Forget your preconceptions of government research centres being dull, as the latest research to emerge from the EPSRC is the stuff science fiction films are made of. The latest products cooked up by a team of university whizz kids and their mentors range from Formula 3 cars with steering wheels made from carrots, to aeroplanes that can heal themselves using fibre-reinforced polymer.
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is a UK governing body that contributes towards research and developments in the physical sciences, to a tune of 800 million a year. They work very closely with a large number of universities, enabling students to get really involved, and focus on creating technology that’s innovative and useful to the everyday consumer.
They were established to enable research centres to fund cutting edge exploration in the fields of Engineering and Physical Sciences. They run a grant scheme which helps support promising schemes, and currently have 5756 on offer. ‘We’re keen to encourage exciting and innovative research across the physical sciences’, says Dr Matthew Bell from the EPSRC. ‘We’re here today to showcase research we’ve been involved in, and make ourselves available for possible investment’.
The EPSRC run a campaign called ‘Impact World’ which provides an overview of their commercially friendly ideas, and this project contains a wide variety of ingenious proposals.
Perhaps the most notable would be the aforementioned eco-friendly F3 racing car, which was created by the University of Warwick. The project was called World First Racing, and it aimed to build a car that was sustainable and green. Their creation manages to reach a top speed of 125mph, whilst being made out of a medley of vegetables. The steering wheel is created from a polymer derived from carrots, and the bodywork is a mixture of starch and flax fibre. They’ve been very thorough with this creation, as every element that can be ‘greenified’ has been, with even the wheel lubricants being plant oil based. The car runs off a biodiesel engine which runs on fuel extracted from chocolate and vegetable oil, and tests at Brands Hatch raceway has shown it reaching speeds of equivalent Formula 3 cars.
Sadly the biodiesel engine is against Formula 3 racing standards, but the innovation is nonetheless impressive. ‘This is a prime example of research that can impact on a sector or technology’, said Dr Bell, ‘and we’re very interested in research that has a possibility to transform tech.’
The self healing aeroplane is another exciting innovation that’s currently in development and involves using epoxy resin in conjunction with fibre reinforced polymer. This is being developed by the University of Bristol in conjunction with the EPSRC and the research revolves around providing planes with ability to safely ‘heal’ cracks caused by turbulence. The idea is that when a crack appears the epoxy resin will ‘bleed’ itself around the polymer and act as a makeshift bandage till the plane lands.
For more information, and for news on their other projects check out Impact World here.
Tags: Dr Matthew Bell, EPSRC, Recycled Formula 3 car, TechnologyWorld09, TW09
