On Wednesday 24^th September, WMG was pleased to host a visit from Janice Munday CBE, Director of Advanced Manufacturing and Services at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Meeting with Lord Bhattacharyya, Ms Munday was keen to hear how WMG develops partnerships with a range of industrial organisations and the significant economic benefits of such partnerships. She was also interested to understand the breadth of research undertaken by WMG, as the leading university centre for advanced manufacturing, towards development of innovation in manufacturing and the work in low carbon mobility delivered through the WMG centre High Value Manufacturing Catapult.

Ms Munday also had the opportunity to take a tour of WMG’s impressive manufacturing R&D facilities including: the Battery Materials Pilot Line and the Vehicle Energy Facility within the Energy Innovation Centre, materials lightweighting projects in the International Manufacturing Centre, and the new polymer processing facilities within the International Institute for Nanocomposites Manufacturing. Ms Munday also had an opportunity to see the site of the National Automotive Innovation Centre, due to open in 2016.

WMG has taken part in a high profile event attended by global leaders in the engineering industry aimed at promoting cutting-edge technology and celebrating 50 years of the Grand Prix at Silverstone.

Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership (CWLEP) was among the partners of the ‘Driving Technological Change within British Manufacturing’ event in the build-up to the British Grand Prix last weekend.
Around 240 delegates attended the one-day event which attracted industry leaders and organisations to discuss a wide range of topics in a series of seminars and question and answer panels.

Mark Amor-Segan, Principal Engineer within the Energy & Electrical Systems team at WMG, facilitated a seminar on Energy Capture and Storage, focusing on the electrification of vehicles within motorsport and automotive, looking at optimum configurations to achieve best performance. The session also included Sylvain Filippi, Chief Technical Officer for the Virgin Racing Formula E Team and Paul Bostock, Senior Manager, Hybrids and Electrification at Jaguar Land Rover.

WMG centre HVM Catapult is pleased to announce that a consortium led by London-based fuel cell company, Arcola Energy, has been awarded £1m R&D funding from the recent TSB call on Fuel Cell Manufacturing. Arcola Energy, the lead partner on the bid, is working within the UK to build up a strong fuel cell supply chain and manufacturing base. They are focussed on portable and small scale automotive applications. Other partners in the consortium are Imperial College and Lohmann Tapes.

Professor Robert Harrison’s team at WMG will focus on the application of manufacturing process modelling to fuel cells. The work will leverage WMG’s extensive in-house battery manufacturing and automation systems knowledge. It is anticipated that current fuel cell lifetime limitations and high unit costs that result from immature manufacturing processes will be addressed through this research by the application of automated processes and improved quality control.

The project will also work on developing a UK supply chain to support UK manufacturing of fuel cells. Professor Jan Godsell’s team at WMG will be involved in this activity.

Interest in fuel cell technology is increasing steadily from sectors such as automotive and stationary power. It is expected that growing demand will drive up production volumes by two orders of magnitude over the next five years, further reducing costs.

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.

With whisper-quiet electric cars set to proliferate, the motor industry is under pressure to give them an artificial noise for safety purposes, but should they sound like traditional petrol vehicles? BBC News Magazine discuss the issue with WMG's Professor Paul Jennings.

University of Warwick WMG Research Engineer Stephen Lambert will unveil the WorldFirst Hybrid Westfield racing car at the Goodwood Festival of Speed this weekend introducing electric hybrid cars to club racing.

The WorldFirst Hybrid Westfield Racing car showcases an innovative drivetrain which is capable of propelling the vehicle from 0-60 miles per hour in under 4 seconds. This incredible acceleration is achieved through the use of an innovative four wheel drive system which increases the available traction. A formula one style “push to pass” button controls the power generated by the two 75kW motors which, in turn, use a formula one style inboard suspension to drive the front wheels independently of the 195bhp turbo charged engine, a first for Westfield Sports Cars.