Ulster University in the vanguard of materials and manufacturing

Advanced manufacturing is defined as the use of innovative technology to improve products or processes, but it covers a multitude of disciplines and research areas. That diversity is reflected in Ulster University’s Advanced Future Materials & Manufacturing group which encompasses the research areas of advanced composites and polymers, nanomaterial development, process development and control, process simulation, material modelling, sensors and data analytics, structural health monitoring, sustainable manufacturing, and digital manufacturing.

“The group is involved in a very broad range of activity,” says Ulster University professor of advanced materials Alistair McIlhagger.

Also involved in advanced manufacturing research at Ulster are the Engineering Composites Research Centre (ECRC) and the Intelligent Systems Research Centre (ISRC). ECRC has an industrial focus and seeks commercial application for the group’s research efforts in sectors such as aerospace, automotive, renewable energy, and marine. The ISRC is a state-of-the-art research environment with an extensive array of leading-edge robotic devices.

“We are very much industry and commercially focused,” says McIlhagger. “We work with industry partners like Bombardier and LPE here in Belfast. We are bringing together a variety of technologies like new materials, wireless IoT, digital twins and so on.”

An example of that collaboration is the Belfast Maritime Consortium led by Artemis Technologies with Ulster University as a core partner. The consortium has secured a £33 million (€40 million) UK government innovation grant to develop zero emissions ferries in the city that could revolutionise the future of maritime transport. For its part, Ulster University is working on the design and development of 3D woven preforms for hydrofoils, integrated sensing systems and anti-fouling systems.

Additive manufacturing lecturer Dr Atefeh Golbang is involved in research in polymer nanotechnology, high performance material, smart multifunctional material and 3D printing of thermoplastics.

“We are looking at the development of new biocompatible and high performance polymers to replace metals,” she explains. “With 3D printing, what we can imagine we can print. But there are a lot of challenges at the moment. We are not getting the strength or structural integrity needed. There are also problems with repeatability as well as with warpage and distortion. We need to overcome those problems if industry is to use 3D printing in advanced manufacturing processes. We are using digitalisation and software to look at how the 3D printing process can affect the final properties of the product and to improve their quality.”

Dr Edward Archer is a senior lecturer in advanced composite materials. “Composite manufacturing is very labour intensive,” he notes. “It takes a lot of time to make composite materials and that makes it a very challenging activity for high cost economies. We are looking at using advanced manufacturing technologies to reduce labour inputs and improve quality. We are working closely with the Future Composites Manufacturing Research Hub in Nottingham on that. We have developed robotic equipment to manufacture and collect data during the process. We can use that to improve the quality still further.”

Digital twin technology is a virtual representation of a physical object or process which McIlhagger describes as an up and coming technology with great potential in the advanced manufacturing area.

“My background is in control engineering,” says Dr Mark Ng, senior lecturer in mechatronics engineering and control. “We design controls so that systems behave as intended. The focus is on fault diagnosis and predictive maintenance to prevent failure. But with existing methods, it we simulate a fault in a system we have to do damage to it. With a digital twin you take a mathematical model and apply new data to it. You can do whatever you want with a digital twin, subject it to all kinds of faults and so on and see when and how it will fail. This is very helpful for the auto industry, for example. They can use it in fleet management to guide preventative maintenance. And digital twins can be very useful in the manufacturing sector given the complexity of all the different machines working together on a process.”

Dr Adrian Boyd is a senior lecturer in biomaterials and works very closely with industry as a Royal Academy of Engineering Industrial Fellow. He points to award winning Belfast company Axial3D which is transforming the accuracy and speed of pre-operative planning, diagnosis and treatment for patients.

“A surgeon can take patient scans, send them to Axial3D which produces a 3D printed model which can then be used to plan the surgery,” says Boyd. “That makes for better informed patients and better clinical outcomes. The future lies in smart rather than mass manufacturing with a huge shift to patient specific 3D printed medical devices. We are already seeing that with large medical device companies.”

“Advanced manufacturing will be at the heart of the post-Covid recovery,” McIlhagger concludes. “We collaborate internally and with industry and are bringing different strands of research here at Ulster together to support advanced manufacturing in Northern Ireland.”