Prof Tabor has been working with the UK company Hydro International for more than 10 years, through a succession of projects focussing on CFD simulation of various of their products. Hydro International is involved in the area of Sustainable Urban Drainage, developing devices for regulating flow through drainage networks and processing wastewater to remove pollutants. Most of their devices use the properties of vortexes to control the flow or separate out pollutant particles. Simulating these processes with CFD provides the company with significant benefits.

To date (2018) the collaboration has involved 2 PhD projects and 2 KTP (Knowledge Transfer Partnership) projects, looking at the CFD simulation of Vortex Flow Controls, Struvite reactions to remove phosphorus from wastewater, and Adjoint Optimisation to improve the separation process in Vortex Separators. Further work on optimisation using Bayesian Optimisation is planned. Hydro International has also supported a number of Undergraduate final year group projects, exploring their devices using a combination of CFD, optimisation and experiment.

Full title: Risk Assessment of Masonry Bridges under Flood Conditions: Hydrodynamic Effects of Debris Blockage and Scour (EP/M017354/1)

This EPSRC-funded project is looking at the modelling of scour around and behind masonry bridge piers. 29 bridges collapsed or were severely damaged during floods in Cumbria, UK in 2009, leading to nearly £34 million in repair and replacement costs, not counting unquantifiable impacts on individuals and economic and societal costs.

As part of this project we have developed new, efficient and accurate models for scour and sedimentation, and validated them by comparing with in-house experiments in our sedimentation flume. We are using the resulting models to predict scour for real bridges in the SW of England, in collaboration with our collaborators in industry (Network Rail, Bridge Owners' Forum) and local councils.

Project team:

• Prof Slobodan Djordjevic (P.I)
• Dr Prakash Kripakaran
• Prof Gavin Tabor
• Prof S. Arthur

Full title: Solar-powered desalination system for sustainable water management in Mediterranean regions

Water and food security is one of the major challenges for many countries around the world. It is of particular concern in Egypt where the lack of water resources for irrigation continues to pose an obstacle to the economic development of the country. The project aims to develop, design and pilot test an innovative integrated solar-powered desalination technology for fostering sustainable water management in Egypt and the Middle East/N Africa region. A significant element of the project involves computational modelling of various aspects of the desalination plant.

Project PI - Prof Akbar Javadi

PRISM: Platform for Research in Simulation Methods

Exeter lead: Dr David Moxey

The aim of the PRISM project is to draw together expertise in designing, analysing and implementing sophisticated numerical methods and techniques, deploy these methods in a broad range of industrial, biomedical and environmental applications, and develop software tools that deliver portable parallel performance. The PRISM team, comprising interdisciplinary researchers at Imperial College London, the University of Oxford and Dr. David Moxey at the University of Exeter, forms the UK’s largest group of experts in developing finite element methods and software, with international reputations in high order methods, adaptivity and mesh generation. Combining these aspects allows simulations of highly complex multiscale problems that are otherwise inaccessible on available computational resources, leading to new capabilities across a broad range of engineering applications.

Rolls-Royce are a world leading company specialising in technology for clean and safe power, and operate in the aerospace, defence, power, marine and nuclear sectors. Prof Smith has been working with Rolls-Royce since 2005, particularly in simulation and optimisation of vibration damping and in simulation tools for fretting wear. Recently three PhD students sponsored by Rolls-Royce have been undertaking wide ranging research on the fundamentals of fretting wear including making unique measurements, new methods of simulating this process including highly non-linear coupled Finite Element-Discrete Element models, and in designing fast robust reduced order modelling methods suitable as a design tool for an industrial environment.

Supacat (now part of SC Group) provides design services and products primarily into the defence market. Prof Chris Smith has been working with Supacat for several years on use of advanced simulation tools in an industrial design setting. Over many years Supacat and Prof Smith have supervised undergraduate and masters project students - some of whom went on to jobs at Supacat. Currently Prof Smith and Dr Prathyush Menon (Maths) are helping to deliver

1. a new hybrid drive system for a 6-wheel drive amphibious high mobility vehicle, and
2. an add on autonomous package which can be used across a variety of vehicles.

Innovate UK is providing funding for this work via its KTP programme. Digital Engineering, in the form of enhanced simulation methods, autonomous systems and AI enabled systems, are all part of Supacat's future strategy, as are their excellent relationships with the Engineers, Mathematicians and Computer Scientists they work with at the University of Exeter.

Centek is an Oilfield Services company; one of the products they manufacture is a Centraliser, a metal support that is inserted around the drilling pipe to hold it centrally located in the well bore hole to ensure uniform distribution of pumped cement flow around the casing annulus. If the pipe is not properly centred, the concrete layer malformed, risking the potential oil or gas leak through the outside of the pipe annulus rather than up inside of the pipe. This can lead to the failure of the well under the pressures involved - a blowout, similar to the Gulf of Mexico disaster. The presence and operation of the centralisers is therefore an important aspect of the safety of the well.

Current product development procedure at Centek involves trial and error testing method which can take up to 12 weeks of development time and cause several thousands. We helped them to create FEA models to virtually test prototype performance following industry standard API (American Petroleum Industry) specifications. These FEA models were then used to develop a surrogate model which can be applied for new product designs within one week and cut the costs by up to 80%. 

Collaborative Computational Project in Wave-Structure Interaction

The Collaborative Computational Project in Wave-Structure Interaction (CCP-WSI) aims to bring together the UK WSI community to share developments in CFD and experimental data. Lead by the University of Plymouth, and featuring investigators from MMU, City, Exeter, Bath and STFC, the collaboration is developing a code repository (predominantly but not exclusively using OpenFOAM) and a web database of experimental data for code validation. The collaboration also organises WSI-related events, including training sessions, industry workshops for networking and exchange of ideas, and other research activities (such as Blind Test competitions  in collaboration with ISOPE and EWTEC). Exeter's contribution is to provide OpenFOAM expertise and link with the wider OpenFOAM community.

Project PI - Prof Deborah Greaves (Plymouth)

Exeter lead - Prof Gavin Tabor

Full Title: Resilient Integrated-Coupled FOW platform design methodology (ResIn)

This is a collaborative project between groups in the UK and China, looking at the design and development of floating offshore wind turbines in the S.China sea. Lead by Exeter (P.I. Prof Lars Johanning from the Renewable Energy group at our Penryn campus) it also involves academics from Bath and Edinburgh universities in the UK, and leading Chinese institutes: Dalian University of Technology and Zhejiang University. 

The project is looking at many aspects of the design of floating offshore wind turbines, including wave-structure interaction, environmental modelling and risk-based optimisation. A key element is the development of CFD models being undertaken by Prof Tabor's CFD group; of the interactions of waves with the moored structures, the turbine modelling, and coupling of these into a full model of the floating wind turbine.

Tailorable and Adaptive Connected Digital Additive Manufacturing (TACDAM)

Exeter lead: Prof Gavin Tabor

The TACDAM project is an InnovateUK-funded collaboration in Additive Manufacturing, led by HiETA Ltd and involving industrial partners Renishaw, Metalysis, LSN Diffusion, ASDEC and McLaren, and academic partners Universities of Exeter and Sheffield. The overall aim of the project is to improve Additive Manufacturing productivity and reduce cost in post processing to meet the need of commercial automotive applications. Exeter's contribution is modelling powder removal from the interior of components. This is achieved by vibrating the component to fluidise the surplus powder allowing it to drain out, which can be modelled as a multiphase flow process using CFD.

Exeter and HiETA have worked together on previous projects applying CFD to model fluid flow and heat transfer, and phase change, in heat exchangers designed for manufacture using AM techniques.

Analysis and Design for Accelerated Production and Tailoring of composites (ADAPT)

If demand for production of next-generation, short-range commercial aircraft is to be profitably met, current methods for composite airframe manufacture must achieve significant increases in material deposition rates at reduced cost. However, improved rates cannot come at the expense of safety or increased airframe mass. 

The ADAPT project will enable a fourfold increase in productivity by establishing novel manufacturing techniques that speed up deposition of stiffness tailored material. New continuum mechanics-based forming models will ensure delivery of better products by minimising occurrence of manufacturing defects. In a parallel stream of activity, new methodologies for analysis and design of composite structures in which the ply angle and thickness of fibre-reinforcement is spatially tailored, both continuously and discretely, will reduce the need for stiffening, leading to significant savings in structural mass (by up to 30%) and manufacturing cost (by up to 20%). Potential structural integrity and damage tolerance issues, such as transition in fibre angle and tapering of laminate thickness from one discrete angle to another, will be addressed. 

The project will engage a multidisciplinary team of engineers and applied mathematicians to develop novel manufacturing and modelling techniques. An embedded university-industry partnership will focus on the creation of new manufacturing and analysis capabilities, supported by fundamental research. The project is lead by Prof Butler at Bath; Dr Tim Dodwell in partnership with the National Composites Centre and with industrial collaborators that span the airframe supply chain. The project will enable production of high performance composite components at rates suitable for the next generation of short-range aircraft. There are also opportunities for impact in the wider composites manufacturing industry, including automotive and energy sectors.