TECHNOLOGY DELIVERY.

Industry: Manufacturing

Technology: Robotics, NDT

Grant Award: £1,2 million

Challenge: Residual stresses and micro-cracks that occur during the additive manufacturing (AM) process can result in irreversible damage and structural failure of the object after its manufacturing. The nature of some AM methods means that not all non-destructive testing (NDT) techniques are effective in detecting residual stresses. Thermography, X-ray computed tomography (CT scan), or digital radiography are limited by the resolution of images, are bulky and costly (up to £100k) and are not suited to residual stress detection.

Solution: Development of the technology to overcome key limitations relating to final component quality in metal AM by improving the online monitoring and detection during the component manufacturing.

Deliverables:

• more flexible and efficient processes
• processes that enable faster and greater customisation of products
• the production of more reliable and robust components and efficient manufacturing processes through the incorporation of Big Data and machine learning techniques
• increased productivity, competitiveness, and growth for UK businesses by creating a UK-based supply chain of SMEs and opening a range of new applications across large industrial verticals (such aerospace, defence, automotive and medical)
• a step-change in competitiveness and productivity for the SMEs involved in the project

Industry: Offshore

Technology: Robotics, NDT

Grant Award: £1,2 million

Challenge: High stresses due to wind loading cause blade damage resulting in downtime and expensive repairs. An average of 3,800 blade failures annually are attributed to poor maintenance. Costing between £70,000 and £700,000 each, a preventative inspection every 3-4 months and maintenance every six months is necessary. Current NDT practice involves visual, thermography, acoustic emission, or ultrasound, requiring skilled personnel. An EWEA survey indicates an NDT technician shortage of 5,500 qualified staff in 2012 climbing to 28,000 by 2030. Manual inspection leads to a high number of accidents (1726 accidents from 1970 to May 2015 with fatalities accounting for 45% of the total number).

Solution: Development and implementation of the agile, mobile wall-climbing robots, portable radiography equipment and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to perform asset management of offshore wind farms located in extreme and challenging environments. Further development of the platform, including up-scaling of the robot system for field testing and manufacture, extension of the capabilities of the defect detection and recognition algorithm to real-world defects, the generation of in-field radiographic images on an in-service blade.

Deliverables:

• improved quality of inspection as compared to manual ultrasound NDT
• reduced inspection times and hence reducing the cost of inspecting hundreds of blades.

Industry: Oil & Gas

Technology: Robotics, NDT

Grant Award: £1,5 million

Challenge: Pipelines constructed of carbon steel degrade due to the corrosive nature of the liquids they transport, such as crude oil, petroleum chemical and petrochemical raw materials. Corrosion and cracks can form over time leading to failure and leakage of the contents, resulting in severe economic losses and environmental pollution. To avoid any damage to the environment, inspection, evaluation, and repair activities are performed periodically. Internal cracks and areas of corrosion and metal loss are monitored using intelligent devices called ‘pigs’ which carry magnetic flux leakage sensors. Sections of pipeline that are found most likely to fail are reinforced using an externally applied bolt-on clamp which is both costly and has several drawbacks. Some pipelines are inaccessible, especially those which are installed in parallel groups where space around pipes is restricted.

Solution: Development of a robotic platform with a payload consisting of unique hydraulic friction stir welding equipment which produces no sparks from inside the pipe.

Deliverables:

• provision of a driverless on-line, permanent integrity maintenance solution to internal corrosion and cracks prior to pipe failure
• much cheaper and safer repair process: pipeline asset owners and their service providers are able to produce high-quality welds in steel pipelines without shutting down and purging petroleum pipelines, as well as the use of divers or surface vessels.

Industry: Sustainable agriculture

Technology: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML)

Grant Award: £660k

Challenge: In Africa, agribusiness has the potential to reduce poverty and drive economic growth more than any other sector. Achieving Africa’s agricultural growth potential will require a significant increase in historically low levels of productivity. Greenhouses are a solution, as they can lead to an increase of up to 10x in yield and profitability compared to open field farming techniques. But greenhouses require careful, time-consuming management of the internal environment, irrigation optimisation and avoidance of overheating or high humidity.

Solution: Development of a low-cost greenhouse management system with real-time data to provide a farmer with intel (i.e. environmental conditions, yield prediction, crop condition, action recommendations) using AI and ML.

Deliverables:

• optimisation of greenhouse growing conditions on a per-crop basis
• minimised water consumption & fertiliser use
• reduction of yield-reducing human error during the growing process
• on-line analytics interface accessible via smartphone to enable remote control of irrigation systems and provide actionable functions
• tailored micro-financing for low-income smallholder farmers in Kenya

Industry: Infrastructure, Transport

Technology: Digital twin, 3D-modeling

Grant Award: £1,5 million

Challenge: Bridges are continuously subjected to destructive effects of material ageing, widespread corrosion, vibrations, environmental impacts, increasing traffic volume and overloading. As required by law they need to be monitored and undergo inspection before the occurrence of structural failure or incidents.

Solution: Development of a ‘digital twin’ concept for the realisation of real-time condition monitoring of bridges by creating dynamic multi-scale 3D models combined with condition monitoring data collected from sensors on the bridge, operating condition information, and all available historical data to mirror the life of its physical twin.

Deliverables:

• Play a vital role in maintenance for bridges in the EU, 67% of which are more than 20 years old and therefore, more prone to failure if not monitored continuously
• Improve resilience and sustainability of infrastructures by extending (>40+ years) the lifecycle of infrastructure through predictive maintenance enabled by the SmartBridge knowledge-based real-time monitoring tool
• Reduce the risk of bridges structural failure by 60% through timely scheduling of maintenance
• Reduce whole-life costs by 20% and negative environmental impacts caused due to failures by 40%

Industry: Aerospace

Technology: Nanotechnology

Grant Award: £1 million

Challenge: De-icing in the aviation industry is an essential and life-saving procedure, but at the same time, astronomically expensive and harmful for the environment. The existing ice-mitigation technologies, such as mechanical breaking, electrical heating, de-icing, and air bleed systems, are expensive, inefficient, unreliable, and environmentally harmful. Annually, 100 million litres of de-icing fluid are used, which cost £1.3 billion, and 150 million tons of CO2 emissions are pumped into the atmosphere.

Solution: Development of a disruptive, passive anti-icing coating technology with high durability, which will help to remove the need for the hundreds of millions of litres of de-icing fluid, as well as contribute to annual savings of around £7 billion in fuel consumption.

Deliverables:

• Provision of standard aerospace coating systems with dual functionalities. This will be achieved by using ice-repellent multi-functionalised silica nanoparticles bonded strongly to a standard polyurethane clear coat already used in the aerospace sector.
• Testing of the coating using an ice wind tunnel simulation environment to demonstrate a combination of ice-repellency and durability.
• Immediate implementation across the aviation industry.
• Saving of around £7 billion in aviation fuel consumption annually.

Application in other sectors affected by icing, e.g. transport (rail, maritime, automotive) and energy (wind turbines, power lines).