensor technology is based on the micromachining of super resistant materials such as single-crystal sapphire (melting point >2000C) together with innovative fibre optic interrogation techniques which give high sensitivity and immunity from electro-magnetic interference (EMI) effects common in turbo-machinery such as gas turbines.
- The SPARK Awards are organised by the Integrated Products Manufacturing Transfer Network, one of the Knowledge Transfer Networks of the Technology Strategy Board, jointly with the Innovative Electronics Manufacturing Research Centre (leMRC) of the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council.
For a high-res image of the sensor, and information, contact:
Hester Brown, Press Officer
University of Greenwich
Tel: 020 8331 7663
Mob: 07876 193 481