This is a feasibility project geared towards an integrated approach to enable Lightweight vehicles, manufactured at a Low cost to achieve Low emissions. Lightweight materials are the next pit-stop in the challenge of reducing mass, and therefore curb reduce emissions, to improve fuel economy in the vehicle industry. But it has to be done economically. This project will develop a breakthrough cost-effective continuous extrusion process for composite beam manufacturing. The innovative continuous extrusion process will move away from traditional high-waste composite manufacturing methods. It will offer flexibility in the dimensions of the beam along its length, width and height, supporting end-users' needs. The tailored and bespoke structural beams will require minimal tooling. The main project outputs are the continuous low-waste and affordable extrusion process. The sonication process developed at Loughborough University allows microstructure development that gives the required properties, supported by a controlled way of reinforcing with fibres. The underlying materials science has been demonstrated but requires some development in the area of transport. This project will take this and show that components can be manufactured, moving the technology from TRL 1/2 to TRL 3\.

Driven by the rail industry's challenges to industry and academia known as the 4Cs - reduce Cost and Carbon emissions and improve Capacity and Customer satisfaction - project BRAINSTORM aims to develop and demonstrate the applicability of braided composite structures to a novel, lightweight, modular railcar solution. With extensive expertise and knowledge in rail, automotive, bus and aerospace, project partners TDI, Far-UK, CBL and WMG provide a radical approach to rail vehicle lightweighting, as well as leading to significant opportunities for exploitation and creation of a UK-centric supply chain in this industry.

The global hydrogen generation market is valued at $115.25 billion in 2017 and is projected to grow to $154.74 billion by 2022 [Global Outlook & Trends for Hydrogen, IEA, 2017]. We are witnessing significant market opportunities emerging for hydrogen technologies today. New and existing hydrogen technology developments and market activities are projected to intensify over the coming decade. Sustainable hydrogen solutions are a key pathway for decarbonising transport, heat and power generation sectors. Common challenges to sustainable hydrogen being adopted across these sectors are: - Cost reduction - Safety - Systems level and multisectoral innovations - Managing change Over the next decade innovative solutions are needed to tackle the above challenges, but it will be impossible without a dedicated mechanism to train doctoral Energy Innovation Leaders. These leaders should have a firm grasp of the technology from scientific fundamentals through to applied engineering and a solid understanding of the techno-economic barriers and an appreciation of the societal issues that will impact on the translation of disruptive technologies from research labs through to market. This goes beyond being multidisciplinary, but is a transdisciplinary training, reflecting the translation steps from understanding market driven needs, planning and conducting appropriate basic and applied research to products/solutions/system development through to successful market penetration. This is delivered by a cohort training approach through the cross fertilisation of ideas of a cohort with a diverse background, peer-demonstration of the value of research across a diverse range of stakeholder-led projects, thus facilitating a peer-to-peer transdisciplinary learning culture. The SusHy Consortium, led by Gavin Walker, continues a long running and highly successful collaboration in hydrogen research between the Universities of Nottingham, Loughborough, and Birmingham (UoN, LU, UoB) which started over a decade ago with the Midlands Energy Consortium. The Midlands Energy Graduate School spawned two successful CDTs (Hydrogen, Fuel Cells and their Applications and the current Fuel Cells and their Fuels). The current proposal for a CDT in Sustainable Hydrogen brings together the world leading expertise in hydrogen generation, purification, sensors/monitoring, and storage, along with whole systems issues (resilience engineering, business economic models and life cycle analysis) which exist across the three Universities. A gap in the consortium expertise is in the research field of hydrogen safety and we identified the internationally-renowned Hydrogen Safety Engineering and Research Centre (HySAFER) at Ulster University (UU) as the right partner to deliver on this key aspect. This is the first broad collaboration in the world seeking to investigate, train researchers and produce leaders in Sustainable Hydrogen. Stakeholder Partnerships. A key strength of this CDT is the active involvement of the Stakeholders in co-creation of the training programme which is reciprocated in the value with which the Stakeholders view of the CDT. This shared vision of a training partnership between the Universities and Stakeholders will lead to the smooth function of the CDT with not just a high-quality training programme, but a programme that is tailored to the sector needs for high-quality, industry-ready doctoral Energy Innovation Leaders. The valued CDT-stakeholder partnership will also be a significant appeal to candidates interested in energy-related PhDs and will be used to help market the CDT programme to a diverse talent pool.

Awaiting Public Project Summary

There is a developing and growing vehicle segment based around small light vehicles. Examples of this include the Renault Twizy and the Toyota iRoad plus numerous vehicles such as the autonomous vehicle trials in, for example, Milton Keynes. Although these vehicles are seen as the future there have been a number of instances where the crash performance of these vehicles has been questioned by, for instance, private crash test organisations such as ENCAP. This project looks to build on existing technical knowledge to produce a crash structure for these low weight vehicles. Although a growing market, current market sizes are relatively small in automotive terms and this brings further cost challenges that will also be addressed.