WMG News - Latest news from WMG

The first stage involved making parts in a rubbery material using innovative additive manufacturing technology. After review from PBFA, the next stage involved creating two designs before the final approved design could be manufactured were created before the part was approved. This helped Barkley Plastics win an order from PBFA to manufacture them and subsequently sell in M&S stores.

Professor Sridhar Seetharaman has been awarded the best paper award at the IAS (Argentinian Iron and Steel Institute) annual Steel Conference in Argentina. The prestigious conference on Ironmaking, Steelmaking, Rolling and Steel Products is the major steel conference in South America. The conference took place from 5-7 November 2013 at Rozario, Argentina.

Professor Seetharaman is the Tata Steel / Royal Academy of Engineering Professor for Low Carbon Materials Technologies at WMG. He leads WMG's research in Materials Processing, with a focus on Iron and Steel Manufacturing.

Professor Seetharaman's paper was entitled ‘Oxidation and embrittlement in grain boundaries induced by Cu in a low carbon steel with Cr and 0.2% Cu under different thermal and atmospheric conditions’. The paper was produced by Professor Seetharaman along with his PhD student Erica Sampson (Carnegie Mellon University) and J.A. Mendez and C. Cicutti of Tenaris Siderca in Argentina.

19th IAS Steel Conference 2013 website

WMG’s SME Team at the University Warwick are to reveal how they can help West Midlands SMEs solve low volume manufacture challenges, at a special free event on the 3rd December designed to help SMEs successfully take a product idea into low volume manufacture.

WMG researchers will show how they are working with injection moulding company Barkley Plastics Ltd to deliver low volume injection moulding solutions for several new products, including an innovative medical product, through the novel, cost effective use, of Additive Layer Manufacturing (3D Printing).

ALM technology has been used to print polymer inserts that are capable of producing more than 200 injection moulded parts. With a build time of only 4 hours and a cost per set in the low hundreds of pounds, it is a highly attractive manufacturing route for companies looking to bring new products to market.

Professor Lord Bhattacharyya, Chairman of WMG, welcomed Rt Hon Tristram Hunt MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Education to WMG on 21 November.

Earlier in the day Tristram Hunt MP gave his first speech as Shadow Education Secretary, at the Association of Colleges annual conference, where he focused on education excellence for all. Meeting with Professor Lord Bhattacharyya they discussed the importance of apprenticeships and the developments of University Technical Colleges including the WMG Academy for Young Engineers, which provide different pathways to success, and are being addressed at WMG. It was also an opportunity for the Shadow Education Secretary to find out more on WMG's global education programmes.

WMG has launched a new initiative, the Business Innovation Group (BIG), which will act as a channel to focus WMG’s business engagement activity and support organisations who are looking to transform for success in the digital economy.

The Business Innovation Group will engage and work with a wide range of business partners, from start-ups and SMEs, through WMG’s SME Team within IIPSI, to large organisations and policymakers. BIG is led by WMG's Business Transformation research group, but will draw on its access to cutting-edge research and expertise across all of WMG’s research areas to support organisational and economic transformation. Specifically, BIG will help organisations to adapt their products, services and operations to respond to the connected digital economy as well as assist organisations to evolve and implement new business and economic models as technology continues to transform society.

The first four of eight entrants have been awarded investment as a result of entering the Radical Train competition, run by the rail industry’s Enabling Innovation Team.

One of these succesful entrants is the Revolution VLR Consortium (Very Light Rail) consisting of TDI (Europe) Ltd (Transport Design International), Unipart Rail Ltd, WMG centre HVM Catapult, Trelleborg PPL Ltd , Allectra Ltd and GKN Land Systems for their low carbon, very-lightweight whole passenger railcar demonstrator.
 
David Clarke, Director of the Future Railway Enabling Innovation Team, commented: ‘We are delighted to announce the awards for these four high quality projects which bring a mixture of new technologies and organisations to the UK rail sector. We’re looking forward to the point where they are able to deliver a tangible benefit to the UK rail sector.’

The Revolution VLR Consortium is committed to developing and building an affordable low carbon, lightweight rail vehicle to facilitate low cost connectively of regional and rural areas. The Consortium believes that such an approach is fundamental to the provision of integrated and sustainable short range public transport systems both now and in the future.

Their project will demonstrate a next generation of very light-weight railcar (VLR) using hybrid propulsion technology, coupled with a unique self-powered bogie and modular, composite bodyshell design. A key element of the project is to utilise off-the-shelf componentry where practical to reduce overall manufacturing cost and improve reliability and maintainability. Another aspect of the research involved is to evaluate the application of existing, essentially ‘heavy rail’, safety standards to VLR railcars and produce a discussion paper for consideration by the Radical Train stakeholders.

Engineering students from the University of Warwick are gearing up for a big Australian motor racing event which will see them go head to head with their friends and rivals at Monash University.

The team of seven students, helped by WMG and School of Engineering staff, are taking their racing car WR3 to compete in the Formula SAE-A competition in Melbourne in December.

The run-up to the competition has seen the two sides – Warwick Racing and Monash Motorsport – share expertise as part of the Monash-Warwick Alliance, which has helped to fund the trip.

Margaret Low, Principal Teaching Fellow at WMG has received a highly commended certificate from STEMNET for her work promoting STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects.

Margaret was nominated for the STEMNET Awards (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Network) by colleagues who work with her across her activities.

Tariq El-Ayat from STEMNET added in his response:

We were hugely impressed by [Margaret’s] level of dedication in inspiring young people in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. We greatly appreciate [Margaret’s] involvement in STEMNET’s programmes, and hope to hear more about activities in future."

Professor Christina Hughes, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education said:

I have been tremendously impressed by Margaret’s dedication to working with and promoting STEM Ambassadors to as wide an audience as possible, Margaret has not only engaged fully in new developments within the University of Warwick, she has also engaged with a range of external partners in ways that make a serious regional contribution to enhancing public understandings of STEM.”

A group from the University of Warwick, including WMG, have recently presented a workshop at the Mozilla Festival 2013 in London (25th - 27th of October 2013) in collaboration with the University's Technology Volunteers. The workshop 'Connecting With Our World' was based on the Technology Volunteers outreach activities at the University of Warwick and formed part of the festival stream “Making the Web Physical”.

Workshop participants built a range of simple sensors and interfaces, developing programs to respond to events in the physical environment. Creativity and fun were key elements of the session, and towards the end of the workshop, there were demonstrations of the creations.

The aim of the Technology Volunteers outreach activities is to give young people a deeper understanding of the role of hardware and software, while having fun designing and making things. The team made contact with similarly minded people over the course of the weekend, running workshops and attending sessions, and hope to have the opportunity to work with them in the future.

Professor Lord Bhattacharyya, Chairman of WMG, at the University of Warwick recently visited the University of Science and Technology Beijing (USTB) to sign a Memorandum of Understanding which will create a long-term collaboration partnership in research and knowledge transfer.

The agreement will see both universities working to develop collaborative research and development opportunities, by working with companies, in China, Europe and internationally, as well as national funding bodies. This builds on the existing Ministry of Education of China and State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs ‘Top Overseas Professorship’ of WMG’s Professor Sridhar Seetharaman at USTB, to develop a wide ranging research and knowledge transfer collaboration. There will also be jointly supported doctoral research.