£7.9 million in funding secured for the Strategic Partnership
Rolls-Royce plc, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) have recently announced their continuing partnership in funding world-class academic research. The total investment of £7,939,564, which runs from October 2014 until September 2019, will support research focused on structural metallic systems for gas turbines.
The Rolls-Royce University Technology Centre (UTC), at the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy of the University of Cambridge, will be leading a collaboration of researchers from the Universities of Birmingham, Manchester, Oxford, Sheffield, Swansea and Imperial College London. The research undertaken will focus on the development of materials technologies to allow the higher operating temperatures required for improved gas turbine efficiencies. This will involve the development of novel steels, nickel, cobalt, titanium and niobium based alloys and corresponding improvements in the fundamental understanding of these systems. Studies will also be undertaken into other key enabling technologies such as joining methods and turbine blade abrasive systems.
The strong industrial involvement ensures that technologies are developed in close collaboration with the industrial partners and hence they match industrial needs for commercial exploitation. This venture joins the Doctoral Training Partnership in structural metallic systems involving the Universities of Cambridge, Birmingham and Swansea that has been in existence since 2009, and further highlights the importance of research into industrial technologies. In addition, it underlines the need for collaboration between industry and academia in order to provide research contributing to the growth of industry and the economy in this country.