Dr Fayyaz Minhas of the Tissue Image Analytics (TIA) lab at the Computer Science department is a co-PI on a £97K grant by Cancer Research UK’s Early Detection Committee to explore machine learning for discovery of pre-neoplastic signature in mesothelioma. He will be working closely with the PI Dr Jan Lukas Robertus, who is a Senior Consultant Cardiothoracic Pathologist at the Royal Brompton Hospital. Dr Minhas will lead on the machine learning and computational pathology side of the project.

The department congratulates:

• Richard Beanland
• Tom Hase
• John Hanna, and
• Neil Wilson

on their promotion to Professor.

The International Polymer Colloid Group (IPCG) was founded in 1972 as a global forum for the exchange of ideas and emerging research activities for scientists and engineers from both academia and industry who study or use polymer colloids.

It is a vibrant scientific international community who normally meet face-to-face every two years to discuss the latest global developments related to polymer colloid science (2013 Shanghai, 2015 New Hampshire, 2017 the Basque Country, 2019 Singapore).

As a result of the global COVID19 pandemic, prof. dr. ir. Stefan Bon came up with the idea to take the IPCG forum online with a series of weekly scientific webinars, called the i-PCG 2020 Webinars. Anyone who is interested in science can participate as audience member, or even better, as presenter. Expect to interact with the world top in polymer colloid, with expert participants from industry, academia and enthusiasts. All is free.

185 scientists won part of the European Research Council’s (ERC) €450 million for Europe’s long-term frontier research, one of which was Professor David Scanlan, from the School of Life Sciences.

Press Release

WMG is proud to be playing its part in the government’s Driving the Electric Revolution challenge.

Fourteen winning projects, announced by the Business Secretary in March, will share a total of £6.7 million. These projects will help boost supply chain efficiencies in industries affected by electrification, from aerospace to automotive, to energy and rail.

Transport Minister Rachel Maclean said:

“Funding and increased support for state-of-the-art electric manufacturing centres will help people, goods and services move across the nation, in a greener, safer and more reliable way than ever before.

By investing in world-leading science and engineering institutions, we are creating a modern transport system, bringing communities closer together while reducing the UK’s contribution to climate change.”

Co-ordinated by WMG Centre High Value Manufacturing Catapult, WMG at the University of Warwick, will be part of the project consortiums for High Volume E-Machine Stack Manufacture and Lightweight Aluminium Winding (LAW).

High Volume E-Machine Stack Manufacture

This project brings WMG together with Brandauer, and Jaguar Land Rover to improve the production methods, tooling design, processes and material selection used in the creation of rotor and stator components to pave the way to a high volume production of thinner laminations in the UK.

Given the rise of electric vehicles and more electrified systems it is strategically desirable for the UK to develop its own supply chain for the production and distribution of high-performance electric machines at volume. This project seeks to close the gap in UK-based supply of rotor and stator lamination stacks.

Brandauer is already established as a market leader in high precision stampings and pressings in multiple sectors but does not currently have the capability to meet the demand of the automotive sector. This will create the opportunity for Brandauer to not just enter the automotive supply chain, but to do so as best-in-class.

Lightweight Aluminium Winding (LAW)

A consortium, led by Aspire Engineering, with WMG, Voltalogic, Ashwoods Automotive, Hydro Aluminium Rolled Products will develop a winding machine for aluminium wires. The winding machine will provide the first UK supply chain solution for manufacturing aluminium coils. Coil winding is a critical component of eMachine manufacture and is not provided by any UK manufacturer. UK based companies of eMachines have to purchase winding machines from overseas suppliers or have wound coils shipped to them.

Ashwoods and Voltalogic will provide copper coil designs that will be redesigned to use aluminium wire. Hydro Aluminium Rolled Products will provide coated aluminium wire with the preferred electrical conductivity and mechanical properties. Aspire will build their work on winding machines to provide a volume manufacturing solution, and WMG will leverage their development work on volume e-Machine manufacture to guide the partners to the provision of a volume manufacturing solution.

The successful completion of the project will provide a UK supply chain for the manufacture of e-Machine coil winding. Through this, it will enhance the UK's competitiveness to deliver e-Machine manufacturing technology. It will embed the design and manufacturing expertise for coil winding into the UK supply chain.

The project will develop the reduction in weight of e-Machines by 15% without compromising performance by developing manufacturing processes for winding coils from alternative material.

It will also deliver, for the first time, to the off-highway market a single source drive system incorporating advanced IPM motor technology, radically lighter BUT equally as efficient as current IPM technology.

Find out more about WMG’s Transport Electrification and Energy research here.

We are sorry to report that Professor Elmer Rees, from the first cohort of PhD students in Warwick, died on 4th October 2019.

Staff and students from WMS and across the University are helping to respond to the pandemic in many ways including with ventilators, visors, volunteering and testing.