New Projects 2023

We are delighted to be able to support seven new projects this quarter. The various projects will be lead by Katy Voisey, Kieran Jones, Oleg Makarovskiy, Oluwafunmilola Ola, Mark Jabbal, Oriol Gavalda Diaz, and Surojit Sen.

Congratulations! We are excited to learn of the progress and impact these projects will have.

Reusable Rocket Materials Testing - Led by Katy Voisey (PF087):

Summary - The project aims to explore the feasibility of setting up a testing rig within the UoN which would then replicate the service conditions of extreme temperatures followed by salt water immersion. Successful implementation of this will provide a resource which can be central to future funding applications. This project builds on existing expertise in high temperature materials, corrosion and material characterisation to generate a facility that will enable us to compete for funding in the growing space sector.

For more information, please contact Katy Voisey.

Smart Sustainable Batteries for Reliability, Reparability & Recyclability - Led by Surojit Sen (PF090):

Summary - The project aims to substantially reduce the carbon footprint of a battery pack through reducing the expenditure of repair and recycling. This ties in well with the "zero-carbon cluster" and "Driving to Net Zero" objectives.

The project will investigate a radical design alteration of manufacturing electric vehicle battery packs that allows for seamless battery cell repair/replacement/recycling; compression-fit battery cells instead of welded assembly. The proposed method would investigate the feasibility of completely avoiding any permanent connection, and use compression-fit connection between the bus bar and cell terminal. This alternative method is anticipated to have some penalty in weight, volume, and reliability; the investigator will quantify these metrics and offer a cost-benefit analysis.

For more information, please contact Surojit Sen.

Photoactive Nanocomposite Enabled Supercapacitors - Led by Oluwafunmilola Ola (PF088):

Summary - The project will focus on developing a new class of durable perovskite-based electrodes that can retain optimum performance efficiency over 80% at 100 cycles in photochemical supercapacitors. It will involve the integration of advanced photoactive and capacitive materials as photochemical supercapacitors, and the assessment and optimization of these devices regarding their photo-electrochemical performance.

For more information, please contact Oluwafunmilola Ola.

Mapping Battery Degradation Pathways - Led by Kieran Jones (PF089):

Summary - The project will use expensive isotopically labelled precursors not currently budgeted for with available amenities, and support a new approach to address existing problem in Li-ion battery degradation studies.

For more information, please contact Kieran Jones.

HighTMag+ - Led by Oleg Makarovskiy (PF086):

Summary - The project will deliver significant upgrade of the Beacon's HighTMag facility for operation in the UV-range, as a stepping stone for new lines of research followed by publications in leading journals, external research funding from the DSTL, and approximately 50% increase in system usage.

For more information, please contact Oleg Makarovskiy.

Development of a Dynamic Thrust Rig for Wind Tunnel Testing Novel Propulsor Concepts - Led by Mark Jabbal (PF091):

Summary - The project will develop capability to support thrust measurements of novel, zero carbon propulsor concepts in a wind tunnel. The rig will have 'plug and play' capability to test different concepts, including electric distributed propulsion, contra-rotating propulsor and boundary layer ingestion in realistic conditions (in terms of scale and wind-on and ground effects), to help de-risk the gap between existing numerical modelling efforts and flight test demonstration. 

For more information, please contact Mark Jabbal.

Hydrogen Damage in Long Fibre Composites - Led by Oriol Gavalda Diaz (PF102):

The aim of this project is to quantify how hydrogen diffuses along interfaces in long fibre composites with a polymeric matrix. The main outputs of the project will be:- The development of a micromechanical suite of techniques required to measure interfacial toughness, friction and strength of interfaces in composites before and after hydrogen exposures.- Use mesoscale testing at different temperatures (-20 - +160oC) to understand how the change in micromechanical properties affects the macroscale failure of the composite.

For more information, please contact Oriol Gavalda Diaz.