Imperial College London’s Lightweight Design for Manufacturing Research Group

Student: Tristan Uvovo
Team: Design Engineering
Role: Undergraduate Research Assistant
Sector: Manufacturing and Materials
Links: E-Mail; LinkedIn; Portfolio

Imperial College London’s Lightweight design for Manufacturing research group is focused on the development of new manufacturing techniques and materials. Their partners come from a variety of sectors ranging from Academia to large Automotive companies, the group aims to develop technologies that will facilitate lightweight design reducing emissions while also increasing performance. My role within the group was aiding in the acquisition of experimental data for Interfacial Heat Transfer experiments. I also developed an Infrared/Induction heating Rig.

Role and Contributions

My primary role was to aid PhD students with various research projects. This occurred within three projects: Characterization of interfacial heat transfer coefficient (IHTC), Development of the localised heating rig using Infrared and development of an Induction Heating Rig. For the first project, I utilised skills gained in Industrial Design Engineering, Gizmo and Computing 1&2. I utilised Python to analyse raw data to calculate the IHTC, used Arduino's programming language to modify the setting on the rig's hot press and team management skills gained in IDE to remain timely. My second and third projects primarily exploited Finite element analysis to conduct thermal simulations. Understanding mesh refinement and boundary conditions minimised calculation time and maximised accuracy.

My key contributions to the research group:

The introduction of new material processing techniques allows composite panel production time to be reduced from 48hrs to 6hrs (a reduction of 87.5%). This will hopefully allow more characterisation tests to be done within the same given period.

My second big achievement would be the completion of an induction heating rig set up alongside the finished plans for an IR Heating rig. These rigs will facilitate further characterisation tests over the next few months and ideally lead to a new fibre metal laminate.

Project Details

Role and Contributions