ANNUAL REPORT 2010 - Loughborough University

IMCRC Current
RESEARCh ThEMES
high Value Assets
Examples of high value assets include
military platforms, production systems and
major buildings. The IMCRC is delivering
the tools, techniques and designs to
maximise the utility and return from such
assets whilst ensuring that companies,
governments and the general public gain
maximum benefit from the investments
needed to produce these products.
Project 211 - Business Driven Automation,
is establishing a new end-user, businessdriven
approach to automation systems
development and support. The approach
is highly generic and is applicable to the
automobile industry and virtually all other
automation sectors by providing tools to
support their progressive reconfiguration
and modification.
Project 252 - Lean Construction Data
Laboratory is exploring the use of ‘Lean
Thinking’ to challenge current construction
management and organisational theory and
practice. The feasibility of this approach is
being tested using live project investigations
and case histories. Tools and techniques
developed in the automotive industry are
being evaluated for use in construction.
Fast changing business environments
require building owners to be able to change
the function and performance of their
facilities. Project 210 - Adaptable Futures,
recognises high value building assets need
to be designed and constructed for flexibility
of use over the lifetime of the product. The
aim of this project is to facilitate adaptable
buildings, academic research studies and
practical, real-life application.
Factors leading to performance shortfalls
and failures in buildings designed and
built for energy efficiency are being
studied in Project 271 - Predicted vs In-Use
Performance of Buildings. The research
will produce decision-making guidelines
for designers, contractors and building
operators, which will ensure any facilities in
the future meet the needs of occupants.
Next generation Technologies
This theme provides industry and
commerce with a radical set of technologies
based on new materials, processes, and
information systems which will transform
existing practices and deliver innovative
products to the customer.
Project 215 – The 3D-Mintegration grand
Challenge is destined to revolutionise
the way small, complex products and
components are manufactured by
providing a radical new way of thinking
for the end-to-end design, processing,
assembly, packaging, integration and
testing of complete 3D miniaturised/
integrated (3D Mintegrated) products. The
work of this Grand Challenge (of which
the Loughborough IMCRC is one of five
IMRCs involved) will form the basis for
next generation automotive, aerospace,
telecommunications, medical and consumer
products, which will combine significantly
improved performance with higher added
value, sustainability and ecoefficiency.
The 3D-Mintegration project will also
give companies valuable insight into how
evolving practices in this field worldwide
may be adopted and adapted for optimal
exploitation in the UK.
Project 275 - Smart Material Structures
by Ultrasonic Consolidation, builds on a
foundation of Ultrasonic Consolidation
research to investigate the controlling
mechanisms that enable the production of
smart structures with integrated dynamic
control and monitoring ability. This will
permit the technology’s progression to high
value industrial exploitation.
Project 217 - Jetting of 3D Nylon Parts
is investigating the feasibility of a new
manufacturing process for nylon parts and
aims to demonstrate that nylon can be
produced by jetting one droplet of mixture
on top of another, and that these processing
conditions can be controlled to give
reproducible material properties.
Improving the properties and the
repeatability of laser sintered polymers
through advanced materials and processing
research, is the aim of Project 251 -
Advanced Understanding and Control
of Polymer Sintering. This project has
produced the first quantified appraisal of
the repeatability of laser sintering and is
comparing this process with traditional
injection moulding manufacturing
processes.
Project 261 - Topologically optimised
Additively Manufactured Metallic Structures,
is investigating how Additive Manufacturing
of materials compares with conventional
manufacturing of the same materials, and
how design optimisation methodologies
may be utilised in conjunction with Additive
Manufacturing to affect the design and
manufacturing of complex, statistically
optimised, metallic parts.
The multi-disciplinary Project 186 -
Personalised Sports Footwear: Elite to
high Street (E2hS), aims to complete
world-leading research into three different
disciplines, and to use its results to enable
the affordable manufacture of personalised
sports shoes for different end users using
additive manufacturing technologies.
Closely linked to the E2HS project is Project
286 - Engineering gold Medals, a knowledge
transfer project which is designing,
developing, and manufacturing personalised
sprint footwear for training and competition.
Paralympics athletes are collaborating
with the research team on behalf of UK
Athletics.
The IMCRC’s research into the use of
the Additive Manufacturing techniques
is not just limited to the traditional
manufacturing industries. Project 187
- Freeform Construction: Mega-Scale
Rapid Manufacturing for Construction, is
developing a new ‘additive’ process capable
of ‘printing’ full-scale building components.
This process will generate geometric
freedom and lead to the cost-effective
production of bespoke panel systems
including the integration of other features
and reduce the quantity of material used to
realise a given form.
AnnuAl RepoRt 2010 21