Dr Paul Woollin, TWI’s Director of Research, invites you, the Industrial Membership, to influence the Core Research programme with your ideas for research projects.
TWI’s Core Research Programme was devised to develop technologies which enable its Industrial Members to fabricate and operate high performance, high integrity structures.
The business has unrivalled expertise in the integrity of welded structures, combined with market leading inspection services, and is underpinned by a fundamental understanding of material performance and its links to microstructure. It is increasingly active in the field of surface engineering and coating.
Recent fabrication capability developed for the benefit of Industrial Members includes facilities and know-how to allow sliding seal electron beam welding outside a large vacuum chamber, to lower the temperature required for joining PEEK thermoplastic composites and to tailor the surface properties of composites via application of CompoSurf TM coatings.
On the operational integrity side, improved capability to inspect ceramics, composites and dissimilar metal joints has been developed, together with facilities for qualifying metallic and non-metallic materials for supercritical service. A report has been published on the need for standardisation to support the reliability of offshore wind towers. To enable decommissioning of nuclear plant at the end of its life, capability for both robotic laser cutting and concrete scabbling has been established.
As we look forward to the next three year CRP programme, we are seeking to align our R&D activities with the needs of our established Industrial Members in oil and gas production, power generation and manufacture of advanced transport systems, whilst seeking opportunities to apply our world class technologies for the benefit of the emerging renewable energy and medical markets.
The next £10.5m three year programme, funded from Industrial Membership subscriptions, will start in mid 2012 and ideas for research projects are sought externally from industry, and internally from our staff. To shape the programme, we are seeking Industrial Member views of how they would like TWI to be able to support them in future, whether they want impartial experts as consultants to solve their problems, leading edge know how to give them a technological advantage over their competitors, or cutting edge experimental facilities for testing, prototype manufacture and inspection as an extension of their own operations.
For your chance to shape this programme,
give us your project ideas here.
