Engineering Integrity Issue 32

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EISENGINEERING INTEGRITY32FEBRUARY 2012

JOURNAL OF THE ENGINEERINGINTEGRITY SOCIETY

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papers on:A "Short" History of Real World Testing (Part 1)

Earthquake Simulation on a Two-Span Concrete Bridge Model

EIS Website: www.e-i-s.org.uk

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INSTRUMENTATION, ANALYSIS & TESTING EXHIBITION

THE SILVERSTONE WING, SILVERSTONE RACE TRACK, TUESDAY 6th MARCH 2012, 10.00-16.00.

Engineering Integrity Society

The 2012 EIS exhibition is being held in the recently opened international exhibition centre at Silverstone, which provides superb new visitor and exhibitor facilities. Entrance to the exhibition and all technical activities are free. There will be complementary refreshments for visitors.

,

ExhibitionThere are over 50 exhibitors presenting the latest advances in technology in, aerospace, automotive, motor-sport, rail, power generation, and medical industries. Visitors will be able to discuss these developments, and their applications, with exhibitors in an informal atmosphere.

Technical ActivitiesThere will be open forums held during the day including:

- Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) - Smarter Testing - Vision and Lasers Systems - Vehicle Simulation - Data Protocols

Guest panels comprising experts from industry will expand on the technical developments andtake questions from the floor.There will be workshops in signal processing together with selective technical presentations.

Visitors If you are interested in attending please pre-register for the event which will ensure you reserve a place at the technical events.

For further information, or to pre-register please contact the EIS at: [email protected], or visit the EIS website at www.e-i-s.org.uk

Roads to every testing destination

Now there is one trusted name you can turn to for

proven test and measurement solutions. For over 20

years, Data Physics has been driven by its customer

needs to develop, internally and through acquisition,

a full range of powerful technologies for noise and

vibration applications.

CorporationLing ElectronicsLE

Gearing & Watson(Electronics) Ltd.

SignalCalcDynamic Signal Analyzers

SignalStarVibration Control Systems

SignalForceShakers & Amplifiers

Solutions to Test and Measurement challenges from people who are driven by them. Powered by

INSTRUMENTATION, ANALYSIS & TESTING EXHIBITION

THE SILVERSTONE WING, SILVERSTONE RACE TRACK, TUESDAY 6th MARCH 2012, 10.00-16.00.

Engineering Integrity Society

The 2012 EIS exhibition is being held in the recently opened international exhibition centre at Silverstone, which provides superb new visitor and exhibitor facilities. Entrance to the exhibition and all technical activities are free. There will be complementary refreshments for visitors.

,

ExhibitionThere are over 50 exhibitors presenting the latest advances in technology in, aerospace, automotive, motor-sport, rail, power generation, and medical industries. Visitors will be able to discuss these developments, and their applications, with exhibitors in an informal atmosphere.

Technical ActivitiesThere will be open forums held during the day including:

- Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) - Smarter Testing - Vision and Lasers Systems - Vehicle Simulation - Data Protocols

Guest panels comprising experts from industry will expand on the technical developments andtake questions from the floor.There will be workshops in signal processing together with selective technical presentations.

Visitors If you are interested in attending please pre-register for the event which will ensure you reserve a place at the technical events.

For further information, or to pre-register please contact the EIS at: [email protected], or visit the EIS website at www.e-i-s.org.uk

Roads to every testing destination

Now there is one trusted name you can turn to for

proven test and measurement solutions. For over 20

years, Data Physics has been driven by its customer

needs to develop, internally and through acquisition,

a full range of powerful technologies for noise and

vibration applications.

CorporationLing ElectronicsLE

Gearing & Watson(Electronics) Ltd.

SignalCalcDynamic Signal Analyzers

SignalStarVibration Control Systems

SignalForceShakers & Amplifiers

Solutions to Test and Measurement challenges from people who are driven by them. Powered by

Automotive Testing

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INDEX TO ADVERTISEMENTS

Amber Instruments ...............................................35

Bruel & Kjaer ..........................................Back cover

Data Physics................................. Inside front cover

Ixthus Instrumentation ..........................................36

M+P International .........................Inside back cover

Micro Movements .................................................36

Photo-Sonics International .....................................2

Team Corporation ...................................................2

Techni Measure ......................................................2

ContentsInstrumentation, Analysis & Testing Exhibition ..................................................................................................................... 1

Index to Advertisements ....................................................................................................................................................... 2

Editorial................................................................................................................................................................................. 5

Technical Paper: A “Short” History of Real World Testing (Part 1) ....................................................................................... 6

Technical Paper: Earthquake Simulation on a Two-Span Concrete Bridge Model ............................................................. 13

Diary of Events ................................................................................................................................................................... 17

How it Works - Using Servo Valves .................................................................................................................................... 18

Membership ........................................................................................................................................................................ 18

Servovalve design and operation ...................................................................................................................................... 20

Industry News .................................................................................................................................................................... 22

Product News ..................................................................................................................................................................... 26

Musings from Engineers ..................................................................................................................................................... 28

News on Smart Materials and Structures ........................................................................................................................... 29

News from British Standards .............................................................................................................................................. 30

News from Institution of Mechanical Engineers.................................................................................................................. 31

Group News........................................................................................................................................................................ 31

Committee Members ......................................................................................................................................................... 33

Sponsor Companies .......................................................................................................................................................... 34

Profiles of Company Sponsors ........................................................................................................................................... 35

Front Cover: Courtesy of MIRA

HONORARY EDITORDr Karen Perkins

MANAGING EDITORMrs Catherine Pinder

Anchor House, Mill Road,Stokesby, Great Yarmouth, NR29 3EY

Tel. 07979 270998E-mail: [email protected]

EDITORIAL BOARDPaul Armstrong

Brian GriffithsDr Fabrizio Scarpa

EIS SECRETARIAT: Engineering Integrity Society

18 Oak Close, Bedworth,Warwickshire, CV12 9AJ

Tel & Fax: +44 (0)2476 730126 E-mail: [email protected]

WWW: http://www.e-i-s.org.uk

EDITORIAL POLICYEngineering Integrity contains various items of

information of interest to, or directly generated by, the Engineering Integrity Society. The items of information

can be approximately subdivided into three general categories: technical papers, topical discussion

pieces and news items. The items labelled in the journal as technical papers are peer reviewed by

a minimum of two reviewers in the normal manner ofacademic journals, following a standard protocol.

The items of information labelled as topical discussions and the news items have been reviewed

by the journal editorial staff and found to conform to the legal and professional standards of the

Engineering Integrity Society.

COPYRIGHT Copyright of the technical papers included in this issue

is held by the Engineering Integrity Society unlessotherwise stated.

Photographic contributions for the front coverare welcomed.

ISSN 1365-4101/2012

The Engineering Integrity Society (EIS)Incorporated under the Companies Act 1985.

Registered No. 1959979

Registered Office: 18 Oak Close, Bedworth,Warwickshire, CV12 9AJ, UK

Charity No: 327121

Engineering Integrity’ is published twice a year

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PRINCIPAL ACTIVITY OF THE

ENGINEERING INTEGRITY SOCIETY

The principal activity of the Engineering Integrity Society, is the arrangement of conferences, seminars, exhibitions and workshops to advance the education of persons working in the field of engineering. This is achieved by providing a forum for the interchange of ideas and information on engineering practice. The Society is particularly committed to promoting projects which support professional development and attract young people into the profession.

‘Engineering Integrity’, the Journal of the Engineering Integrity Society is published twice a year.

Editorial

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Welcome to the spring 2012 edition of the EIS journal. With the new year come two new sections: ‘How it works’ and ‘Musings from engineers’. The former aims to tap into the expertise of the EIS community to provide semi-technical insight into a range of essential but often overlooked technologies. The inaugural article looks at the servo valve - at the heart of many test machines but rarely

given a second thought until they break. The latter is also community focussed and offers humorous and insightful anecdotes from our members. If you would like to contribute to either of these sections please get in touch.

In addition, we have two papers, earth quake simulation on a two span concrete bridge model and a short history of real world testing. If, as the latter suggests, 1 mile on pave is equivalent to 100 miles on a normal road for a car, I can see why the Paris-Roubaix cycling classic is nick named the hell of the north. The view from the IMechE gives two encouraging pieces of news, with the institutions own membership topping 100,000 and surprisingly strong recruitment figures for undergraduate engineering degree schemes. Perhaps this is one silver lining to the economic storm clouds hanging over us all. With jobs in short supply not only are school leavers still being attracted to university but they are now being more discerning about the courses for which they apply. It seems that the glitz of t.v. dramas revolving around lawyers and psychologists is no longer shining as brightly as the prospect of a well paid job to pay off burgeoning student loans.

A similar theme is picked up in two of the stories in the industry news which highlight industrial efforts to attract young people into engineering with scholarships and awards from Jaguar Land Rover and Bosch. With the shortfall of graduate engineers still in the tens of thousands, it will take effort from all sides to plug the gap, but for once there are some encouraging numbers.

The Government has also provided a boost for UK engineering in the form of funding for a range of projects including the first technology and innovation centre in high value manufacturing and a competition for R&D

funding in marine renewable energy technologies.

On a lighter note, robots feature in two items. Not only do robots apparently increase human employment but you can now leave your luggage in the safe hands of a robot at a New York hotel. I am sure that there will be some people who are reluctant to trust their luggage to this technology, but at least human error in a traditional left luggage office is rarely fatal. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for all situations. The tragic sinking of the Costa Concordia may have been avoided if the navigation had been left to the computers. Yet how many of us would feel safe if our ship, plane or even car were in the hands of some automated system? Whatever logic tells us about error rates perhaps we instinctively want the hand on the wheel to be controlled by something that appreciates the dangers in the same way we do.

Karen PerkinsHonorary Editor

FORUM FOR APPLIED MECHANICS (FAM)

The EIS is a sponsor member of the Forum for Applied Mechanics (FAM), which provides an interaction between a number of organisations in the UK where there is an interest in applied mechanics, both experimental and theoretical. Current sponsor members of FAM are the EIS, NAFEMS, IMechE, BSSM, IoP and the BGA (British Gear Association). The FAM website contains details of events being held by the sponsor members, together with a direct link to the sponsor members’ websites. Some of these events may be of interest to you or your colleagues. Access to the FAM website can be gained either directly www.appliedmechanics.org or via the EIS website ‘Links’ page.

Technical PaperENGINEERING INTEGRITY, VOLUME 32 , FEBRUARY 2012 pp.6-12. ISSN 1365-4101/2012

This article is a personal view of durability development testing over the years, and how engineers have tried to come to terms with tests that replicate real world durability – to a great extent it outlines a large portion of my own career. In the spirit of the Engineering Integrity Society, I will describe how to do it and how not to do it.

In this first episode, I will outline some of the history of vehicle testing, especially where the testing attempts to replicate real world conditions. The real world is notoriously difficult to correlate; it is even more difficult to understand. Nowhere is this truer than durability testing, where the goals are always extreme, and over such long periods that even very experienced engineers can be fooled into testing the wrong problem, or worst still developing or designing to wrong targets.

To set the scene can you truthfully answer yes to either of these questions?

Can you quote and prove that your design, development or test target actually comes from in the real world?

Can you also prove that this represents all users, at the stated extreme condition to a statistical confidence level?

The early years (anything before 1960)

Way back in 1924, General Motors opened the Milford Proving Grounds near Detroit in Michigan. It was the world’s first automotive proving ground; all it had was a gravel loop plus a tarmac straight, 4 miles in all. It was built because “No other industry has gone forward so swiftly with so few basic facts -- facts that are needed if the motor car is to be of increasing usefulness to a greater number of people. If the industry is to continue its rate of progress it must know more facts about the material used, the economics of design and what happens as the car is being operated mile after mile upon the road in the hands of the user.” Quote GM pamphlet at the time.

This was just beaten by Fiat’s Lingotto end of production line roof top test track (See Fig 1) in 1921-1923. If you count military proving grounds then the Aberdeen PG in Canada is the very earliest – in 1917. I do not count racing circuits, as they have only a small part to play in testing and proving.

Not to be outdone the other auto manufacturers opened their own proving grounds; Ford Dearborn, 1925, Packard, 1928. Up until this time all testing took place on the road, and was quite dangerous. But none of these test areas were set out

to test the individual functions of the car, just general driving characteristics.

The first purpose built proving ground was still yet to be established. There is a large gap between having somewhere to test a car off the public highway, and the development of purpose made test surfaces and tracks to deliberately exercise certain features of vehicle systems to their limits.

Now this was all well and good for the USA, but what about the UK? Well we continued in our own individualistic ways of course. Until, just after WWII, the automotive industry joined forces and requested that the Government offer some help in research and development of vehicles. The Motor Industry Research Association (MIRA) was founded in 1948, and the beginnings of a test track laid out on a disused bomber airfield in Nuneaton in Warwickshire. The first surface being the High Speed Banked Track (Fig 2), along with a series of airfield approach roads forming a circuit that was utilised for ‘testing a car’. A series of specialist track surfaces followed; long wave pitch, potholes, steering pad, all designed to test particular features of the car performance (Fig 3). Science was beginning to drive the design of the track to exercise particular aspects of the car seen in the real world.

A “Short” History of Real World Testing (Part 1)David Ensor, Senior Consultant, MIRA Ltd

Fig 1: Fiat Lingotto factory roof top test track

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The British car industry realised very early on that just testing cars to be able run around a high speed track, and handling circuit, would not be enough to prove the durability, reliability or overall performance of a vehicle or much else for that matter (more on this subject later). At this stage they tasked MIRA with providing tracks which would replicate the ‘worst roads’ in Europe, to allow the durability and strength of the vehicles to be tested.

MIRA went out and did just that, and after much surveying of conditions, they found a series of roads crossing from Belgium to France that fitted the bill (they can still be visited – review Fig 5 Paris Roubaix Cycle Race).

These cobbled roads which had been bombed and shelled in both World Wars, were found to have the optimum conditions – i.e. they broke cars regularly. A few other surfaces were also discovered and a series of tracks were built, the first being the famous Belgian Block Pave (Fig 6).

Once a set of tracks existed, the car industry settled down to making prototypes, and running them on the tracks to check handling, high speed, ‘breakages’ and other good stuff.

Tests were devised to check all sorts of things, and various standards and procedures laid down for doing these tests. No one seemed to notice for a long time, that all these tests were different for each manufacturer, and nothing really existing for accurately testing durability – well except to do a lot of testing for a long time. Right into the late 60’s and as far as the early 70’s cars were designed for strength and performance on paper, a prototype or series of prototypes were then built; these were checked for performance on the test tracks but durability was developed only by running 1000’s of miles on a ‘representative’ public roads route.

The Dark Ages (1960’s to 1970’s)

This is the beginning of my era - a fascinating time. We were developing techniques that could measure the differences vehicle to vehicle and test to test. Interestingly two ideas developed side by side, and I am glad to say I was heavily involved in both. The first concerned standards. How do we carry out these tests on vehicles and be able to know if one result is better than another? More importantly will the test we are doing actually match what it is supposed to do. The

Fig. 2: High Speed in the early days Fig. 3: One of the first MIRA system test tracks - Long Wave Pitch

Fig 4: Belgian Pave is now a national park

Fig 5: PAVE considered okay for cycle riding!

ENGINEERING INTEGRITY, VOLUME 32, FEBRUARY 2012 pp.6-12.

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second concerns measuring and predicating the durability or fatigue life of engineering material and extrapolating this to the vehicle itself – fatigue analysis.

A few of us at the time realised, that if we could produce a set of tests matching the ‘real world’, and measure them on a prototype, we could use the new fatigue techniques to provide faster predicted fatigue results without actually wasting or failing the whole vehicle test. To achieve this was very ambitious - so, as I remember - we all went for it!

Many of the larger establishments, Austin, Morris, Jaguar, Ford, British Leyland, other agencies such as British Standards, GKN, MIRA and so on developed sets of Testing Procedures or Testing Standards. These laid down methods and processes by which any particular test could be carried out, and reproduced satisfactorily next time. There were steering test procedures, braking test procedures, handling, crash and all sorts of noise and vibration standards.

These tests standards allowed test engineers at MIRA and within the car industry to carry out their tests in a similar manner, under some control, such that vehicles and systems could be compared. In doing so, my generation of engineers measured these tests and the results ‘to death’. New techniques were developed or extrapolated from pure mathematical methods, to provide ‘pictures’ of the mechanisms being tested. Ensuring that data was collected accurately, without aliasing conversion from analogue to digital methods, spectral techniques, cycle counting, time at level and other characteristics were all invented/adapted in this period to be able to easily show if one design or vehicle was behaving better than another.

Even so, after all this time, no-one knew how long a vehicle should last, what was actually done with a vehicle, and more importantly how track tests compared with real world life of a vehicle. There were durability standards written, for instance

BL, Ford and Jaguar amongst many that adopted the 1000 miles of MIRA Pave tests for durability. As a baseline these were fairly empirical, and the origins are lost in the mist of time. It is thought that, 1000 miles of Pave was chosen because 100 miles was obviously too short and 100,000 miles too large. It was also noticed that running on PAVE discovered early failures easily, and if a 1960/1970’s vehicle lasted a full 1000 miles on Pave it generally ran quite well on the road over its life (Fig 7).

These early durability tests laid out how to prepare the vehicle for a test, with stringent measurement processes, how to run the vehicle on the tracks, and how to measure and review the results. Interestingly, little was made of how realistic the test was, or on what type of information it was based, even as to what the overall goal was to achieve. A similar state of affairs existed with all other test standards in durability. Durability testing for a long time came down to two tests; firstly early life failures or accelerated life using MIRA 1000 miles Pave, and secondly through life testing on ‘endurance’ road routes considered ‘worst case’ or typical road surfaces where fleets of prototype vehicles were tested for 100,000 miles each.

Eventually, 1000 miles Pave, and 100,000 miles road route, became synonymous with a vehicle life, purely by repetition. In fact vehicle development engineers as a whole came to accept that these two tests actually represented the usage “life” of a vehicle. This occurred due to the simplistic correlation that if prototypes passed these tests and subsequently the vehicle was okay in service then they ‘must’ be the same. Any new problems were dealt with by adding another short test – the origins of ‘Mixed Track Testing’.

Over time some Engineers, myself included started to question this assumption, and in many instances realised that the extra tests were being adopted only to cover other

Fig 6: Belgian Pave at MIRA - Note Health & Safety seemed less of an issue then

Fig 7: Does 1000 miles Belgian Pave = 100,000 road miles?


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warranty issues, problems and even strange early failures. I can remember conducting tests on road routes and MIRA PAVE to see what the relationships were, and found it very surprising when the stated 1000 miles on Pave equals 100,000 miles on the road could not be verified. The best I ever found was for a BLMC Panel van tested once, where the vertical loading only, correlated to a 100:1 multiplier in the mid-range – at least the two range-mean cycle plots crossed in the 100:1 area. See Fig 8 for the only evidence I have found on this, I conducted a test in 1988, and found that the 100:1 factor only for the vertical loads.

It seemed the test and real world were at odds, but luckily empirical methods had provided a test that could be used – ‘sort of’.

The Middle Ages (1970’s to 1980’s)

This also saw the start of my career in development testing and notably the beginnings of the EIS as well. The 70’s & 80’s were where computers were coming into play, and many of us were developing and using transducers and instrumentation for measuring the actual performance we were testing on the tracks.

The 80’s saw a number of processes and equipment arrive on the scene making the collection of real data somewhat easier. There was a continued drive to continually want to provide durability assessments faster and more accurately. The initial approach was to gain control of the road route endurance testing, and see if that could be reliably reproduced on the proving ground in an accelerated

manner. A lot of discussion was had about how to match the damaging portions on the road to the PG surfaces, and leave out the non-damaging sections. Interestingly, though even at this advanced stage no-one was asking whether the road endurance routes actually represented real world usage.

In the mid 80’s a number of OEM’s decided to measure their major endurance sign off road routes, typically by strain gauging suspension components and hub or chassis accelerometers, to provide data to compare to the test tracks. The received wisdom at this time was to take a set of components, strain gauge them, collect data for the road route, and also for each major test track using the same vehicle. A damage analysis was then conducted on each component for the road surfaces, and test tracks, and hopefully a set of tracks could be used that together provided the same damage as the road route. The argument being that if each route produces the same damage, then the two routes must be equivalent.

This approach does provide a very good correlation for these specific components, and probably for the specific vehicle. Often it is also very short compared to the road endurance route, as the smooth road surfaces, and very low load conditions are effectively skipped over. This makes it an excellent method for providing accelerated drive signals for component tests where we only require the damaging signals for that component and mode of failure. But, the method does not necessarily supply all of the load inputs that could also damage other components or systems.

For the whole vehicle system, there were numerous problems with this approach. For instance there are different damage values for X, Y & Z. Most people did not notice this as they never even bothered with X & Y! Received wisdom assumed meant that everyone knew that Z was the major load input. (Funnily there are still many who think this.) The biggest problem is twofold, firstly recreating the same damage often does not recreate the same modes of failure, secondly, and more importantly, and the damage criteria are specific to the gauged components and may not be applicable to the next model or variant of component. This actually proved to be the case, and each subsequent new vehicles model, or system had to have the durability test altered to take into account failures that had not been covered by that current test.

Even so through the 80’s until fairly recently, many OEM’s are basing their durability proving tests on this method, and continually return the set of established tests and also empirically extended to until they provide a comfort zone of test work that provide an adequate confidence level in a sign off. Unfortunately where the original analysis provided a much accelerated test, the developed test is now longer and has become the critical path of the development for a new vehicle.

Fig 8: Only evidence - vertical only, 100:1 Pave to Road correlation - the author 1988


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During this period I recalled the GM quote, and realised that engineers were still going “forward swiftly with few basic facts -- facts that are needed” - “about the material used”, the economics of design and what happens as the car is being operated mile after mile. I remembered an exercise I conducted in the early 1970’s, taking recordings in ‘noisy cars’ on the road, correlating these to vibration levels on a test rig, and providing a short 30 second run test that identified problem or suspect axles I managed to reduce a particular 40% reject rate to practically zero. This was done by returning to first principles, and finding out how the noise level actually occurred, and reproducing that actual condition on a test rig. Note, not to produce a test rig and see if that correlated to the problem, to actually find out what occurred – the “Real World”.

I think this particular project, presented at a GKN seminar in 1978/1979 or so, was the first correlation exercise, comparing mixtures of test profile, comparing to an overall customer usage road profile.

This was what was missing in all the current vehicle durability test schedules and processes, the target usage was unknown, and more importantly we were relying on measurements from the vehicle reaction not trying to reproduce the actual inputs.

What was needed was a fresh look at the picture, and some new questions. What should we be testing to? How is the extreme usage of a vehicle? Does extreme usage relate to a customer/driver or some combined effect? What should we measure to ensure a test represents actual usage? How do we find out our ‘worst cases’?

Just asking these questions, and discussing the topic amongst like-minded engineers, seemed to clarify the situation and demanded new methods of working. The EIS grew from groups such as this, within GKN and so forth, who were prepared to share thoughts and processes – there were still secrets, but the ideas had a chance to grow.

The big advance was utilising new mathematical techniques applied to the proving ground data (source information) and the road data (target), and correlation techniques (multiple matrix processes) where all measurements across the vehicle were regressed at the same time to produce one optimum mix of tracks shown to be equivalent to the input to the vehicle during its life on the road. Note, not just the same damage, not just for vertical, or lateral of fore/aft conditions, but for all conditions. This meant the test could now be applied to all similar type vehicles, not just that particular one.

Renaissance Era (1980’s to 1990’s)

It was at this time that I presented information about some

of the work I was conducting, initially at GKN, then for Freight Rover, and eventually at DAF Vans (and Trucks). I published papers on ‘correlation processes, data collection, and accelerated durability processes’, see references, and the EIS provided an excellent sounding board for ideas. An informal group formed, and work progressed very quickly. In fact most of the modern correlation and real world testing techniques arose in the next decade.

This alone created the large pool of knowledge to provide impetus to make me continue my investigations and invent/develop the methods to estimate and accurately accelerate the real world life of vehicles.

The early years and work through the 70’s and 80’s saw test and durability engineers derive a series of empirical tests that migrated to proving grounds, and allowed engineers to provide accelerated durability testing. Although these tests were all somewhat empirical, by lots of experience and continually comparing the results with the vehicles produced most companies became comfortable with the tests themselves. A couple of questions arose amongst the more inquisitive – are the tests actually realistic? More importantly as we design newer cars in newer materials and especially in newer market areas, will the same tests suffice?

Many OEM’s and Tier 1’s were basing test work on ‘worst case’ warranty statistics, or ‘worst case customer’, and one always has to ask ‘worst case’ for what – distance travelled, abuse, not servicing, over loading, complaining etc. A good durability test should take into account all “USAGE” not particular types of customer or individual users.

In many cases the answers all proved that the current tests were all incorrect to one level or another. We needed a new approach; any durability test must be realistic, accurate and statistically valid. To be useful it must also be an accelerated procedure that is scientifically correlated with “real world” usage. It should also work for all vehicles of a similar usage or possibly type (Fig 9). I actually believe the real question

Fig 9: Applying assumed user conditions leads to some over test


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was “why do different manufacturers have different durability tests and targets for the same vehicles in the same class?”

To answer this question I and a small team set out to find what actually happens to vehicles in use, and determine the statistically valid processes required. Initially a full, Europe wide, market survey was carried out with the remit to discover how much, how far and on what types of roads people were using large trucks, and vans. The particular exercise was on commercial vehicles, as at the time I worked for DAF and LDV. To carry out this type of exercise the Marketing Company had to continually collect usage forms and data for up to two years. Any single snap shot of a user cannot be used to determine the actual overall usage accurately. You need to consider different driving behaviour winters and summers, then be able to check consistency. Also, when repeated survey forms can be used to eliminate exaggerations and obfuscation – no one in a basic Market Survey ever answers to abusing a vehicle, or not servicing regularly. But there are ways of getting people to give these facts away.

In addition to the survey I also collected long term data from a small fleet of vehicles with the then state of the art loggers, and these were loaned to customers for a reasonable period of time. These loggers did sterling work, and provided many surprises on how vehicles are actually used compared to perceptions Engineers have. Does anyone else in the EIS remember the Vycon logger, specifically designed to our specifications – where is it now? An important point was found here, in that, you must choose the vehicles you are to collect data from randomly, and review the required statistics. If you only instrument what you think the worst case will be then you get a distribution of that particular usage, not the realistic overall usage.

In fact this is one of the industry’s worst problems, selective data collection. I have seen many quite good ‘correlation exercises’ around the world, many in China or Asia, that have been spoilt by automatically assuming a target at the start. This means the whole results are based on a fallacy, and produces a near useless test standard. You often hear,

a) “we have the largest failures in the ABC, so we will go talk with these people, do a survey and collect data there and use it as our target”,

b) “customer DEF has largest warranty and failure problems we will use his vehicle(s) as our target user pattern”,

c) “warranty and customer lists show customer GHK is our 90th%ile customer let’s go measure that one”.

I hope you can all see the flaws in each of these statements; the problem is that they may be your worst case, or they may not be, for durability. Many times I have seen engineers trying to cure durability problems they never had in the first place. It is very easy to then miss other more pertinent

durability inputs from less intense areas. Review for a while the number of low amplitude high frequency cyclic inputs from engine vibration for a motorway truck exhaust, versus the same truck exhaust in a low speed quarry, offering high amplitude low frequency cycles. I would be hard pressed to state which would reach the fatigue limit first. It could even be that each fails in the same number of fatigue cycles, but one in a short time on the motorway, the other in a longer time in the quarry. Interestingly, we shall see later, they could both be the same 90th %ile failure condition. We need to be able to understand all these.

We found some interesting data collection truths in this time. Firstly, to get enough data on a track or road surface, you collect until “there is enough data”. By this I mean pick your main statistics (range mean cycle count, spectra etc.), collect some data (one lap to 10 miles say), and then collect some more. Calculate the statistics for each sample, and average the result. Continue to do this, until adding more data does not change the results – then you have enough data. Compare this to most usual practices today – are you collecting enough data? Secondly, how many sample vehicles should I collect from, sampling theory provides the answer here, and we tried to escape from the constraint,

Fig 10 : Basic correlation - first published second EIS conference around 1986. Although still being advocated

today, it has been vastly updated in recent years to statistically, software tools, reality & speed


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but in the end had to test a few hundred vehicles in each area of Europe to ensure 90% confidence in our result. Try it yourself on one of the many web sites now, and you will see if your population is over 20-30 thousand units, then you need a sample of 300 to 400 vehicles randomly selected, to be 90% confident in your result. Luckily even if your population is higher in the millions the same sample size is okay. But anything less compromises the result.

Already this is an expensive operation, and in parallel a vehicle was instrumented to become as near to a free body diagram as possible; measuring as closely as possible the tyre/hub inputs (XYZ) and displacements, whole body accelerations, speeds, steering and an additional few “comfort” giving strain gauges. We could then use the 95 %Ile result from the market survey, review the road surfaces, collect data on these road types for that usage and again correlate this to the same data for the tracks.

My technical paper and EIS presentations at the time can be seen in their archive, and have been covered in many presentations since. The techniques are fairly basic, and I have helped develop and write much of the software for doing this. The interesting thing is that the methods are right, but the answer is still far from correct.

Knowing a true target allows optimisation of design, accurate proving tests to be performed and of course total confidence in the resulting product. One of the most important consequences of knowing the true usage targets is the provision of information for predictive durability work to be performed prior to the production of prototypes, and for matching test track surfaces to be generated for durability test and reliability proving. During the 90’s CAE modelling work brought on a plethora of requests for real data that can be used in the modelling world. When data was sourced from traditional or even the more, modern test track based road load data the resulting CAE rarely met the problems occurring in the real world.

What Next – The Modern ERA (1990’s onwards)

The second part of the article, in the next issue of the Journal, will bring us up to date. We will progress through the development of methods to accurately survey new markets, how we set about ensuring we can test X, Y & Z direction inputs and reproduce these accurately, and even discuss the process of virtual versions of the same methods. Of course we also need to discuss the same operations for powertrain and other durability issues.

I will attempt to answer the following questions. How do we represent real usage? What techniques are used to correlate data? Can we measure the road itself? Even the statistical short cuts that can safely be applied.

The major area of concern for everyone is the lack of suitable (economic) data collection equipment for long term, widespread customer usage patterns.

Most major automotive companies have discounted the use of many of the normally expected long-term data logger collection exercises as being too complex and too expensive. Similarly, the huge investment in time far out-weighs the value.

There is now a great deal of interest in the statistical methods developed by the author, over many years in industry. These negate the requirement of vast, long term real time road load collection exercises, and rely on estimating target life usage patterns from Sales, Service, Marketing and a series of much simpler data collection exercises. These can be combined using correlation methods to derive customer usage pattern target information.

I will describe how to set about defining these parameters, and how it was necessary to re-evaluate the market survey and usage data such that the road surface input was taken into account. This was achieved by applying damage or durability type methods, to provide generalised weighting values for the different road conditions.

References

1. EIS CD’s: Covering technical papers from many early EIS conferences. www.e-i-s.org.uk

2. “Vehicle Testing as a Synthesis or Road Usage”, 1989, David Ensor, Freight Rover Vans Ltd - Truck Technology International.

3. “Combined Acceptance Test – Accelerated Testing” 1986, David Ensor, Engineering Integrity Society.

Fig 11: 1988 first publication of a multiple regression, real world correlation by the author at a 1988 EIS seminar


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Technical PaperEarthquake Simulation on a Two-Span Concrete Bridge ModelVincent Besson, Servotest

The tests presented here were performed in October 2011 at the University of Fuzhou (China) on a triple table bi-axial earthquake simulator. The specimen tested was a 14.2 m long highly non-linear concrete model of a two-span bridge, weighing 13.6 tons. The target motion was an accelerated version of the 1940 El Centro earthquake. The aim was to reproduce this earthquake as accurately as possible and record the bridge response for future analysis.

Illustration 1: The three-table seismic simulator at Fuzhou University

The simulator

The system is composed of three tables, capable of two degrees of freedom each (X and Y while Yaw is dynamically controlled to zero). The other degrees of freedom (Z, Roll and Pitch) are constrained to zero by frictionless hydrostatic bearings sliding on horizontal flat plates.

Illustration 2: One pad bearing assembly preventingvertical motion

The central table (Table 1) is fixed while the outer tables (Tables 2 and 3) can slide along rails to vary the distance

between them (from 1.35 m edge to edge between large and small tables to 19.5m centre to centre between the small tables). Each table is driven by one actuator in X and two actuators in Y (to provide Y motion and cancel Yaw motion).

Illustration 3: One movable table with its three actuators

Down force

Some additional down force is provided by pressurized air bags pulling the tables down and increasing their overturning moment reaction capability.

Illustration 4: Pressurized air bags pulling the table down

Reaction mass

The system is fitted to a reaction mass with the following characteristics:

• Length: 30 m • Width: 10.8 m • Mass: 3500 ton

Hydraulic power supply

The system is powered by a 500 HP hydraulic power supply delivering up to 666 l/min at 280 Bar, as well as banks of


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ISSN 1365-4101/2012

accumulators delivering the flow required during short high velocity events.

The Tables

• Table 1 is a 4mX4m table rated for a maximum 22 ton payload and capable of 600kNm overturning moment reaction. Its maximum performance when fully loaded is:

A, V or D Performance in X Performance in Y

D +/- 250 mm +/- 250 mmV 1.5 m/s 0.95 m/sA 2.7 G 1.5 G

• Tables 2 and 3 are 2.5mX2.5m tables rated for a maximum

10 ton payload and capable of 200kNm overturning moment reaction. Their maximum performance when fully loaded is:

A, V or D Performance in X Performance in Y D +/- 250 mm +/- 250 mm V 1.5 m/s 1.5 m/s A 1.5 G 1.2 G

The tables masses and first free-free modes (torsional) are:

• Table 1: 10 ton, 124 Hz • Tables 2, 3: 3 ton, 220 Hz

The control system

Each actuator is equipped with a displacement transducer, a differential pressure transducer conditioned by electronics in a node box attached to the actuator, and a 3-stage valve. However these actuators are not controlled individually but as components of a single 3 DOF modal system.

A real time non-linear transform algorithm running in the DSP of the controller uses the geometry of the system (the position of the actuators with respect to the tables) to convert X and Y displacement commands into actuator displacement targets.

These are then compared with the actual actuator displacements as measured by the sensors.

This produces actuator displacement errors that are then converted back into modal displacement errors. Similarly the actuator differential pressures are changed into modal differential pressures using the same geometry information.

Illustration 5: The control system

These modal errors and differential pressures are used by modal servo-controllers to produce modal control output signal which are converted into individual valve drive signals by more geometry matrices. The drive signals are turned into valve drive current by the electronics in each node.

In the case of time history replication the starting point is a bi-axial acceleration record in X and Y representing a real or artificial earthquake (Yaw is zero). Time history replication is the process of computing the 9 modal displacement command signals (X, Y and Yaw) such that the 9 resulting table accelerations match the ground acceleration records. This is achieved by using an off-line iterative control system (ICS) which closes an outer-loop around the control system described earlier. The inverse of the 9x9 transfer function between modal displacements and modal accelerations is used to progressively converge to the drives that will cancel the acceleration errors.

The specimen

The bridge model was composed of three concrete piers and a 14.2 m long girder sitting on damper pads providing some

Illustration 6: Concrete bridge on simulator

ENGINEERING INTEGRITY, VOLUME 32, FEBRUARY 2012, pp. 13-16.

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level of compliance between the girder and the piers. Safety steel brackets were fitted to prevent excessive differential motion between girder and piers, especially in the Y direction. Both outer tables were moved along the rails and positioned so the piers could be fitted exactly to the centre of each table.

The specimen was fully instrumented with LVDT’s, strain gauges and accelerometers on the piers and at various locations on the girder.

The target data

The El Centro earthquake accelerations were scaled down and accelerated (frequency-shifted) to take into account the scale of the model. The test program was divided into four sessions:• Longitudinal (X) motion only, with all

three tables moving synchronously to the same El Centro X acceleration.

• Longitudinal (Y) motion only, with all three tables moving synchronously to the same El Centro Y acceleration.

• Combined longitudinal (X) and lateral (Y) motions with all three tables moving synchronously to the same El Centro X and Y accelerations.

• Longitudinal (X) motion only but with delays between the three tables to simulate the speed at which the seismic wave would successively hit the three piers of the bridge.

Objective

In all cases, the aim was to minimise the error between the target and achieved motion and to also minimise the number of iterations required.

Performance was evaluated using the most stringent RMS error criterion (standard deviation of error normalised by standard deviation of target data) to take into account not only energy spread but also phase. For a highly non-linear specimen such as this concrete bridge, a 20% RMS error was expected on the main motion channels.

For the first three tests, differential motion between tables had to be less than 1 mm for the whole duration of the test to limit the amount of unwanted stress applied to the structure.

For the same reason, during the system identification phase

the pink noise played was limited to +/- 0.5 mm and covered the frequency range 1-50 Hz. The transfer functions obtained were extrapolated below 1 Hz using the theoretical relationship between displacement and acceleration.

Test results

X-direction only

The best results were obtained in the X direction where the non-linearities were less severe. After two iterations, the RMS error was around 15% on all three tables. All other axes (Y and Yaw on the three tables) were correctly constrained to zero.

Illustration 7: RMS error in X direction after two iterations

The PSD of the desired acceleration is practically indistinguishable from the achieved acceleration.

Illustration 8: Desired (dark grey) and Achieved (light grey) PSD’s of worst X axis


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Y-direction only

In the Y direction, the same iteration gains resulted in 30% RMS after two iterations. This is due to the boundary conditions introduced by the rigid constraints fitted to stop the girder falling off the piers. When the girder starts hitting these brackets the accelerometer signals measured on the tables are greatly affected. Also, the linear model identified by ICS at low amplitude is no longer a good representation of the system and the iteration gains must be reduced.

With reduced iteration gains the 15% RMS error level could be achieved after six iterations.

X-Y simultaneous motion

Not surprisingly the worst results were obtained during the X-Y simultaneous motion test since the two motions combine to push the operating conditions further away from the linear region. In this condition it took four iterations to achieve less than 20% RMS error on all axes, with the worst error concentrated around one event where the girder was hitting the safety bracket.

During all these synchronous tests the unwanted differential motion between tables never exceeded 0.6 mm.

Delayed X-motions

The fact that delays were introduced between tables did not affect the performance that had already been achieved during the synchronous X-motion tests. 15% RMS error was again achieved after just two iterations. This is because the effect of differential motion on the overall transfer functions had already been taken into account during the identification phase thanks to the uncorrelated +/-0.5 mm pink noise signals played to the three tables.

Conclusion

Very good results were obtained with all full bridge configurations. In all cases the factors limiting convergence were mechanical hard non-linearities (either backlash in the specimen or metal to concrete shocks when the girder made contact with the safety brackets at the top of the piers). This highlights the importance of the mechanical set-up prior to testing.

As expected, due to the non-linear nature of the specimen, better results were


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Illustration 10: Desired and actual Y acceleration around the main event after 4 iterations

obtained by lowering the iteration gains and increasing the number of iterations.Illustration 9: RMS error in Y direction after six iterations

The bridge response data collected during these tests is being analyzed by Prof. Wu’s team at the College of Civil Engineering, University of Fuzhou and will be published in due course.

Diary of EventsTuesday 6 March 2012

Instrumentation, Analysis & Testing Exhibition Thr Silverstone Wing, Silverstone Race Track

10:00-16:00

Tuesday 17 April 2012

Techniques for Delivering a Positive Emotional Response to Products and Environments

WIMRC Digital Lab, University of Warwick

Techniques for Delivering a Positive Emotional Response to Products and Environments

Tuesday, 17 April 2012 International Digital Laboratory, WMG, University of WarwickA joint EIS & Warwick WMG seminar & exhibition

Human centred innovation is considered vital to the economic growth of a company.

Recent research shows that the 70% to 80% of new product development that fails, does so because of a failure to understand user’s needs and not for lack of advanced technology. With the advances of computer aided design, analysis and testing, the majority of consumer products (including vehicles) usually exceed customer expectations and requirements for most areas of performance and cost. However, consideration of sound and vibration performance can often be a low priority for the customer at the point of sale, but may later cause user dissatisfaction, disengagement and deter a repeat sale. There is increasing effort being made by researchers to understand customer perception and emotional engagement in this field, and to develop useful techniques and tools that can be applied universally to enhance user satisfaction and ‘brand perception’.

This one-day event is an opportunity for those involved in the acoustics/vibration field to present their research and to network with influential figures from industry and academia.

Programme to be advised.

Registration Form (BLOCK CAPITALS PLEASE)

TARIFF * EIS Member Non Member Delegate £100+VAT £140+VAT Students £25+VAT £25+VAT Leaflet Insert in delegate pack £35+VAT £50+VAT Sponsorship of Event £250+VAT £250+VAT Personal membership of EIS £25 (UK) £30 (Overseas)

* All prices include parking tariff.

I enclose a cheque for £ ........................payable to ‘The Engineering Integrity Society’.

Name:

Company:

Address:

Email:

Reservations to: Engineering Integrity Society, 18 Oak Close, Bedworth, Warwickshire, CV12 9AJ, Tel: (0)2476 730126, Email: [email protected]

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How it Works - Using Servo ValvesThe following article is the first in a series of ‘How it Works’ features. These articles serve to demonstrate the wide experience that becomes available with membership of EIS and is supported by One day events. Each issue will cover one area and the following topics are already being considered:

• PID controllers.• Transducers. Load cells,

LVDT etc and the associated conditioning.

• Iterative systems.• Basic Hydraulics. • Smarter Testing.• Road Load Data.• Test Machines.• Resonant systems.

Readers are invited to submit their comments and subjects of interest.

_________________

The servo valve is the heart of a servo hydraulic system converting voltage into hydraulic flow. The “How it works” article in this issue of the journal shows how this is achieved.

Most servo valves are 4 port configuration. The oil flow to the first stage flapper assembly, which is the converter from volts to flow, is connected inside the valve to the supply port.

Valves are available in 5 port configuration where a separate port is provided for the oil supply to the first stage. This arrangement allows full control of the spool supplying the actuator to be achieved before any oil is available to move or load the actuator. This is an important feature when considering large multi-channel systems or systems where no uncontrolled loads can be applied to the specimen.

Most valves are 2 stage with a flapper stage and a spool. For high flow valves the force and flow required to move a larger diameter spool cannot

be achieved by a flapper nozzle arrangement. For the higher flows a 3 stage valve is required which uses a 2 stage valve connected across the ends of a large spool, as though it was driving an actuator. This larger spool has a position transducer and operates under position control using an additional PID control loop. 3 stage valves benefit from a separate pilot supply to the first stage to achieve full spool control before system start.

On 3 stage valves all the following comments relate to both the first two stages and to the final stage.

Comments

Servo hydraulic systems rarely have any means of assessing the state of the servo valve. It is difficult to locate system faults because the control loop is attempting to correct for them. To isolate and identify any problems with the servo valve is difficult. Valves are reliable but their performance will change with time.

The servo valve is a heat generator since at its full rated flow it will have a pressure drop from input to load port of up to 70 bar. This pressure drop generates heat affecting the viscosity of the oil.

Assessment of the valve and system performance should be made when stable operating temperatures have been reached.

When holding an actuator stationary in position control against no load the servo valve balances the pressure on opposite sides of the actuator.

With the actuator in free air the valve typically applies half the system pressure to both sides of an equal area actuator.

If it is not an equal area actuator it will arrange the pressures in the same ratio as the areas.

Cleanliness

It is essential that oil cleanliness is maintained. The holes in the orifices in the valve are typically 0.15 to 0.25mm diameter requiring debris to be significantly smaller than this. The gap between the orifice and the Flapper plate is even smaller at typically 0.03mm. This is potentially the location of blocking from debris.

Typically the valve spool travels about 0.5mm to 1.0mm for full flow deflection. The edges of the spool lands are usually matched to the valve bushing to an accuracy better than 1.0% of this travel, about 30microns. Debris erodes these edges causing changes in the valve centre position.

Oils are susceptible to degradation by temperature and water. Temperature damage tends to make the oil black and water tends to make the oil milky both of which will affect the valve performance. Chemical contamination from external substances such as cleaning solutions can separate oil constituents and build up deposits on system components. These deposits can be wax like or hard coating substances.

Monitoring

In most systems there is no information available to measure the performance of the valve independent from all the other variables within the control loop. Fitting a position transducer to the valve spool allows the monitoring of valve performance independent of other system features by plotting the spool’s response to given voltage signal. A test signal is configured and the spool response to it recorded. This signal can be applied at any time to compare the valve condition with its original response.

New valves can be specified with spool position transducers and most valves can have these transducers retro fitted by the supplier. This also applies to the first 2 stages of a 3 stage valve.

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Frequently valves stay with that actuator. A valve check can be made before any new test commences.

Valves that are used on various actuators should be tested prior to start of test.

On long running tests a short test profile can be programmed in at regular intervals during the test. Profiles must be non-damaging to the test article. A response to the test profile should be recorded at each repeat.

These test records would be logged with the valve ensuring that a valve from store has an acceptable performance.

Maintaining the valve

New valves can be supplied with a plot of valve response.

Existing valves can be retro fitted with a

spool position transducer by returning them to the supplier or when they are returned for service.

A significant percentage of valves returned for service have no functional problems.

When many servo valves are used a separate valve test station should be considered. These can be provided by the valve supplier.

The test station requires a small flow of clean oil at a stable temperature and comprises a manifold with internal selection valves. The valves allow the pressure to be applied and the actuator ports blocked or a small leakage connected across them.

Response, centre leakage and null condition measurements are recorded.

Providing this test data to the valve

supplier ensures only valves that need repair are returned and faults identified.

Conclusion

Stopped tests and undiagnosed faults cost money and time. Identification of system faults to maintain performance is time consuming and therefore expensive.

Long running tests should only be started with equipment that will maintain its performance for the duration.

Tests should operate with required performance and well within the envelope of the rig and its equipment.

It is interesting to consider the potential of alternative control strategies that can be used employing spool position.

Norman ThorntonEIS

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MEMBERSHIP

The Engineering Integrity Society is an independent charitable organisation, supported and sponsored by industry. The Society is committed to promoting events and publications, providing a forum for experienced engineers and new graduates to discuss current issues and new technologies. We aim for both company and personal development and to inspire newly qualified engineers to develop their chosen profession.

Events run provide an ideal opportunity for engineers to meet others who operate in similar fields of activity over coffee and lunch. All of our events enable engineers to establish and renew an excellent ‘contact’ base while keeping up to date with new technology and developments in their field of interest.

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Application forms can be downloaded from the membership page at www.e-i-s.org.uk

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Second Stage

Flow/pressure are controlled by a sliding spool which is matched within a few microns to the bushing bore. The four lands of the spool are critically cut to four ports in the bushing to ensure both low leakage and idealised output characteristics.

Also housed in the main stage are the inlet orifices and last chance filter (LCF).

The main pressure port supplies both the first and second stages in 4 port design valves.

Fluid flows continuously through the LCF, through the matched pair of inlet orifices onto both ends of the spool, through the matched pair of nozzles before draining back to tank.

With the flapper in the mid-position the pressure at the ends of the spool is approximately half supply pressure as the area of the inlet orifices equals the area of the nozzle to flapper gap.

With no electrical current passing through the coils the valve is mechanically positioned so that the valve output is at null, meaning that no or very little pressure differential exists between C1 and C2 ports.

Servovalve Design & Operation2-Stage, Nozzle Flapper, Mechanical Feedback Design

First Stage (Torque Motor)

The armature and flapper are rigidly fixed perpendicular to each other and are connected to the nozzle block via the flexure tube.

The flexure tube has an extremely thin wall section and as such will flex about a pivot point when a small force is applied to either end of the armature. This movement is translated to the flapper which sits equidistance between a pair of nozzles thus creating two variable orifices. The flexure tube also serves as a mechanical seal.

Attached to the flapper is the feedback wire which is also a spring, the feedback ball locates in a slot in the main stage spool. In the Star Premier Range of servo valves the ball is made from Sapphire to ensure long life performance.

Operation

20

Once an electrical signal is applied to the coils the armature is magnetised, polarity of the current will dictate the direction of rotation of the armature between the fixed poles of the top and bottom pole pieces. The magnitude of the current will control the level of deflection.

As can be seen in the diagram opposite this directional and proportional deflection of the armature moves the flapper and as it does creates a higher resistance to flow in the RH nozzle whilst also allowing more free flow in the LH nozzle. The changes in flow affect the pressure in the lines between the nozzle and orifices creating a differential from one side of the spool to the other, the resultant force acting on the RH side of the spool is greatest and so the spool rapidly moves towards the left.

The spool movement allows pressure from the supply line to enter the C1 port whilst the C2 port is vented to return. This differential is what applies the force to the actuator piston enabling drive to a load and rapidly accelerating it to a constant velocity.

The spool movement simultaneously applies load to the feedback wire. When the force at the feedback wire equals the force at the armature the flapper will return to the mid-position thus holding the spool at the biased position.

Displacement of the spool governs the level of flow passing to and from the control ports, rated input current is proportional to rated output flow.

Removal of the current to the coils returns the valve spool back to null. Nearly all closed loop systems require the servoto have an immediate output versus input so the spool lap condition is critical so that no deadband exists through null, so as not to induce lag or unwanted load transients.

__________Article and illustrations provided by Chris McCormick, Star Hydraulics

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Welcome to the Industry News section of the journal. Thank you to everyone for their submissions, of which we received just under 600 press releases. The nominal limit for entry is 200 words, which should be sent to [email protected] or posted to EIS, c/o Amber Instruments Ltd, Dunston House, Dunston Road, Chesterfield, S41 9QD. We would appreciate you not sending entries by fax.

Paul Armstrong

Bletchley Park Trust Secures £4.6 Million Heritage Lottery Fund Grant for the Restoration of Codebreaking Huts

A landmark victory for the Bletchley Park Trust has been announced with a grant of £4.6 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) towards the regeneration of Bletchley Park. The investment will enable the restoration of iconic Codebreaking Huts 1, 3 and 6 and create a world-class visitor centre and exhibition in the currently derelict Block C as soon as £1.7 million in match funding has been raised. Not only will this development allow the conservation of buildings of highly-significant heritage value, it will considerably improve the educational offering and visitor experience at Bletchley Park.

The Bletchley Park Trust has launched the ‘Action This Day’ campaign to raise the match funding needed. Please go to www.bletchleypark.org.uk for details of how to support it.

First national Technology & Innovation Centre opens for business, boosting high value manufacturing sector

The Technology Strategy Board (www.innovateuk.org) today announced the first Technology and Innovation Centre in high value manufacturing (HVM) open for business. The Board will be investing £140 million over a six year period which will stimulate

manufacturing in the UK, reduce the risk of innovation for new and established UK manufacturing businesses and attract international business to the UK.

The Technology and Innovation Centre initiative is part of the Government’s plan to grow the UK economy. The new centre in high value manufacturing will be the first of at least six Technology and Innovation Centres to be established by April 2013.

The Centre will capitalise on existing expertise and facilities established in the UK, bringing together seven institutions of excellence to better support UK manufacturing. The seven centres are:

• Advanced Forming Research Centre (University of Strathclyde)

• Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (University of Sheffield)

• Centre for Process Innovation (Wilton & Sedgefield)

• Manufacturing Technology Centre (Coventry)

• National Composites Centre (University of Bristol)

• Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (University of Manchester and Sheffield)

• Warwick Manufacturing Group (University of Warwick)

By incorporating the seven institutions, the HVM Technology and Innovation Centre will support a number of different industries including pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, food & beverages, healthcare, aerospace, automotive, energy, chemicals and electronics.

An ABB industrial robot provides automated luggage storage and retrieval at New Yotel in Manhattan

“YOBOT” housed in lobby’s glass enclosure provides increased storage security and a unique, high-tech amenity consistent with Yotel brand.

An ABB articulated arm industrial robot serving as an automated luggage storage and retrieval system is one

of the unique features of the new Yotel that opened in June at Times Square West in Manhattan. The new Yotel, the brand’s first location outside of its three airport hotels in London and Amsterdam, is part of “MIMA”, a mixed-use development located at 570 Tenth Avenue, between 41st and 42nd streets. The theatrically-lit robot, appropriately named “YOBOT”, is the central feature in the lobby, housed behind a secure glass enclosure where it picks up and stores guests’ luggage in one of 117 lockers. When guests are ready to leave the city they return their bar-coded receipt for the YOBOT to retrieve their bags.

The YOBOT system was designed and installed by MFG Automation of Ashford, CT, an established ABB system integrator primarily serving industrial customers in the food and beverage, plastics, aerospace and general manufacturing sectors.

YOBOT is an ABB IRB 6640 robot that would typically be found in industrial settings performing such tasks as material handling, machine tending or spot welding. The IRB 6640 was selected because its 3 meter reach was necessary to access all 117 lockers from the track, and its 60kg payload capacity would agilely handle the heaviest bags. The YOBOT can complete a storage or retrieval operation in 30 seconds or less.

For information: Tel: 01908 350 300 or email roboticsgb.abb.com.

Spen King Sustainability Award

12th October 2011 - Jaguar Land Rover awarded the Spen King Sustainability Award for the first time to Sophie Wakeford, an undergraduate embarking on her degree in Mechanical Engineering at Oxford University. The award was presented at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) Vision Awards, held at the institution’s Birdcage Walk headquarters.

The Spen King Scholarship, which

Industry News

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was developed in memory of Charles Spencer King the mechanical engineering mastermind behind the Range Rover, is designed to inspire and encourage the next generation of engineers. Spen had not anticipated the success of the Range Rover, but its sector setting design and technological innovation has secured its place as a British icon. It is this commitment to ground-breaking engineering that JLR wishes to evoke and inspire with this scholarship.

Thirty-seven undergraduates applied for the award, each completing a formal interview, a short essay on the topic, ‘What do you see as the future of global personal mobility?’ and an in-depth Q&A session focusing on the engineering problems surrounding the hypothetical issue of raising the Titanic. The competition was fraught but Sophie set herself apart from the others by demonstrating not only excellent technical engineering understanding but also for being the only applicant to address the moral issues associated with the hypothetical challenge.

Jo Lopes, Head of Technical Excellence, Jaguar Land Rover said, “At Jaguar Land Rover we firmly believe that our future success lies in innovation and engineering. We work with a number of academic institutions in the pursuit of new scientific and technological solutions to improve the performance and efficiency of our cars and manufacturing processes.”

As part of her scholarship Sophie will receive £1,000 a year whilst reading her degree and a summer work placement at JLR working in her area of interest, hybrids and environmentally sustainable transport.

Leeds ‘sludge team’ targets nuclear waste

It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it. Researchers from the University of Leeds have teamed up with Sellafield Ltd to clean up radioactive sludge produced by the UK nuclear industry.

The newly formed ‘Sludge Centre of Expertise’ draws on specialist knowledge from the University’s engineers and environmental specialists, who are working closely with Sellafield Ltd’s sludge team. The Centre will play a key role in describing the behaviour of the sludge wastes that have arisen after years of operation at Sellafield and other nuclear sites across the UK. This information will help nuclear engineers work out how to dispose of the sludge safely and efficiently.

Radioactive sludge is typically found at the bottom of water-filled waste storage tanks and cooling ponds at nuclear facilities. The particles that make up the sludges can come from corroded fuel rod casings and waste from reprocessed fuel. Older, open-air facilities can also have dust, dirt and debris mixed in amongst the sludge.

As with all radioactive waste, unwanted sludge has to be handled with care to ensure the safety of workers involved in the clean-up process. To address this, University of Leeds engineers are developing techniques to sample and test radioactive sludges from a distance, using remote monitoring equipment. They will be investigating the best ways to mobilise and transport the waste sludge to specialist treatment plants, where it can be made safe for long-term storage.

For information: Paula Gould, Univ. of Leeds press office: Tel 0113 343 8059, email [email protected] Bosch addresses skills shortage by launching search for future engineering stars

The Bosch Technology Horizons Award 2012 is now open for entries. The Awards encourage young people to forge a career in engineering with cash and work experience available as prizes.

The Award, which aims to help close the skills gap by encouraging young people to opt for a career in engineering is now open for entries.

The essay writing competition is split into two age groups with cash prizes for the winners and paid work placements at a Bosch site in the UK.

In the 14-18 age group, the first prize is £700 and two weeks of work experience. In the 18-24 age group, the first prize is £1,000 and the opportunity to undertake a six months’ paid work placement at a Bosch site in the UK.

This year’s competition questions concern environmental technology and the impact of engineering on the world of sport. Entries can be submitted online at www.bosch.co.uk/technologyhorizons/ and the closing date is 20th April 2012.

ARPRO® helps develop next generation sports helmet for the NFL

A new safer sports helmet is making an impact in America with its adoption into the NFL (National Football League).The Simpson Helmet has been developed by Bill Simpson - a highly regarded motor safety expert - to feature state-of-the-art ARPRO technology. The new design is both lightweight and able to withstand numerous impacts, creating an essential piece of kit that will not only last longer but also help to prevent serious head injuries. With a full ARPRO liner and viscoelastic layer to minimize rebound during impact, it will not only reduce the risk of injury but provide increased comfort for the wearer too.

Paul Compton, JSP President and Chief Executive Officer – Europe, Middle-East and Africa, explained: “Multiple head impacts are a fact of life in American Football and the risk of concussion is a major issue. Building on the success of motor racing helmets that utilise ARPRO, Bill Simpson has

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been working alongside the NFL to adapt the technology and create a unique football helmet that can offer added protection against concussion.

“A crucial advantage of ARPRO is the repeat impact performance available. By using ARPRO, the helmet can withstand these stresses and retain excellent energy absorption.”

The first two major NFL players to use the helmet will be Troy Polamalu for the Pittsburgh Steelers and Austin Collie for the Indianapolis Colts.

It is hoped that ARPRO will eventually be widely adopted throughout the NFL, before progressing to collegiate and high school level.

For more information on ARPRO visit www.arpro.com

Leading Engineering Company Awarded Prestigious Orange Innovation Accolade at the National Business Awards 2011

An engineering company specialising in energy saving street lighting has been named the most innovative business in the country. In November Harvard Engineering, based in Wakefield, celebrated with the cream of British business at the prestigious National Business Awards, in partnership with Orange, at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London.

The company was awarded the Orange Innovation Award after scoring highly for its pioneering street lighting system, which saved its customers 322m per annum and reduced its carbon emissions by 700m kg pa. Harvard also manufactures LED and HID lighting controls offering efficiency for commercial, retail, emergency and street lighting applications.

With over 60 LeafNut installations worldwide the company employs approximately 210 people at its facility in Normanton and is projected to reach a turnover of over £20 million, a

44.4 per cent increase on sales in the previous 12 months. Judges described the company as “a triumph of customer led entrepreneurship”.

Martin Stiven, Vice President of Business at Orange said: “Congratulations to Harvard Engineering for winning such a prestigious award and for demonstrating such high levels of innovation. Engineering companies are the backbone of the UK economy and it is fabulous to see this company leading in its field and flying the flag for its sector. Orange believes that having bold ideas and driving them forward is central to business growth.”

“The National Business Awards are a celebration of the very best in British business. They are a unique opportunity to recognise the hard work you all do, as small businesses or multi-national companies, to achieve commercial success”, said Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rt Hon George Osborne MP.

For the full list of winners visit: www.nationalbusinessawards.co.uk

UK Manufacturing to Benefit from Jobs Created by Robots!

Who would have thought it - Robots being responsible for job creation? It has been demonstrated repeatedly that automation and robotics increase productivity and efficiency and growth. The Automating Manufacturing Programme, funded by Government aims to increase the competitiveness of UK manufacturing, which will create growth and in turn result in greater employment.

The latest study conducted by the market research firm, Metra Martech Positive Impact of Industrial Robots on Employment published recently by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) in Tokyo, demonstrates that 3 million jobs have been directly created in recent years by the use of robots and a further 1 million positions estimated globally by 2016.

Mike Wilson Chairman of the British Automation and Robots Association (BARA) said “This is great news for British manufacturing. The IFR study highlights the importance of robotics to the future growth of UK industry and the jobs it will create as a result. The recently launched government funded Automating Manufacturing Programme is providing assistance to companies looking to use automation to improve competitiveness and drive growth.”

The report highlighted 3 areas of importance with respect to growth in this market:

• Robots carry out work that is unsafe for humans

• Robots carry out work that is not viable in a high wage economy

• Robots carry out work that would be impossible for humans

The Government is providing, through the PPMA Group, up to £600,000 of funding to promote automation in UK manufacturing.

To apply for a government funded Automating Manufacturing review that involves a totally independent automation and robotics specialist visiting premises to conduct a confidential review and advise where automation can assist, increase productivity and drive growth - contact [email protected].

Marine Energy – Supporting Array Technologies

The government is to invest over £10 million in new research and development to help demonstrate that wave and tidal energy can be generated at scale, and with lower energy production costs.

Marine Energy – Supporting Array Technologies is a competition for collaborative R&D funding that will support the applied research, experimental development and demonstration of innovative technologies that solve common

Industry News

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issues faced by those developing and deploying the first marine energy arrays.

The funding – from the Technology Strategy Board, Scottish Enterprise and the Natural Environment Research Council – will support the successful deployment and operation of the first series of wave and tidal arrays while complementing other public funding initiatives such as the Department for Energy and Climate Change’s (DECC) Marine Energy Array Deployment capital grant scheme, the Energy Technologies Institute’s (ETI) wave and tidal energy system demonstrator programmes and the Scottish Government’s Saltire Prize.

The competition will seek proposals for research and development projects that address themes such as: tidal array cabling; subsea electrical hubs; installation and maintenance vessels for tidal arrays; navigation and collision avoidance and anti-fouling & corrosion.

The Technology Strategy Board (www.innovateuk.org) will invest up to £6.5 million in the research and development projects, while Scottish Enterprise (www.scottish-enterprise.com) will invest up to £3 million and NERC (www.nerc.ac.uk) up to £1 million.

The competition opens on 5 March 2012 and a briefing event to provide more information to prospective applicants will be held in London on 14 March 2012. The deadline for registration is 10 April 2012 and expressions of interest must be submitted by 17 April 2012. For further information please visit: Marine Energy SAT.

Tool which targets carbon emission hotspots in supply chains developed

A management expert at the University of Sheffield has developed a tool to analyse supply chains in industry, enabling businesses to highlight waste hotspots and make their processes more environmentally friendly.

Professor Lenny Koh, of the University of Sheffield’s Management School, has created the Supply Chain Environmental Analysis Tool (SCEnAT) to help companies cut their carbon emissions.

The tool, which is already being used by a number of international companies and is being considered by aircraft engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce, creates a database of carbon usage, arming businesses with ways to reduce their carbon emissions and associated costs, providing interventions, as well as offering guidance and support.

“There was a need for a state-of-the-art tool for carbon emissions accounting and management across product supply chains,” said Professor Koh, who is Director of the Logistics and Supply Chain Management (LSCM) Research Centre and Director of the Centre for Energy, Environment and Sustainability (CEES).

The carbon assessment and decision support tool looks at the whole supply chain, mapping out different tiers and identifying carbon hot-spots. It is a living system which is capable of updating itself with every application.

The tool was presented at a conference hosted by DLA Piper LLP on The Business Strategy to Low Carbon Supply Chains targeting businesses and organisations interested in low carbon supply chain management.

The research was led by the University of Sheffield, working in partnership with the Centre for Low Carbon Futures (CLCF), the University of York, the University of Hull, the Stockholm Environmental Institute, CEES, the LSCM Research Centre, and the CLCF Low Carbon Supply Chain Business Advisory Board.

For more information on the Centre for Low Carbon Futures visit: www.lowcarbonfutures.org

NoiseSentinel the Only Option for London’s Crossrail Project

Brüel & Kjær’s real-time noise monitoring subscription service, NoiseSentinel, is set to ensure the compliance of the Crossrail construction works.

Crossrail is a large infrastructure project that will create a new rail link across London from west to east. Since significant amounts of the necessary construction work will take place in highly built-up areas, with night works required in some cases, noise compliance is a critical consideration for the building contractors.

The building contractors operating at the Liverpool Street site, BAM Nuttall Kier Joint Venture (BNK JV), turned to acoustic consultants Anderson Acoustics for a real-time noise management solution – in order to fulfill the Crossrail project’s noise pollution obligations, and prevent operations being delayed. The NoiseSentinel system hardware is entirely owned and operated by Brüel & Kjær, allowing the building contractors BNK JV to avoid capital outlay on equipment, and to focus on their core business. This was also a key consideration for the consultancy Anderson Acoustics, who were attracted by the ability to completely outsource the monitoring part of their services, while being supplied with the data needed to provide consultancy services.

“ At the Liverpool Street enabling works site, there are three noise-sensitive locations nearby where real-time monitoring is required as a condition of the Section 61 planning consent issued by the City of London Corporation. BNK JV also decided to install a fourth noise monitor on the construction site itself, so that events could be related back to this site with greater certainty.

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New Moog Wind Training Center to Offer Advanced Maintenance and Engineering Training In September 2011 Moog officially inaugurated its new Wind Training Center at an Opening Ceremony involving customers and partners in Unna, Germany.

The 1,300 m² (14,000 ft²) facility is designed to provide technical training programs to Moog’s global wind energy customer base. A dedicated team of expert trainers will lead customer training programs ranging from a basic introduction to more advanced and focused engineering courses on products and systems. Hands-on technical training in Moog Pitch Systems, Pitch Motors, Pitch Servo Drives, Backup-Systems and Programmable Logic Controllers focuses on maintenance, performance analysis, repair and retrofits. To satisfy attendees with different backgrounds, basic, total immersion and expert levels will be available.

The new Moog Wind Training Center will house interactive displays of complete pitch systems and a variety of products to facilitate hands-on practical instruction for participants.

Moog,The Netherlands. Tel: +49 2303 5937 0Contact:Stefanie [email protected]

Turbomeca selects nCode Automation software

Turbomeca, which specializes in the design, production, sale and support of gas power turbine for small and medium helicopters, has selected nCode software - a leading brand of durability, test and analysis products by HBM - to ensure the storage, management, analysis and traceability of thousands of measurement channels of test data.

nCode Automation 7 software is especially suited for applications where

large amounts of data are generated, for example, in the aerospace industry from test rigs or flight tests. nCode Automation is a unique engineering software that centralizes, secures, manages and analyzes all the data from a central server. Based on secure web technology, it provides direct access to data, analysis and reports to all departments, sites and project partners through a web browser on a computer or mobile device. It also has the ability to automatically process thousands of records from multiple data acquisition units with hundreds of measurement channels and offers greater security and traceability for data and analysis.

HBM United Kingdom Limited., UK.Tel. +44 (0)845-620-6060. Contact: [email protected]

Maplesoft™ (Waterloo, Canada), a leader in software products for technical education and research, has released the latest version of its popular testing and assessment tools. Available from Adept Scientific (Letchworth, Herts). Maple T.A.™ was first released as a pilot project in 2002. Ten years later, Maple T.A. continues the tradition of providing major advancements to help institutions offer high quality technical education to their students.

The Maplesoft product range is supplied and supported by Adept Scientific in the UK, Ireland, Scandinavia and the Nordic countries.

Details and contact information for all Adept Scientific international offices are available at www.adeptscience.com; or telephone +44 (0)1462 480055.

Gems introduces new side-mount level switches made from high temperature Versaplast™ engineered plastic

Gems® Sensors & Controls™ (Gems), a global leader in liquid level, pressure, and flow sensors, miniature solenoid valves, and fluidic systems,

introduces several new versions to their LS-7 Series of robust point level switches. These compact, side mount level switches are made from Gems Versaplast™ engineered plastic for high temperature applications up to 300°F (148.9°C).

The Gems Versaplast™ engineered plastic used on these new level switches is an extremely versatile material compatible with a wide range of challenging fluids such as oils and solvents. Versaplast™ enables the new LS-7 Series sensors to provide an affordable solution for handling high temperature applications and corrosive fluids. The durable Versaplast™ LS-7 level switches are CE, UL and CUL approved, are ideal for use within methylene chloride and anti-freeze tanks, and are well suited for low coolant, low hydraulic monitoring within off-highway vehicle and transportation applications.

Gems Sensors and Controls, UK.Tel: +44 (0) 1256 320244. Email: [email protected]

Prevention is better than cure

As noise-induced hearing loss is one of the most prevailing and costly occupational health problems, Brüel & Kjær has launched a portable noise-dose meter that assesses work environments before the damage is done.

Millions of workers are at risk from repeat exposure to high noise levels. Once the damage is done, social and psychological handicaps can lead to potentially massive expenses from the loss of skilled labour, early retirement and worker compensation.

Brüel & Kjær’s Noise Dose Meter Type 4448 is shoulder-mounted and cable-free. It has been designed to accompany employees throughout their working day, measuring and registering all relevant data about their noise exposure. It can be used to assess the risk of hearing damage to workers in

Product News

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noisy environments such as machinery workshops, forestry sites and music venues. Special versions are available for use in hazardous areas, such as mining and petrochemical facilities, where only certified equipment can be legally used.

Bruel & Kjaer, UK.Tel: Heather Wilkins 01763 255 780. www.bksv.com/Type4448

New Ethernet Measurement Instruments with High G a l v a n i c Channel-to-Channel Isolation up to ±3500 V

Data Translation announces the release of two new Ethernet (LXI) measurement instruments for their MEASUREpoint product line. Featuring 24-bit A/D resolution and ISO-Channel technology, the new DT8875 and DT8876 instruments provide ultra-high galvanic isolation channel-to-channel and to earth ground of ±1400 V or ±3500 V and up to 5000 V for transients, depending on the model. This makes them particularly ideal for test applications in high voltage noise environments, for precise temperature or voltage measurements on high-performance batteries or inverters, for example. The measurement instruments are available with up to 20 or 40 analog inputs for connecting voltages, thermocouples, RTDs or currents.

Data Translation GmbH, Germany.Tel: +49 (0)7142/95 31-0Em ail: [email protected]

PCB Piezotronics Adds Industry Exclusive High Temperature Microphone and Preamp Combination to Acoustic Products Range

PCB Piezotronics, a world leader in vibration, acoustic, pressure, force and torque sensors, is the only manufacturer that offers a microphone pre-amplifier which can withstand the

same temperature environment as the microphone capsule and operate at 120°C.

Housed in a ½in package with a BNC connector, the new model HT378B02 is an industry exclusive microphone and preamplifier that operates from ICP® sensor power over a wide frequency range – 5Hz to 10kHz (±1dB), 3.15Hz to 20kHz (±2dB). The preamplifier was designed with the microphone in mind and works seamlessly to ensure optimum performance. The wide temperature range from -40 to +120°C eliminates the need for high-priced probe microphones.

PCB Piezotronics’ new microphone and preamplifier complements the company’s wide range of acoustic measurement products that are designed for use in applications such as noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) testing, environmental noise analysis, sound power testing, transfer path analysis, sound pressure mapping and general noise reduction.

PCB Piezotronics Ltd, UK. Tel: +44 (0)1462 429710, Email: [email protected], www.pcbsensors.co.uk

LMS Imagine.Lab AMESim Rev 11 Released

LMS Imagine.Lab AMESim Rev11 has several new features and improvements specifically addressing requests from the automotive, aerospace and mechanical industries.

For the automotive market it strengthens LMS Imagine.Lab AMESim transmission applications, with new Dual Mass Flywheel components and a much larger suit of vehicle models, including cars, motorbikes, buses, trucks, tanks and trailers. Substantial progress has also been made in the engine domain, with the new Model Test Bench for effective engine characterization, modelling and comparison/validation against

test data, and combustion fitting tools for advanced and comprehensive combustion model calibration.

An important step forward is made also for chassis and vehicle dynamics aspects, with the introduction of complete demonstrators aimed at balancing fuel economy and vehicle dynamics. The performance of the heat exchanger assembly tool and the two phase flow/air conditioning libraries, in vehicle thermal management area, have also undergone considerable improvement.

LMS International, Belgium.www.lmsintl.com

Machinery Condition Monitoring

Vibration condition monitoring of rotating machines is a major activity for equipment manufacturers, installers, operators and maintenance companies.

m+p international’s SO Analyzer is a flexible and easy to use system for all types of diagnostic testing across a wide range of machinery monitoring applications. Its rotational dynamics software module includes the functionality required to measure and analyse both fixed and variable speed rotating machines for development diagnostics, commissioning evaluation, post-maintenance performance checks and many other monitoring tasks.

SO Analyzer includes online and post-processing capabilities to make all these measurements based on machine speed or, when running at constant speed, with time-based logging providing time history statistics, spectrum analysis as well as order analysis with both amplitude and phase results. All these functions are available in parallel for complete and immediate online results and flexible post-processing diagnostics.

m+p international (UK) Ltd. Richard Lax, Tel: (+44) (0)1420 521222, Email: [email protected]

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Musings from EngineersHave you any non-technical reflections you would like to share with readers? The following two articles will start the ball rolling! Contributions would be welcomed and should be emailed to: [email protected]

_________

Did we lose our best engineers to the city?

It is said that we might have lost some of our best engineers to the city. I am not so sure.

One graduate engineer I knew was, looking-back, destined for the city. He was three years my junior and I was a post-graduate at the time tutoring his first year group on the Bernoulli formula. I was corrected on a corollary of the formula and, unfortunately for me, the Department Professor was on hand to confirm my error. The lad was clearly bright, very confident and a character. This surprising start led to a life long friendship between us; as chalk and cheese personalities often do.

Chris (the graduate) was very active; he canoed, sailed and surfed. This made the next, out-door experience even the more surprising. We were on a University surfing trip and travelling down to Sennen Cove. This was the days before mobile phones, when cars in convoy pulled along side and hand gestured and shouted to pass on travel requests and information.

Chris opened his window and beckoned our car to move closer alongside. As we did so I saw an object shoot from his hand and flash back down the carriageway. As a prank he had attempted to throw a cup of water between two cars, both travelling a 60 mph. He had soaked the open-windowed passenger behind him and was looking in amazement at his empty, still rigidly cupped hand. Chris may have been extremely hot on the theory, but on the practical side was early-on in the magic of science.

Chris didn’t move to the city, he rocketed through it, as only someone destined for the city would. His achievements match that of our very best engineers - in a fraction of the time.

But we didn’t loose a good engineer to the city. Chris was not “an engineer”. He had simply used our highly focused, intense training to speed him on his way. He helped many engineers, including me, on route.

Conway Young

What is an Engineer?

Some years ago, the EIS organised weekend events which combined a robust technical programme with some enjoyable social occasions. Delegates were encouraged to bring their partners along and a jolly useful time was had by all.

On one Saturday night, at one of these events in Buxton, there was a team event where each group was tasked to construct a lifting crane out of drinking straws and sellotape. The crane needed to be able to lift a tin of beans from the floor to a table top.

This was a very taxing problem for the six teams, and many heads were scratched over the next two hours of the competition. Eventually, various designs emerged and were tried, with mostly no success. Our team had a very elegant design but it was struggling to lift the heavy bean tin. Then someone had the bright idea to take the bottom off the can and empty out the beans. The modification was done very carefully, and all traces of bean juice were removed so as not to give the game away.

It was then time to finish the building, and the judging panel was assembled to allow the efforts to be assessed and a winner to be found. We followed the judges around and watched as each team was called upon to demonstrate their crane. Most of them just buckled,

but one or two designs managed to lift the can just off the floor.

Our team members were trying to suppress our feelings of hilarity and expectation until it would be our turn. As luck would have it, we were the last team to be judged. With dramatic skill, our crane operator carefully began to lift the bean tin. Taking it slowly to not make it look too easy, the bean tin was raised further and further off the floor. When our tin passed the best height of the others, we felt the prize was ours; but the lifting continued to the cheers of the observers until the table top was reached.

The chief of the judges said that this was obviously the clear winner. Then I noticed “the doubter”. One of the delegates was not convinced. He had a thoughtful expression as if something was bothering him. “This one is going to cause trouble”, I thought. Suddenly his face lit up as an idea came into it. He bent down and looked under the can. “Hang on a minute,” he said “there’s no beans in this can!”

Of course we were disqualified, but there was no bad feeling. That was the spirit of these events, they all enjoyed the joke.

I was very impressed with “the doubter”. To me he was a true engineer, maybe the only one in the room. He had looked at the situation, and he knew, really knew, that it could not work. He evaluated all of the evidence before him, and came to the only engineering conclusion. If the crane was apparently not strong enough to lift that weight, the weight must be wrong.

I often think that the process of becoming an engineer is not just about learning facts and formulas. It is rather a process of changing the way one looks at the world. When you think like an engineer, you know almost instinctively how things work, and more importantly, when they will not.

Geoff Rowlands

News on Smart Materials and Structures

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generation of gyroscopes based on novel MEMS technology, and various control surfaces assist on altitude setting. The prototype, unveiled at the Digital Content Expo 2011 in Japan, is currently tested for possible search and rescue operations for environments not normally accessible through aircraft patrolling. Star Wars come true.

A major problem for law-enforcement agencies (and the military) is the detection of gunshots and explosions at distance. Current MEMS sensors are designed for either detecting the acoustic signature, or the visible flare-up of the explosion. A Dutch company (Microflwon Avisa) has recently developed a new class of MEMS sensor able to combine the two approaches, with a compact acoustic vector sensor able to work also at high humidity levels (100 %). The sensor is complemented by hardware postprocessing of the data, and it is able to provide bearing and elevation of the firing sources with an accuracy of 0.25 degrees. The sensor is currently offered for installations in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, but other possible solutions can be envisaged.

Metamaterials (electromagnetic composites with smart refractive index and dielectric functions), have been also in the news for their possible use in invisibility cloaking. A more direct engineering application is the development of smart antennas able to provide on-board Internet connection in airliners. Intellectual Ventures (IV) has recently developed a cheap broadband metamaterial antenna able to beam-steering specific signals without using the modification of mechanical surfaces (as current ”smart“ antenna do). The concept of beam-steering metamaterial is not new, having being pioneered by Sir John Penry at Imperial College back in 1999, but probably only now the cost of electronics and smart devices has reached the right balance for large-scale engineering applications. Prototypes of the antenna are scheduled to operate from 2014.

Smart textiles constitute also another hot topic for the field. Researchers from NASA Ames Centre have

recently developed a fabric made of interlocking strands of copper and copper-oxide wire, with a nanoscale dab of platinum placed at the stitches of the interconnecting locks. The whole E-textile provides a flexible and wearable resistive memory circuit. The copper-oxide serves as storage medium (it can switch between insulator and conductor state by applying a voltage), while copper wires and platinum act as top and bottom electrodes. Potential applications range from biomarkers for diseases, monitoring of vital signs and data transmissions from patients to doctors. A further development for smart textiles and electronics could also potentially come from novel semiconductor sapphire wires able to carry 40 times more electric current than classical copper wires. The wires, developed by scientists from Tel Aviv University, are coated with ceramics and have a cross-section slightly larger than the one of a human hair. The ceramic-sapphire wires are also pliable, a characteristic not possessed by current semiconductor cables present in the market. The TAU team is currently working on improved prototypes of these very interesting semiconductor materials.

Now for some up-coming events and conferences in the next months. The annual rendez-vous on Smart Materials and NDE organised by SPIE will be held in San Diego, CA between the 11th and 15th of March. Another major event in the field of smart materials this year will be CIMTEC 2012, held in Montecatini (Italy) between the 10th and 14th of June. More dedicated to sensors technology, the 2nd International Conference on Materials and Applications for Sensors and Tranducers (IC-MAST) will be held in Budapest between the 24th and 28th of May. Another important event in the field of MEMS is the 13th International Symposium on MEMS and Nanotechnology (ISMAN) on June 11th-12th in Costa Mesa, CA. With this, I wish you all a productive and successful six months ahead.

Fabrizio ScarpaProfessor of Smart Materials and

Structures, Bristol University

Happy New 2012, and welcome to our column on smart materials and structures. As the usual custom, I will highlight some recent noticeable d e v e l o p m e n t s in the field, as well as pinpoint some upcoming

conferences and workshops at international level. Graphene (one-layer thick carbon atoms material) has been celebrated in the news as the next big breakthrough in the field of materials, electronics and smart devices. A natural domain where smart materials and structures have been applied at large scale is the deployable space antennas technology, and a possible introduction of graphene-based systems was only waiting to happen. A team from University of Louisville (US) and Cambridge University has developed photomechanical actuators with graphite nanoplatelets (multi-layer graphene) to create a generation of lightweight photovoltaic actuators able to convert photons directly, rather than using solar cells. The graphene nanoplatelets are embedded in a low-stiffness elastomeric material (PDMS), able to generate an optical to mechanical energy conversion factor 3 orders of magnitude higher than the one currently available through light-driven PVDF polymers (http://iopscience.iop.org/0957-4484/23/4/045501). A very significant development for smart photovoltaics - watch this space.

Continuing on the aerospace side of things, smart MEMS gyroscopic platforms have been a recent key driver into the design of novel aircraft concepts. A very unusual-looking flying prototype has been recently developed by the Technical Research and Development Institute of the Japan Ministry of Defence. It is a sphere of 42 cm diameter, 350 g of weight, able to launch and land vertically, hover and zip up to 60 km/h. The spherical unmanned aerial vehicle is also coupled with a new generation smart ball camera. Flight stability and collision avoidance is guaranteed by a new

News from British Standards - BS 8888

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BSI has recently published the latest new edition of BS 8888, the UK’s technical product documentation and specification standard. First published in

2000, BS 8888 replaced the former – and much loved – British Standard for engineering drawing BS 308. The new BS 8888:2011 came out on 20th December 2011 with an improved structure and format aimed at making the standard more user friendly for UK industry.

When BS 308 was withdrawn, BS 8888 was drafted to make the transition from the existing national standard to the suite of new international standards from ISO – the International Organization for Standardization – as painless as possible. Rather than leaving engineers to find their own way through an extensive catalogue of new ISO standards, BS 8888 was produced as a gateway or interface to the ISO system. One of the original intentions of BS 8888 was to bring together, in one easy-to-follow document, all of the international standards needed to prepare technical product specifications (TPS). BS 8888 has always aimed to help users make better use of the ISO system and reflects the move away from 2D engineering drawings to 3D CAD files and other information types, as well as the international nature of modern manufacturing communication.

Within BS 8888, geometrical product specification (GPS) provides the link between design intent and metrology. It is the international specification language that communicates component functional requirements, defines a common datum system, and controls tooling, assembly, and verification interfaces, ensuring compliance with a uniform international standard. The system is designed and developed by engineers for engineers and provides a shorthand language for

the engineering industry. The system is clear, consistent, and unambiguous, and applies across the entire design, manufacture and quality processes. By ensuring compliance with BS 8888 an organization can prepare a technical product drawing or 3D CAD model in the knowledge that it can be referred to by GPS-competent engineers in any company worldwide and be subject to the same interpretation of the design intent.

This latest revision of BS 8888 introduces the new international documentation and geometrical product specification standards published since the last edition of BS 8888 in 2008. It also incorporates more fully than previous editions some of the fundamental requirements of the key international standards relevant to the preparation of technical product specifications, in particular BS EN ISO 1101 on geometrical tolerancing and BS EN ISO 5459 on datums. The inclusion of fundamental requirements and principles will help UK industry better understand and implement the full complement of International Standards developed by the international standards committees ISO/TC 213, Geometrical product specifications and verification, and ISO/TC 10, Technical product documentation.

Standards are a powerful tool for use by organizations of all sizes and can potentially support innovation and increase productivity. Standardization can be used by businesses to help shape their industry and promote and enhance profitability. The business benefits that can result from adopting and using standards include cutting costs and driving profitability, providing best-practice guidance and sharpening business processes, providing a reliable benchmark against which performance can be judged, and ensuring that products or services are compatible (or interoperable) with those manufactured or provided by others.

BS 8888 is developed within BSI’s

TDW/4, Technical product realization, technical committee which also appoints the UK experts to work on the international standards developed within ISO. The TDW/4 committee area covers technical drawings, geometrical tolerancing, product specification, verification, measurement instrumentation and the new suite of design for manufacture standards, BS 8887. BSI welcomes approaches from anyone interested in taking part in standards work and although it requires time and effort, there are a number of direct benefits that can be gained from participating including:

• increasing knowledge of and familiarity with existing standards which can then support evolutionary business ventures, decrease development time and increase speed to market;

• being pro-active and taking a leadership role in putting forward the business case for adapting existing standards to suit new products or technologies or drafting new standards;

• taking advantage of the immediate benefit of professional and personal networking with experts from the same business/technology area;

• being able to identify and take part in new areas of standards work and hence be in a position to have advanced knowledge of any emerging or developing markets.

Further general information on taking part in standards work can be found at:

h t t p : / / w w w. b s i g r o u p . c o m / e n /Standards-and-Publications/About-standards/What-are-the-benefits-of-standards/

Anyone interested in getting involved in standardization work in the BS 8888 area, please contact Sarah Kelly, Committee Manager for TDW/4, at BSI [email protected].

Sarah Kelly

31

View from the Institution of Mechanical EngineersAre we witnessing an engineering resurgence?

The country of Brunel, Stephenson and Whittle may well be witnessing a much-needed resurgence in engineering.

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers has reached 100,000 members for the first time in its 164 year history. The growth of engineering-based industries, such as UK car manufacturing, is proving to be one of the few bright spots in an otherwise gloomy economic backdrop and a surge in applications for engineering degrees means it is more popular among British students than ever.

An analysis of UCAS figures by the Institution shows a surge in applicants for engineering subjects since the 2008 financial crisis. There was a 35% rise in prospective students choosing engineering subjects in 2010 from 2007 levels, with mechanical engineering the most popular engineering discipline.

More students are now choosing engineering than law, languages or teaching.

Even the latest preliminary UCAS figures for 2012 applications – the year in which tuition fees will rise to up to £9,000 – give some cause for optimism. A slight decrease in engineering applications of 1.8% puts engineering ahead of all but three other subject areas, and well short of the average drop of 6%. The final UCAS figures will be released at the end of this month.

County Antrim engineer Nicola McClatchey has also been named as the 100,000th member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, which has grown from 75,000 members in 2007 – an increase of 33% in five years.

This is all good news for the country. Engineers play an increasingly vital role in almost every major industry, from medicine to energy. They prop up our vital manufacturing industry,

they will be crucial to delivering major infrastructure projects such as high speed rail and they will be fundamental to solving some of the biggest issues facing this country and the world, from climate change to overpopulation.

Yet that does not mean there is room for complacency. The UK still needs 19,000 extra engineering graduates every year over the next five years to meet future demand. Our manufacturing industry, though showing some positive signs, still has a long way to go if we are to truly rebalance our services-heavy economy.

These are encouraging times for British engineering, with the profession growing in size and stature. Yet we still need the Government and industry to work together to make sure these successes are used as a platform to restore engineering’s rightful place at the heart of the UK economy.

Group News

Sound & Vibration Product Perception Group The committee is now finalizing the planning for the next one-day event, to be held on 17th April 2012, once

again jointly with WIMRC at their very impressive venue, the Digital Suite on the University of Warwick Campus. The title of the seminar is - “Techniques for Delivering a Positive Emotional Response to Products and Environments (Shaping the emotional response to products by the optimization of sound and vibration)”.

The day will be a mixture of formal presentation, demonstrations and panel discussion on the subject of human perception of the noise and vibration environment experienced by product consumers and service customers, and why increasing research is being undertaken to understand the benefits that can be utilised within the more progressive companies to increase user satisfaction.

Human centred innovation is considered vital to the economic growth of a company. Recent research shows that the 70% to 80% of new product development that fails, does so because of a failure to understand user’s needs and not for lack of advanced technology. With the advances of computer aided design,

analysis and testing, the majority of consumer products (including vehicles) usually exceed customer expectations and requirements for most areas of performance and cost. However, consideration of sound and vibration performance can often be a low priority for the customer at the point of sale but may later cause user dissatisfaction, disengagement and deter a repeat sale. There is increasing effort being made by researchers to understand customer perception and emotional engagement in this field, and to develop useful techniques and tools that can be applied universally to enhance user satisfaction and ‘brand perception’.

The seminar is an opportunity for those involved in the acoustics/vibration field to present their research to a

continued over/

Group News... continued

32

specialised audience and to network with influential figures from industry and academia.

The committee is currently within the process of assessing the papers that have been submitted for presentation, following which the final programme will be published, hopefully by early February 2012. For further details and booking information, please see page 17 of the journal.

John WilkinsonChairman

Simulation, Test & Measurement Group

Please consider submitting a piece on “Engineering Experience”, either

technical or personal for this journal. The idea, originated by the STMG group will hopefully give readers a good outlet for their views and help the EIS with the content of our events.

I’ll kick you off. On the positive side, it is very clear from our regular STMG meetings that all our members, every one to a man, has their heads down at work currently. I remember the recession in the early 1990’s as being a very quiet time at work. These times are very different. Whether it is vying for new work, dealing with the additional efforts of projects quoted at very competitive rates, or just an extra daily workload, they are all rising to the challenge. Many of the companies and industries that we all work in are very busy. These are enthusiastic, motivated and inspiring people who take time from their busy schedules to

mix at the EIS with other, like-minded engineers.

On the negative side, I was disappointed when I attended a Technology Strategy Board conference. I approached a speaker for his advice on how to grow my company. “Don’t waste your time here” he replied. After being let down by TSB staff missing meetings, then being advised by them to use LinkedIn rather than their own connect network, I soon concurred. We have seen the RDA’s clumsy transition to LEP’s, their boundaries shifted and their funds taken away. We have seen the arrival of TSB competitions with complex applications and no personal contact. It’s a curious recipe to provide motivation and support.

On the funny side: I recently enquired about UKAS accreditation to calibrate load sensors. “Well” I was told, “our assessor rate is £1,000 a day.” “£1,000, they must be good. Is that it?” I said. The lady laughed ominously. “No, there are two of them. We also have to completely assess your Quality Management System”. “It’s OK we are fully compliant and accredited to IS09001:2008” I proudly retorted. “Not good enough” she said “It’s also £1,500 to register and they will need a day each to prepare, at the same rate”. “£5,500. Wow, (tentatively) is that all?” “Pretty much” she said “The assessors may travel from anywhere in the country and you have to cover all travel and expenses. They may also need a day to finalise. If there are no issues, that’s about it for your first six months.” “At best, not much change likely from £10,000 then” I said “that hasn’t promoted quality, it’s killed it”. “Well, we are a not-for-profit organisation”, she explained. To pay lavish, unrestrained fees like that, we would likely aspire to that description too.

If you have an engineering experience to share then we would welcome a short piece, or come along to an EIS meeting and air your opinion.

I look forward to seeing to you at the EIS exhibition on March 6th.

Conway Young Chairman

Durability & Fatigue Group

The group has suffered, as I suspect m a n y

engineers have in 2011, a distinct lack of time to organise things that are important and useful unless they are urgent. We have been discussing a variety of events and I hope that the first two will come to fruition in 2012. The nuclear industry and government have taken time to decide on their plans for the future but it now seems the right time to run a seminar on Corrosion Fatigue in Nuclear Power. Members of the group are directly involved with electronic systems and we are formulating a seminar on Challenges in Structural Testing and Reliability of Electronic Systems. It is also time to organise our biannual seminar on structural integrity in the renewable energy business.

Robert CawteChairman

President: Peter Watson O.B.E.Acting ChairmanTrevor Margereson, Engineering Consultant ................................................................................................... 07881 802410Vice ChairmanRobert Cawte, HBM United Kingdom .............................................................................................................. 0121 733 1837TreasurerKhaled Owais, TRaC Environmental & Analysis .............................................................................................. 01926 478614Company SecretaryRobert Cawte, HBM United Kingdom .............................................................................................................. 0121 733 1837EIS Secretariat Lisa Mansfield................................................................................................................................................... 02476 730126Communications Sub Committee – ‘Engineering Integrity’ Journal of the EISHonorary EditorKaren Perkins, Swansea University ................................................................................................................ 01792 513029Managing EditorCatherine Pinder .............................................................................................................................................. 07979 270998

Durability & Fatigue GroupChairmanRobert Cawte, HBM United Kingdom .............................................................................................................. 0121 733 1837SecretaryKhaled Owais, TRaC Environmental & Analysis .............................................................................................. 01926 478614MembersJohn Atkinson, Sheffield Hallam University ......................................................................................................0114 2252014Martin Bache, Swansea University .................................................................................................................. 01792 295287Peter Blackmore, Jaguar Land Rover .............................................................................................................. 01926 646757Feargal Brennan, Cranfield University ............................................................................................................. 01234 758249Emanuele Cannizzaro, Atkins Aerospace......................................................................................................... 01454 284242Amirebrahim Chahardehi, Cranfield University ................................................................................................ 01234 754631John Draper, Safe Technology .........................................................................................................................0114 255 5919Steve Hughes, Bodycote ................................................................................................................................. 01524 841070Karl Johnson, Zwick Roell Group ..................................................................................................................... 0777957 8913Davood Sarchamy, British Aerospace Airbus .....................................................................................................0117 936 861Giora Shatil, Darwind.................................................................................................................................+31 (0)30 6623987Frank Sherratt, Engineering Consultant ........................................................................................................... 01788 832059James Trainor, TRW Conekt Engineering Services ....................................................................................... 0121 627 4244John Yates, University of Sheffield ...................................................................................................................0114 222 7748

Sound & Vibration Product Perception GroupActing ChairmanJohn Wilkinson, Millbrook Proving Ground ...................................................................................................... 01525 842526MembersMarco Ajovalasit, Brunel University ................................................................................................................. 01895 267 134Alan Bennetts, Bay Systems ............................................................................................................................ 01458 860393Dave Boast, Avon Rubber ................................................................................................................................ 01373 863064Mark Burnett, MIRA ......................................................................................................................................... 02476 355329Peter Clark, Proscon Environmental ................................................................................................................ 01489 891853Gary Dunne, Jaguar Land Rover ..................................................................................................................... 02476 206573

Committee members

33

Henrietta Howarth, Southampton University ......................................................................................... 023 8059 4963/2277Paul Jennings, Warwick University .................................................................................................................. 02476 523646Rick Johnson, Sound & Vibration Technology ................................................................................................. 01525 408502 Chris Knowles, JCB ........................................................................................................................................ 01889 59 3900Colin Mercer, Prosig ......................................................................................................................................... 01329 239925Jon Richards, Honda UK ................................................................................................................................. 01793 417238Nick Pattie, Ford ......................................................................................................................................................................

Simulation, Test & Measurement GroupChairmanConway Young, Tiab ........................................................................................................................................ 01295 714046MembersPaul Armstrong, Amber Instruments ................................................................................................................. 01246 260250Ian Bell, National Instruments .......................................................................................................................... 01635 572409Steve Coe, Data Physics (UK) ......................................................................................................................... 01323 846464Colin Dodds, Dodds & Associates .................................................................................................................... 07880 554590Dave Ensor, MIRA ............................................................................................................................................ 02476 355295Lawrence Grasty, Bruel & Kjaer VTS ............................................................................................................... 01763 255780Graham Hemmings, Engineering Consultant .................................................................................................. 0121 520 3838Neil Hay, Napier University .............................................................................................................................. 0131 455 2200Richard Hobson, Serco Technical & Assurance Services ................................................................................ 01332 263534Trevor Margereson, Engineering Consultant .................................................................................................... 07881 802410Ray Pountney, Engineering Consultant ............................................................................................................ 01245 320751Tim Powell, Bruel & Kjaer VTS ......................................................................................................................... 01763 255780Mike Reeves, Engineering Consultant ..............................................................................................................01189 691870Gordon Reid, Engineering Consultant .............................................................................................................. 01634 230400Nick Richardson, Servotest .............................................................................................................................. 01784 274428 Paul Roberts, HBM United Kingdom ............................................................................................................... 0785 2945988Jarek Rosinski, Transmission Dynamics .......................................................................................................... 0191 5800058Geoff Rowlands, Product Life Associates ........................................................................................................ 01543 304233 Frank Sherratt, Engineering Consultant ........................................................................................................... 01788 832059Bernard Steeples, Engineering Consultant ...................................................................................................... 01621 828312Norman Thornton, Engineering Consultant ...................................................................................................... 07866 815200Jeremy Yarnall, Consultant Engineer ............................................................................................................... 01332 875450

SponsorsThe following companies are SPONSORS of the Engineering Integrity Society. We thank them for their continued support which helps the Society to run its wide-ranging events throughout the year.

Adept ScientificAWE AldermastonBruel & KjaerData PhysicsDatron TechnologyDoosan BabcockHBM United KingdomInstronKemoKistler InstrumemtsLMS UKMillbrook Proving Ground

MIRAMOOGMüller-BBMNational InstrumentsPolytecRutherford Appleton LaboratoryServotestTechni MeasureTRaC Environmental & AnalysisTransmissions DynamicsVT Instruments

Committee members

34

Profiles of Company MembersHBM United Kingdom LtdInnovation Technology Centre – AMPBrunel WayCatcliffeRotherhamS60 5WG

Tel: +44 (0) 114 254 1246Fax: +44 (0) 114 254 14245Email: [email protected]: www.hbm.com & www.hbm.com/ncodeContact: Kim Hurt

HBM is a global market leader in test and measurement, and weighing technology offering complete measurement solutions from sensor to software for industrial and laboratory applications. Together with advanced DAQ systems, HBM provides transducers for torque, force, pressure, strain, displacement and load. nCode products are provided by HBM and for over 25 years has been the leading brand for durability and data analysis solutions. nCode software and services help customers understand product performance, accelerate product development and improve design.

Servotest Testing systems LtdUnit 1, Beta WayThorpe Industrial EstateEghamTW20 8RE

Tel: +44 (0) 1784 274410Fax: +44 (0) 1784 274438Email: [email protected]: www.servotestsystems.comContact: Nick Richardson

Servotest design, manufacture and supply servohydraulic systems for motion simulation, characterisation and endurance testing. Bespoke solutions can be provided for special testing requirements. The systems provided cover a wide spectrum of applications including for example: Damper testing, 4 & 7 post vehicle test rigs, MAST systems for automotive & earthquake simulation, high temperature high rate deformation of materials and many more.

The equipment includes hydrostatic bearing actuators, test frames, hydraulic supply & distribution, Pulsar digital controllers for single and multi channel requirements.

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Documents

Engineering Integrity Issue 32