RESEARCH NEWS
Funding for H2Cool aviation research project
RWTH’ s Institute of Jet Propulsion and Turbomachinery will receive € 1.5 million in state funding over the next three years. State Secretary Viktor Haase, from the Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Transport of North Rhine- Westphalia, presented RWTH Aachen University in Germany with official confirmation of funding for the H2Cool research project.
RWTH Chancellor Thomas Trännapp, Professor Peter Jeschke, head of the Institute of Jet Propulsion and Turbomachinery, and Professor Wolfgang Schröder, Dean of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, welcomed the State Secretary( all pictured on the right) to the institute.
The project aims to develop next-generation
Image: © Andreas Schmitter.
cooling systems for fuel-cell-powered regional aircraft, along with concepts for their production and integration into the airframe. In fuel-cell propulsion systems, roughly half of the total electrical power output must be removed as waste heat through heat exchangers.
This currently requires large, heavy cooling assemblies that generate aerodynamic drag and consume additional power.
“ H2Cool will adopt, for the first time, an aerospace-optimised, fully integrated design approach. Researchers are jointly designing the nacelle, heat exchanger and cooling fan, together with the fuel-cell system, to identify optimal geometries and operating strategies. The resulting reductions in mass and drag will significantly decrease hydrogen consumption – an essential step towards making fuel-cell propulsion viable for commercial aviation,” said RWTH. n
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Bridging worlds of science and industry
How can“ innovation bridges” between science and industry be created to bring research into practice and students into companies? This question was discussed in October by academia and business at the sixth TUM Talk at the TUM( Technical University of Munich) Campus Heilbronn in Germany. The focus was on small and medium-sized enterprises.
“ Ultimately, innovation happens between people,” said Prof. Thomas F. Hofmann, President of the Technical University of Munich( TUM), at the start of the TUM Talk. This guiding principle applies particularly to the transfer of innovation between science and industry.
This was the sixth time that the university hosted the TUM Talk at its Heilbronn campus. Representatives from the business community accepted the invitation; many
Image: Andreas Henn / TUM. came from the Heilbronn-Franken region. The guests saw how representatives from business and science promoted change in mindsets and structures. Establishing resilient bridges of innovation requires a rethink on several levels, as well as within companies themselves, heard the delegates. Deeply traditional ways of working often
Discussions during the TUM Talk. make such a rethink more difficult ….. Yet owner-managed SMEs, particularly, have fundamentally good starting conditions for making changes in this area.“ Smaller companies are often more open to trying new approaches,” said Dagmar Schuller, founder of the AI start-up Audeering and a professor at Landshut University of Applied Sciences. It is not just about having the technical skills, but also the right mindset.
The discussion also made clear that universities are a crucial piece of the puzzle on the path to resilient innovation bridges. They can help companies to close innovation gaps in future-oriented fields, such as artificial intelligence and robotics, with the right basic and applied research. n
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Investment boost for robotics at Salford
The Greater Manchester Combined Authority( GMCA) Industrial Strategy Zone is investing £ 3.5m into the Northern England Engineering and Robotics Innovation Centre( NERIC) at the University of Salford( UK).
The funding will enable NERIC to help boost the region’ s economy through the greater use of technology to drive efficiencies in SMEs across the region. NERIC is a purpose-built centre that supports academic and industrial collaboration in areas such as robotics; advanced manufacturing; functional materials; microtechnology; intelligent sensing and autonomous systems.
“ Over a four-year period, this funding will enable NERIC to support Greater Manchesterbased small and medium enterprises( SMEs) to improve their operations and reach their growth potential,” said the University of Salford.
Nikki Ronan, Director of Operations, NERIC, commented:“ This new funding, secured until 2029, allows us to continue our work to support Greater Manchester businesses and extend our support for companies across a wide range of sectors to adopt advanced manufacturing techniques and processes. It enhances our commercial and R & D offering across the North West and beyond.”
NERIC also announced Professor Maziar Nezhad as Director. He takes on this role in addition to his position as Chair of Nanophotonics and Microsystems Engineering in the School of Science, Engineering and Environment( SEE) at the University of Salford. NERIC, through its Research England funding, has co-funded with SEE a £ 400,000 investment in a new Microfabrication laboratory, which is scheduled to open in Autumn 2025. n
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