Periodic Reporting for period 2 - INNOVATIVE (The Integration of Novel Aerospace Technologies)
Período documentado: 2018-03-01 hasta 2021-08-31
Many sectors are working towards mitigating the challenges of climate change, in aerospace this is no different and significant work is being undertaken to establish More Electric and All Electric aircraft to significantly reduce reliance on fossil fuels and therefore reduce global emissions. To enable this technological shift from fossil fuel to electrically powered aircraft, a pipe stream of highly skilled engineers and scientists is required to invent, develop, test and manufacture solutions for this sector. To be effective, these people need a set of multi-disciplinary skills. They need to be trained in leadership and management whilst also understanding their own technical fields in depth, and understanding the impact of their research areas upon other disciplines in these complex new systems. For example, an electrical engineer needs to understand the technological limitations of materials within the designed systems so to avoid excessive thermal energy dissipation which may destroy used materials.
The European Commission has driven this skills agenda and set out a vision for aviation and a future aerospace industry called ‘Flightpath 2050’. The report determined that “A network of multidisciplinary technology clusters” needed to be at the heart of technology development to keep Europe competitive in this strategically important global industry. At the time of publishing, multidisciplinary training tailored to the needs of the aerospace industry was limited.
The EU MSCA COFUND doctoral programme, INNOVATIVE aimed to address this shortfall in multi-disciplinary skills gap and has delivered a step-change in the training of 23 Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) in aerospace technologies. It has done this by providing a comprehensive programme empowering researchers with a multidisciplinary skillset comprising tools, techniques and methods suitable for pursuing careers in Aerospace Technology and related fields. The 23 ESRs have been distributed across 4 research areas: Aerospace Electrification and Propulsion, Aerospace Materials, Aerospace Manufacturing and Aerospace Operations. Each ESR has worked with leading academics undertaking a PhD in a specific topic and utilised generous funding to pursue technical and professional skills training whilst also disseminating their work at international conferences and high ranked journals. Concurrently, developing their team skills has been at the core of the programme and has seen ESRs design test and manufacture solar powered UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) or work in multi-disciplinary teams to develop novel concepts for the Airbus ‘fly your ideas’ international competition. ESRs also gained unrivalled exposure to the aerospace industry through secondments into leading aerospace companies. These secondments have been pivotal to ESRs gaining confidence in their skillset and ability to make an impact in industry and have thus influenced many ERSs choices to enter industry post-graduation and consequently validated the original aims of the programme.
The 23 ESRs also benefited from being based in the supra-disciplinary environment of the Institute for Aerospace Technology (IAT) at the University of Nottingham, which regroups all aerospace interests and activities in the University, from science and engineering, to business, law and political sciences and psychology. To quote ESRs: Dr. Vincenzo Madonna: “Being at IAT has meant I’ve been able to work within a larger, multidisciplinary team and interact with colleagues from other faculties who are working on fuel and propulsion technologies. This has provided me with an overall view of aerospace research at the university, helping me to see how my project fits into an overall vision.” Sarah Shabbir: “Everyone at IAT works in aerospace, but with different scopes – mechanical, electrical, human-factors, etc. The IAT provides interdisciplinary learning – it’s a place where you can bounce ideas off each other and learn through collaboration.”
The European Commission has driven this skills agenda and set out a vision for aviation and a future aerospace industry called ‘Flightpath 2050’. The report determined that “A network of multidisciplinary technology clusters” needed to be at the heart of technology development to keep Europe competitive in this strategically important global industry. At the time of publishing, multidisciplinary training tailored to the needs of the aerospace industry was limited.
The EU MSCA COFUND doctoral programme, INNOVATIVE aimed to address this shortfall in multi-disciplinary skills gap and has delivered a step-change in the training of 23 Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) in aerospace technologies. It has done this by providing a comprehensive programme empowering researchers with a multidisciplinary skillset comprising tools, techniques and methods suitable for pursuing careers in Aerospace Technology and related fields. The 23 ESRs have been distributed across 4 research areas: Aerospace Electrification and Propulsion, Aerospace Materials, Aerospace Manufacturing and Aerospace Operations. Each ESR has worked with leading academics undertaking a PhD in a specific topic and utilised generous funding to pursue technical and professional skills training whilst also disseminating their work at international conferences and high ranked journals. Concurrently, developing their team skills has been at the core of the programme and has seen ESRs design test and manufacture solar powered UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) or work in multi-disciplinary teams to develop novel concepts for the Airbus ‘fly your ideas’ international competition. ESRs also gained unrivalled exposure to the aerospace industry through secondments into leading aerospace companies. These secondments have been pivotal to ESRs gaining confidence in their skillset and ability to make an impact in industry and have thus influenced many ERSs choices to enter industry post-graduation and consequently validated the original aims of the programme.
The 23 ESRs also benefited from being based in the supra-disciplinary environment of the Institute for Aerospace Technology (IAT) at the University of Nottingham, which regroups all aerospace interests and activities in the University, from science and engineering, to business, law and political sciences and psychology. To quote ESRs: Dr. Vincenzo Madonna: “Being at IAT has meant I’ve been able to work within a larger, multidisciplinary team and interact with colleagues from other faculties who are working on fuel and propulsion technologies. This has provided me with an overall view of aerospace research at the university, helping me to see how my project fits into an overall vision.” Sarah Shabbir: “Everyone at IAT works in aerospace, but with different scopes – mechanical, electrical, human-factors, etc. The IAT provides interdisciplinary learning – it’s a place where you can bounce ideas off each other and learn through collaboration.”
Twenty-three ESRs have been employed to the INNOVATIVE project across three distinct calls. Cohort 1 started in September 2016, Cohort 2 in October 2017 and Cohort 3 in February 2018 with each cohort containing 9, 4 and 10 ESRs respectively. All recruitment to the programme has been conducted in an open and transparent manner. Significant work has been undertaken to deliver a comprehensive training programme for the ESRs. The training programme entailed technical skills, team work, professional skills and scientific outreach. Highlights include access to the Universities wide-ranging training courses and Undergraduate Modules, attendance at the University of Nottingham’s Graduate School annual professional skills training week, a technical summer school provided by a specialist aerospace modelling company (PACE), a second technical summer school which saw international industry experts deliver world leading training in More and All electric aircraft to ESRs, access to a personal budget to conduct skills training specific to each PhD and finally, aerospace themed design and make challenges.
To date, 9 ERSs have been awarded PhDs with a further 3 expected to complete in Autumn 2021. Remaining ERSs are expected to complete their PhDs in 2022. Currently, the project has produced 90 publications where 5 have been awarded best paper awards and a further 8 publications are multi-discipline with 2 or more ESRs bringing their work together to publish broader scientific papers to address the technological challenges in this sector.
The end of project conference can be found here: https://innovative2020.co.uk/ , the INNOVATIVE digital brochure here: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/aerospace/projects/msca/innovative/index.aspx and out Twitter account here: https://twitter.com/UoNINNOVATIVE.
To date, 9 ERSs have been awarded PhDs with a further 3 expected to complete in Autumn 2021. Remaining ERSs are expected to complete their PhDs in 2022. Currently, the project has produced 90 publications where 5 have been awarded best paper awards and a further 8 publications are multi-discipline with 2 or more ESRs bringing their work together to publish broader scientific papers to address the technological challenges in this sector.
The end of project conference can be found here: https://innovative2020.co.uk/ , the INNOVATIVE digital brochure here: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/aerospace/projects/msca/innovative/index.aspx and out Twitter account here: https://twitter.com/UoNINNOVATIVE.
The INNOVATIVE project has brought significant advancements to the aerospace sector across a wide range of topics. Projects support the original objectives of developing technological advancements in the aerospace sector to mitigate the climate emergency. For example, electrical engineering projects have made advances in solutions for more and all electric aircraft, manufacturing projects have utilised advancements in Additive Manufactured materials to promote lighter, more fuel-efficient aircraft and operations projects have utilised Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve maintenance schedules on aircraft to reduce airline costs. Such advancements bring not only improvements to technology but have the knock-on effect, in the longer term of making electrified air travel cost effective and enabling support of other industries such as tourism, food, business travel, connecting families in the global world we inhabit.
An outline of impacts are listed below and further details and links to technical papers can be found in our 80 page digital brochure: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/aerospace/projects/msca/innovative/index.aspx.
An outline of impacts are listed below and further details and links to technical papers can be found in our 80 page digital brochure: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/aerospace/projects/msca/innovative/index.aspx.