This project proposes to investigate the way the polymeric powders of different shapes and sizes flow, interact and sinter in the Laser Sintering process, through modelling and experimental validation. Laser sintering is part of the additive manufacturing technology, known for its benefits in industries where custom made products, lightweight and complex designs are required. In laser sintering a polymer powder bed is heated to just below its melt temperature. A laser is then focused onto the bed which scans a raster pattern of a single layer of the final part. The bed lowers slightly and a new layer of powder is applied. The process is then repeated until the component is made and the additive layer process is complete. The spreading and compaction of the powder is an important part of the LS process, a non-uniform layer of powder leads to high porosity and weaker bonding between layers and therefore a structure with poor mechanical performance. Similarly, the size and shape of particles can change the sintering process. Larger contact areas between particles lead to a good sintering profile and ultimately to a high density part and good mechanical properties. Surface area of particles, polymer viscosity and surface tension are characteristics which will be considered when modelling the flow and sintering process.

The Innovative Manufacturing and Construction Research Centre (IMCRC) will undertake a wide variety of work in the Manufacturing, Construction and product design areas. The work will be contained within 5 programmes:1. Transforming Organisations / Providing individuals, organisations, sectors and regions with the dynamic and innovative capability to thrive in a complex and uncertain future2. High Value Assets / Delivering tools, techniques and designs to maximise the through-life value of high capital cost, long life physical assets3. Healthy & Secure Future / Meeting the growing need for products & environments that promote health, safety and security4. Next Generation Technologies / The future materials, processes, production and information systems to deliver products to the customer5. Customised Products / The design and optimisation techniques to deliver customer specific products.Academics within the Loughborough IMCRC have an internationally leading track record in these areas and a history of strong collaborations to gear IMCRC capabilities with the complementary strengths of external groups.Innovative activities are increasingly distributed across the value chain. The impressive scope of the IMCRC helps us mirror this industrial reality, and enhances knowledge transfer. This advantage of the size and diversity of activities within the IMCRC compared with other smaller UK centres gives the Loughborough IMCRC a leading role in this technology and value chain integration area. Loughborough IMCRC as by far the biggest IMRC (in terms of number of academics, researchers and in funding) can take a more holistic approach and has the skills to generate, identify and integrate expertise from elsewhere as required. Therefore, a large proportion of the Centre funding (approximately 50%) will be allocated to Integration projects or Grand Challenges that cover a spectrum of expertise.The Centre covers a wide range of activities from Concept to Creation.The activities of the Centre will take place in collaboration with the world's best researchers in the UK and abroad. The academics within the Centre will be organised into 3 Research Units so that they can be co-ordinated effectively and can cooperate on Programmes.

Since the beginning of humanity our societies have been based on commerce, i.e. we make things and we sell them to other people. Relatively simple beginnings led to the Industrial Revolution and now to the technological age. Over-generalising, the Far East are currently the masters of mass manufacture and the West are (or wish to be) the masters of advanced manufacture - the production of high-value goods, often involving a significant degree of innovation. To be able to manufacture goods in a cost-effective, environmentally-sustainable manner, quality control procedures are required. And quality control in turn requires an appropriate measurement infrastructure to be in place. It is a sub-set of this measurement infrastructure that is the subject of this fellowship. The UK government has been investing heavily in advanced manufacturing. In the academic arena, there are the sixteen EPSRC Centres of Innovative Manufacturing. To ease the pain of transferring academic research to the manufacturing sector, there are the seven High-Value Manufacturing Catapults (the Manufacturing Technology Centre being the main one of note here). For industry, there are a number of funding initiatives and tax breaks. To support this burgeoning UK advanced manufacturing infrastructure, there are a small number of academic centres for metrology - those based at Huddersfield and Bath are the main players. And, at the top of the measurement tree, there is the world-class National Physical Laboratory - a centre of excellence in metrology. But, there are still some gaps in the manufacturing metrology research jigsaw, and the aim of this fellowship is to plug those gaps. Coordinate metrology has been used for decades in the manufacturing industry as the most dominant form of process control, usually employing tactile coordinate measuring machines (CMMs). However, due to the slow speed of tactile systems and the fact that they can only take a limited amount of points, optical CMMs are starting to flourish. On the smaller scale, there are many optical surface measuring devices that tend to be used off-line in industry. When making small, high-precision, complex components, with difficult to access geometries, it is a combination of the surface measurement systems and the CMMs that is required. This requirement is one of the main aims of the fellowship - to develop a suite of fast, high-accuracy, non-contact measurement systems, which can be employed in industry. These principles will also be applied to the field of additive manufacturing - a new paradigm in manufacturing which is seeing significant government support and, in some cases, media hype. As with high-precision components, a coordinate metrology infrastructure for additive manufacturing is required, in many cases in-line to allow direct feedback to the manufacturing process. This is the second field of metrology that the fellowship will address. The outputs of the fellowship will be in the form of academic publications; new measurement instruments, along with new ways to use existing instruments; methods to allow manufacturers to verify the performance of their instruments; and the necessary pre-normative work that will lead to specification standards in the two fields (currently lacking). The academic world will benefit from the fundamental nature of elements of the research, and the industrial manufacturing world will benefit from the techniques developed and routes to standardisation. But, ultimately, it will be the UK citizens that will reap the greatest benefit in terms of new and enhanced products, and the wealth creation potential from precision and additive manufacturing.

Step changes in electrical machine (e-machine) performance are central to the success of future More-Electric and All-Electric transport initiatives and play a vital role in meeting the UK's Net Zero Emission target by 2050. E-machine technology roadmaps from the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) and Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) seek continuous power-density of between 9 and 25 kW/kg by 2035, in stark contrast to the 2-5 kW/kg available today. E-machine power-density is ultimately limited by the ability to dissipate internally generated losses, which manifest as heat, and the temperature rating of the electrical insulation system. The electrical conductors, referred to as windings, are often the dominant loss source and are conventionally formed from electrically insulated copper or aluminium conductors. Such conductors are manufactured using a drawing and insulation technique, which aside from improvements in materials, has seen little change in the past century. Exploring alternative manufacturing methods could allow reduction in losses, enhanced heat extraction and facilitate increased temperature ratings, ushering the necessary step changes in power-density and e-machine performance. Metal Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a process in which material is selectively bonded layer by layer to ultimately form a 3D part, enabling complex parts to be produced which may not be feasible using conventional methods. The design freedom offered by AM provides much sought-after opportunities to simultaneously reduce winding losses and packaging volume, improve thermal management and enable the use of high-temperature electrical insulation coatings. The design of such windings requires the development of new multi-physics design tools accounting for electromagnetic, thermo- and fluid- dynamics, mechanical and Design for AM (DfAM) aspects. It is important to have an understanding of the AM process, including the resulting material properties of parts and limitations on feature sizes and geometry in order to fully exploit the design freedoms whilst ensuring manufacturing feasibility. Establishing how to use build-supports and post-processes to improve component surface quality and facilitate application of electrical insulation coatings is another important aspect. To this end, I conducted initial studies in collaboration with academic and industrial partners focusing on shaped profile windings which have demonstrated the potential benefits of metal AM in e-machines and the drastic expansion of design possibilities to be explored. I intend to expand on this initial work through this fellowship which will provide me with flexible funding over a 4 + 3 year term to support The Electrical Machine Works, an ambitious and comprehensive research programme reminiscent of a Skunk Works project which draws together UK industry and academic expertise in AM, material science and multi-physics e-machine design to establish an internationally leading platform in this important emerging field. It is envisaged that the fellowship and associated platform, The Electrical Machine Works, will facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration with both industry and academia, catalysing high quality academic outputs disseminated through appropriate conference and journal publications, and the generation of Intellectual Property (IP), helping to keep the UK competitive in Power Electronics Machines and Drives (PEMD) and at the forefront of this area. If successful, in time The Electrical Machine Works will become a centre of excellence for AM in e-machines, contributing to a future skills and people pipeline and aiding in the raising of Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) in line with national priorities as expressed by the UK's Industrial Strategy, Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC), Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) and Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) Driving the Electric Revolution (DER) and Future Flight (FF) initiatives.

Performance improvement of electrical machines in terms of power-density and efficiency is central to the success of hybrid- and electric- vehicles and more- or all- electric aircraft, as indicated by the UK Advanced Propulsion Centre and the Aerospace Technology Institute. Efficiency and packaging volume of conventional electrical machines are limited by the method used to manufacture electrical windings, i.e. using pre-insulated conductors of uniform cross-section wound around the teeth of the stator. Here, we propose the use of metal additive manufacturing (3d printing), in which feedstock or powdered material is selectively bonded in a succession of 2D layers to incrementally form a compact 3D winding. The geometric freedom offered by additive manufacturing allows the simultaneous minimisation of end-winding volume and individual shaping of conductor profiles to optimise efficiency all while acting as a substrate for high performance inorganic electrical insulation materials. The technology could address the increasing drive to low batch size, flexibility and customisation in design for high integrity and high value electrical machines for the aerospace, energy and high value automotive sectors while enabling CO2 reductions demanded by legislation and market sentiment. Specifically, I will lead this multidisciplinary project exploring the potential benefits of Additive Manufacturing of High Performance Shaped Profile Electrical Machine windings leveraging expertise from industrial and academic partners Renishaw, 3TAM, Motor Design Ltd and Teesside University. The partners represent leading electrical machine design (Motor Design Ltd, University of Bristol), electrical insulation materials (Teesside University), UK additive manufacturing supply chain (Renishaw) and end-use additive manufacturing part production (3TAM). This range of partners cover the necessary skills and capability to go from theoretical winding design to manufactured, insulated prototype windings. As such, the project will result in a significant growth in the UK's knowledge and skills base in this area and develop a technology demonstrator to illustrate the quantitative benefit of such windings to industry and academia. This will allow new cross-sector relationships and collaborations to be cultivated with a view to perpetuate the research beyond the project period, ultimately leading to industrial adoption and further poising the UK as a centre for excellence in high value electrical machine technologies.