WMG has continued to progress its ambitious expansion plans announcing the appointment of a number of new major academic posts in several key areas.

WMG continues to attract world class Professors with recent appointments in the areas of steels processing, cyber security, advanced propulsion and structural composites. This builds on the nine appointments made last year in the areas of E-Health Innovation, Nanocomposites, Supply Chain and Operations, Automation Systems, Vehicle Electrification and Energy Storage, Low Carbon Materials, Energy for Low Carbon Vehicles and Digital Manufacturing.

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.

This week, WMG was pleased to welcome Mme Luo Ping, Deputy Director General of Anhui Provincial Department of Science and Technology in China.

Academic Director, Professor Richard Dashwood, welcomed Mme Luo and her party to WMG’s International Manufacturing Centre. Professor Dashwood gave the group an introductory presentation and update on the High Value Manufacturing (HVM) Catapult along with Dr Nick Mallinson (Programme Manager of WMG’s HVM Catapult). The visitors also undertook a tour of WMG’s research facilities.

On Tuesday 25 June, Drayson Racing’s lightweight electric racing car set a new world land speed record for an electric vehicle. The Lola B12/EV hit a maximum speed of 204.2mph (328.6kph) in its attempt at RAF Elvington in Yorkshire, breaking the previous record of 175mph which was set in 1974.

Over the last 6 months, WMG has worked with Drayson Racing on the car’s development, drawing on WMG’s expertise in sustainable materials and energy management.

WMG researchers developed recycled carbon fibre panels which were used on the Drayson car, research which was the result of a WMG EPSRC Challenging Engineering grant. Through WMG’s Energy Innovation Centre, testing and characterisation work was carried out on the vehicle’s electric motor to enable the maximum power possible to be achieved. This helped to contribute to the success of the Drayson racing vehicle.

Staff and students from WMG were part of a University of Warwick exhibition stand at the Big Bang Fair West Midlands, which took place at the Ricoh Arena earlier this week.

The Warwick stand, sponsored by the WMG centre HVM Catapult, brought together staff and students from six departments - WMG (including the WMG Academy), School of Engineering, Life Sciences, Physics, Computer Science and Maths and students from the Human Submarine Project, Engineering Society, Engineers Without Borders and the Technology Volunteers.

The Big Bang Fair provides the opportunity for the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) community to come together to enthuse and inspire young people to think about future education and careers involving STEM subjects. Teams from Warwick attended the fair and demonstrated exciting activities such as 3D printing, playing with electronics and sensors (Institute of Digital Healthcare and Technology Volunteers) and the Human Submarine project, which is being undertaken for the first time this year by Engineering students at Warwick.

Everyone involved had a fantastic day at the event. Hundreds of school children from the local area visited our stand and took part in some of the activities and learnt about the range of opportunities available through STEM subjects. With a stand featuring so many Science Faculty departments, the University team were able to demonstrate the real variety available across the disciplines.

See more photos from the day...

A team of researchers from WMG took part in a visit to several academic and industrial facilities in Indiana, USA, in March, resulting in some exciting collaboration possibilities for the future.

The programme of meetings included visits to the Universities of Purdue (West Lafayette) and IUPUI (Indianapolis), as well as to several companies and battery research organisations in the area. The visits cemented links which will support WMG’s centre for the High Value Manufacturing Catapult – the centre of excellence aiming to accelerate the transfer and commercialisation of new and emerging technologies within UK manufacturing.

Researchers on the visit gained valuable knowledge and insights relevant to the future development of WMG’s Energy Innovation Centre. An early outcome of the visit is WMG being granted associate membership of the Battery Innovation Centre in Indiana, which will foster future collaboration between the two centres. Plans are already in place for reciprocal membership of WMG's Energy Innovation Centre and future visits from colleagues in Indiana.

Dr Greg Gibbons, Head of WMG's Additive Layer Manufacturing group, was featured on BBC's The One Show last night in a piece about the future of 3D printing.

One Show presenter, Marty Jopson, visited WMG's facilities to see the range of work that is currently taking place and the number of different sectors that are are already benefitting from the technology.

The full piece on The One Show can be viewed on BBC iPlayer for the next 7 days:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01rjzcc/The_One_Show_27_03_2013/?t=31m46s 

WMG took part in the EEF National Manufacturing Conference 2013 in London on the 5th March 2013.

The conference, which featured addresses and debates from an impressive line-up of politicians and manufacturing leaders, focused on the topic of 'The Route to Growth' and looked at the challenges faced by UK manufacturing both today and in the future.

Representatives were available across the full range of WMG's activities, including for our involvement in the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, our work with SMEs at the International Institute for Product and Service Innovation and our Professional and Executive Education Programmes.

Included in the line-up of speakers were Rt. Hon. Ed Balls (Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer), Rt Hon the Lord Heseltine, Jim O'Neill (Chairman, Goldman Sachs Asset Mgmt), Mark Adams (VP, Corporate Planning at Toyota Motors Europe) and Deirdre Fox (Director of Strategic Business Development at Tata Steel). The event was chaired by Krishnan Guru-Murthy, presenter of Channel 4 News.

Updates of the event can be viewed on Twitter #ukmfgconf

More information is available on: http://www.manufacturingconference.co.uk/ 

The SME team from WMG, at the University of Warwick, have been working with Birmingham-based Barkley Plastics for the past year in a collaboration which has led to increased turnover for Barkley Plastics of over half a million pounds and the creation of three new jobs.

The WMG team are based in The International Institute for Product and Service Innovation (IIPSI), a building funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and University of Warwick that is dedicated for the use of small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) in the West Midlands region. Their in house Innovation Programme aims to encourage SMEs in understanding how new technology, processes and ideas can be implemented to develop new products and services to benefit their business. Companies can access three areas of support: Experience Led Innovation, Polymer Innovation and Digital Innovation.

WMG centre HVM Catapult will be supporting the Motorsport Industry Association’s (MIA) ‘ Low Carbon Racing Conference’ at Autosport International, 9th January 2013.

Once again the MIA is hosting Europe’s leading and most successful conference for Low Carbon, High Performance Motorsport in Birmingham, the centre of Motorsport Valley, and WMG centre HVM Catapult will be a supporting partner. Over 200 international delegates and media will attend to hear from expert speakers how automotive and motorsport work together to deliver energy efficient solutions.

The MIA, supported by Autosport International and UKTI, will bring together thought-leaders from motorsport and high performance engineering in a combined conference and showcase event with panel discussions.