The CDT proposal 'Fuel Cells and their Fuels - Clean Power for the 21st Century' is a focused and structured programme to train >52 students within 9 years in basic principles of the subject and guide them in conducting their PhD theses. This initiative answers the need for developing the human resources well before the demand for trained and experienced engineering and scientific staff begins to strongly increase towards the end of this decade. Market introduction of fuel cell products is expected from 2015 and the requirement for effort in developing robust and cost effective products will grow in parallel with market entry. The consortium consists of the Universities of Birmingham (lead), Nottingham, Loughborough, Imperial College and University College of London. Ulster University is added as a partner in developing teaching modules. The six Centre directors and the 60+ supervisor group have an excellent background of scientific and teaching expertise and are well established in national and international projects and Fuel Cell, Hydrogen and other fuel processing research and development. The Centre programme consists of seven compulsory taught modules worth 70 credit points, covering the four basic introduction modules to Fuel Cell and Hydrogen technologies and one on Safety issues, plus two business-oriented modules which were designed according to suggestions from industry partners. Further - optional - modules worth 50 credits cover the more specialised aspects of Fuel Cell and fuel processing technologies, but also include socio-economic topics and further modules on business skills that are invaluable in preparing students for their careers in industry. The programme covers the following topics out of which the individual students will select their area of specialisation: - electrochemistry, modelling, catalysis; - materials and components for low temperature fuel cells (PEFC, 80 and 120 -130 degC), and for high temperature fuel cells (SOFC) operating at 500 to 800 degC; - design, components, optimisation and control for low and high temperature fuel cell systems; including direct use of hydrocarbons in fuel cells, fuel processing and handling of fuel impurities; integration of hydrogen systems including hybrid fuel-cell-battery and gas turbine systems; optimisation, control design and modelling; integration of renewable energies into energy systems using hydrogen as a stabilising vector; - hydrogen production from fossil fuels and carbon-neutral feedstock, biological processes, and by photochemistry; hydrogen storage, and purification; development of low and high temperature electrolysers; - analysis of degradation phenomena at various scales (nano-scale in functional layers up to systems level), including the development of accelerated testing procedures; - socio-economic and cross-cutting issues: public health, public acceptance, economics, market introduction; system studies on the benefits of FCH technologies to national and international energy supply. The training programme can build on the vast investments made by the participating universities in the past and facilitated by EPSRC, EU, industry and private funds. The laboratory infrastructure is up to date and fully enables the work of the student cohort. Industry funding is used to complement the EPSRC funding and add studentships on top of the envisaged 52 placements. The Centre will emphasise the importance of networking and exchange of information across the scientific and engineering field and thus interacts strongly with the EPSRC-SUPERGEN Hub in Fuel Cells and Hydrogen, thus integrating the other UK universities active in this research area, and also encourage exchanges with other European and international training initiatives. The modules will be accessible to professionals from the interacting industry in order to foster exchange of students with their peers in industry.

The Foot-LITE project will deliver innovative driver/vehicle interface systems and services to encourage sustained changes to driving styles and behaviours which are safer, reduce congestion, enhance sustainability, help reduce traffic pollution emissions, and reduce other social and environmental impacts. Fundamental research will be used to support the strong industry base in the project through prototype systems development and design, impact assessments and the further development of research tools and processes, including the SRIF/TRW funded instrumented vehicle to deliver a credible evidence-based validation of the system through to real-world operational experiences with user feedback and evaluation. The Foot-LITE system is seen as a tool to encourage and challenge drivers to achieve very real benefits that are already available in the current vehicle fleet but whose benefits cannot be readily maximised without an advisory interface to the driver. The approach has the ultimate choice and control still resting with the individual. This is seen to be crucial to the public and commercial acceptability of Foot-LITE. The aim of the Foot-LITE project is to create a revolutionary driver information system designed to educate and encourage safer and greener driving and longer term behavioural changes. The project consists of four Foot-LITE Work Areas. Effective Project Management is crucial to the delivery and testing of technologies and the assessment of their impacts. This Work Area will be the responsibility of the Lead Partner MIRA who encompasses both commercial as well as research expertise. The second Work Area is Market Reviews and Delivery which is focussed on the development of the concept and identification of product opportunities and system enhancements. The third work area, Technical Implementation, will create innovative applications which influence driver behaviour; this will be led by TRW. The fourth Work Area, which is led by TRG (the Academic Lead Partner), uses a variety of approaches, including simulation and large scale fleet trials, to produce an Impact Assessment of the systems and services and to identify those characteristics which will support applications in a future policy and market environment and deliver a tool that has the potential in instigating a step change in driver behaviour to tackle the twin problems of safety and the environment. The project will undertake all the necessary research and development to produce a prototype system which will be evaluated by fleets of drivers in normal driving conditions. The necessary data collection/data base systems for the vehicle fleet will also be developed so that robust evidence of the effectiveness (or otherwise) of the system will be collected, analysed and published to better the overall knowledge in this area. Additional surveys of other user groups to determine long term effects will be undertaken to better determine market opportunities and implementation strategies to deliver future intelligent vehicles and associated infrastructure. The system to be developed in the project comprises an aftermarket, standalone vehicle interface (although installation during vehicle build will not be excluded) giving moment-to-moment feedback during a drive (similar to SatNav), plus a back office support tool for off-line analysis of journeys and retrospective feedback.

The Innovative Manufacturing and Construction Research Centre (IMCRC) will undertake a wide variety of work in the Manufacturing, Construction and product design areas. The work will be contained within 5 programmes:1. Transforming Organisations / Providing individuals, organisations, sectors and regions with the dynamic and innovative capability to thrive in a complex and uncertain future2. High Value Assets / Delivering tools, techniques and designs to maximise the through-life value of high capital cost, long life physical assets3. Healthy & Secure Future / Meeting the growing need for products & environments that promote health, safety and security4. Next Generation Technologies / The future materials, processes, production and information systems to deliver products to the customer5. Customised Products / The design and optimisation techniques to deliver customer specific products.Academics within the Loughborough IMCRC have an internationally leading track record in these areas and a history of strong collaborations to gear IMCRC capabilities with the complementary strengths of external groups.Innovative activities are increasingly distributed across the value chain. The impressive scope of the IMCRC helps us mirror this industrial reality, and enhances knowledge transfer. This advantage of the size and diversity of activities within the IMCRC compared with other smaller UK centres gives the Loughborough IMCRC a leading role in this technology and value chain integration area. Loughborough IMCRC as by far the biggest IMRC (in terms of number of academics, researchers and in funding) can take a more holistic approach and has the skills to generate, identify and integrate expertise from elsewhere as required. Therefore, a large proportion of the Centre funding (approximately 50%) will be allocated to Integration projects or Grand Challenges that cover a spectrum of expertise.The Centre covers a wide range of activities from Concept to Creation.The activities of the Centre will take place in collaboration with the world's best researchers in the UK and abroad. The academics within the Centre will be organised into 3 Research Units so that they can be co-ordinated effectively and can cooperate on Programmes.

Hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) are far more complex than conventional vehicles. There are numerous challenges facing the engineer to optimise the design and choice of system components as well as their control systems. At the component level there is a need to obtain a better understanding of the basic science/physics of new subsystems together with issues of their interconnectivity and overall performance at the system level. The notion of purpose driven models requires models of differing levels of fidelity, e.g. control, diagnostics and prognostics. Whatever the objective of these models, they will differ from detailed models which will provide a greater insight and understanding at the component level. Thus there is a need to develop a systematic approach resulting in a set of guidelines and tools which will be of immense value to the design engineer in terms of best practice. The Fundamental Understanding of Technologies for Ultra Reduced Emission Vehicles (FUTURE) consortium will address the above need for developing tools and methodologies. A systematic and unified approach towards component level modelling will be developed, underpinned by a better understanding of the fundamental science of the essential components of a FUTURE hybrid electrical vehicle. The essential components will include both energy storage devices (fuel cells, batteries and ultra-capacitors) and energy conversion devices (electrical machine drives and power electronics). Detailed mathematical models will be validated against experimental data over their full range of operation, including the extreme limits of performance. Reduced order lumped parameter models are then to be derived and verified against these validated models, with the level of fidelity being defined by the purpose for which the model is to be employed. The work will be carried out via three inter-linked work packages, each having two sub-work packages. WP1 will address the detailed component modelling for the energy storage devices, WP2 will address the detailed component modelling for the energy conversion devices and WP3 will address reduced order modelling and control optimisation. The tasks will be carried out iteratively from initial component level models from WP1 and WP2 to WP3, subsequent reduced order models developed and verified against initial models, and banks of linear-time invariant models developed for piecewise control optimisation. Additionally, models of higher fidelity are to be obtained for the purpose of on-line diagnosis. The higher fidelity models will be able to capture the transient conditions which may contain information on the known failure modes. In addition to optimising the utility of healthy components in their normal operating ranges, to ensure maximum efficiency and reduced costs, further optimisation, particularly at the limits of performance where component stress applied in a controlled manner is considered to be potentially beneficial, the impact of ageing and degradation is to be assessed. Methodologies for prognostics developed in other industry sectors, e.g. aerospace, nuclear, will be reviewed for potential application and/or tailoring for purpose. Models for continuous component monitoring for the purpose of prognosis will differ from those for control and diagnosis, and it is envisaged that other non-parametric feature-based models and techniques for quantification of component life linked to particular use-case scenarios will be required to be derived. All members of the consortia have specific individual roles as well as cross-discipline roles and interconnected collaborative activities. The multi-disciplinary nature of the proposed team will ensure that the outputs and outcomes of this consortia working in close collaboration with an Industrial Advisory Committee will deliver research solutions to the HEV issues identified.

Studies performed in Canada, Australia, USA and in Europe have shown that long combination vehicles (LCVs), with two or more trailers can significantly reduce road congestion, improve safety, improve transportation cost efficiency, reduce fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions and significantly reduce road surface wear. Unfortunately three major practical barriers prevent adoption of LCVs in the UK: (i) poor manoeuvrability; (ii) poor high speed stability; and (iii) poor reversibility.(i) Many of the roundabouts and narrow roads in the UK's freight transportation network would be impossible for conventional LCVs to negotiate. One way to improve the low speed manoeuvrability of an LCV would be to steer the trailer and/or tractor drive axles. Simple 'passive' steering systems have been developed for rigid trucks and tractor/semi-trailers. Such systems set the road wheel steer angles in a fixed relationship to the geometry of the vehicle: the angles do not change with speed. Recent studies have shown that passive steering systems substantially improve the low-speed manoeuvrability of tractor/semi-trailer combinations by reducing cut-in. They also significantly reduce lateral tyre forces / leading to lower tyre wear and reduced road surface damage. This is important for transporting goods in urban areas where vehicles need to negotiate sharp corners and small diameter roundabouts, at low speeds.(ii) High speed stability is also a problem for many conventional LCVs since lateral accelerations are amplified with each successive trailer. This can lead to premature roll-over during evasive manoeuvres. While passive steering would improve the low speed manoeuvrability of LCVs, the applicants have recently shown that such systems reduce high-speed yaw stability, increase rearward amplification and degrade handling. Consequently fitting a passive steering system to an LCV is likely to further degrade its already poor high-speed stability. To overcome these problems at high speeds an active steering system could be used instead of passive steering. In an active system the steering relationship is varied while the vehicle is in motion to achieve optimal performance at all speeds. While such systems have yet to be developed for heavy vehicles, they have been successfully employed on cars and SUV's: eg Delphi's 'Quadrasteer' system fitted to GMC SUV's. Quadrasteer increases manoeuvrability at low speeds and improves handling and stability at high speeds. Similar benefits could be gained by using active steering on HGVs in general and LCVs in particular.(iii) Finally, the poor reversibility of conventional LCVs would severely restrict the use of existing freight terminals and loading dock infrastructure in the UK. However active steering could be designed to assist drivers to reverse complex multi-unit vehicles. Preliminary research by the applicants has shown that active steering can improve the reversibility of tractor/full trailer combinations, however, algorithms to suit other vehicle combinations, such as tractor/semi-trailers and LCVs, still need to be developed.The main research challenges to be addressed in this project are therefore to develop active steering technologies for LCVs. Once prototype technologies have been developed and tested it will be possible to assess the costs and benefits of implementing active-steering on LCVs in the UK.The research will build on previous work on active steering systems for lorries performed in Cambridge University Engineering Department. It will involve theoretical control system development; field testing of control concepts using existing experimental heavy goods vehicle units; prototype actuator hardware development and laboratory testing; and a detailed cost/benefit analysis. The research will be performed by two postdoctoral researchers in the university, working in collaboration with engineers from a consortium of companies in the heavy vehicle industry.