Cambridge University receives new equipment for energy research

Cambridge University’s New Whittle Laboratory has gained a new pressure vessel to aid the study of energy and aerospace.

Cambridge’s new National Centre for Propulsion and Power (NCPP) has had a peculiar look for a while, with a wall still open. The lab was waiting for a very special delivery: A 60-tonne pressure vessel for the study of aerospace and energy. 

The Whittle lab is named after Frank Whittle, the inventor of the jet engine. It focuses on turbo machinery – the large turbines that allow us to convert energy of different forms into a rotation movement. They are central to all sorts of propulsion, especially aerospace. But they are also necessary for electricity generation, even if you cannot usually see the turbine. It’s hidden inside the plant, transforming steam pressure into a mechanical movement, then electricity.

So propulsion and power generation rely on our understanding of aerodynamics under the extreme conditions found in these turbines – high pressures and high temperatures. This is where the pressure vessel at NCPP comes into play, allowing engineers to test their designs in real conditions.

The lab had also received previously a Rolls-Royce Trent XWB, a large aero engine. It will be visible to the public at the gateway to the Cambridge West Innovation District. 

The pressure vessel will be part of a new rapid test facility. It aims to iterate faster from concept to prototype and hopefully product. This follows a Formula 1 mindset of combining design, manufacture, and testing into a single space. It should increase agility and creativity while reducing costs and timescales.

The development is central to the New Whittle Laboratory’s philosophy as an integrated technology accelerator. It aims to bridge the gap between research and industry and get innovation on the market quickly, especially in the field of zero carbon flight.

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Sunrise supercomputer

The New Whittle Laboratory, via Google Maps

There has been another announcement in the field of energy, this time in fusion. The University of Cambridge has partnered up with the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to deploy a large AI powered supercomputer.

The computer is named Sunrise, perhaps in reference to the sun’s light coming from fusion. It is estimated at £45 million and uses a staggering 1.4 MW of power. It will be “the UK’s latest GPU accelerated scientific AI supercomputer” according to Dr Paul Calleja, Director of the Cambridge Research Computing Service. Sunrise plans to power up in June, as the first part of the Culham AI Growth Zone project.

Fusion energy has been 20 years away for 20 years, some say, but with new investments in research this carbon free and domestic source of energy is getting closer. The supercomputer Sunrise will be dedicated to research on the most critical part of the development of fusion energy, such as plasma physics and tritium bleeding blankets. These are fields where many types of physics interact, leading to computationally expensive models. 

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Featured image via Unsplash