Public Funding for Frazer-Nash Consultancy Limited

This project aims to revolutionise wind propulsion technology by developing a novel 24.5-meter tall, 3.5-meter diameter Rotor Sail design tailored for vessels predominantly operating in UK, European, and North Atlantic waters. Our innovative design incorporates advanced features aimed at optimising Rotor Sail performance and cost effectiveness. To bolster confidence in the seamless integration of these innovative Rotor Sails onto vessels, we will develop and build a full-scale demonstrator in the UK. This platform will serve as a rigorous test bed to comprehensively assess and mitigate risks associated with innovative design elements, particularly the internal mechanical components. Rigorous testing will subject the new designs to high loads and rotational speeds, with comprehensive thermal and dynamic instrumentation providing critical data for thorough performance analysis. Experts at Frazer Nash Consultancy will conduct dynamic analyses throughout the design phase, allowing us to compare the demonstrator's measured performance with that of the final Rotor Sail design. Over the course of this 12-month project, we will design, manufacture and test the demonstrator, and produce a complete design for a 3.5-meter Rotor Sail ready for production in the UK to exploit the market for wind propulsion on vessels sailing on the European and North Atlantic routes. Our project also encompasses a desk-based certification process involving two representative vessels within our target local market, both incorporating the new 3.5-meter Rotor Sail. This initiative, led by Stehr Consulting Ltd and Lloyds Register, leverages their extensive combined regulatory expertise, considering both Flag State and Class perspectives. Additionally, UK-based vessel operator Victoria Steamship will offer invaluable insights and vessel specifications, serving as both a product end-user and a potential facilitator for trials on one of their bulk carriers. To gain a deeper understanding of the market landscape, Connected Places Catapult will undertake comprehensive market research to quantify the UK, European and transatlantic market potential for the new Rotor Sail. Furthermore, with technical support from Frazer-Nash, they will conduct supply chain research to identify specific UK companies with the requisite capabilities and infrastructure for manufacturing, assembly, and commissioning of Rotor Sails and installation onto vessels. Their study will also explore the combination of Rotor Sails and future fuels, providing critical evidence of Rotor Sail technology's pivotal role in enabling net-zero shipping without compromising productivity.

One of the biggest challenges facing the railway industry is the complex process of planning and possession management. The logistics of diverting, blocking, or closing sections of track can have implications across the network. As the rail timetable becomes more congested, with increased services, there is more potential for disruption and less obvious times for possession. Delays on main-lines could result in huge fines, consequently delivering works and handing back possession on-time is vital. In 2020/21, NR spent £1.6bn on enhancements, £1.9bn on maintenance, and £3.2bn on renewals (Office of Rail and Road, 2021). This translates into thousands of engineering works, most of these require possessions to allow safe, traffic-free worksites for maintenance activities (e.g. remedial works, inspections, maintenance and planned renewals). Possessions result in both planned and unplanned disruption. Unplanned disruption can occur for many reasons; machine faults, access issues, staff planning, or wrong engineering train arrangement - all demonstrating the complexity of planning possessions. Getting staff and equipment to worksites on time and minimising travelling distances are critical efficiency requirements. The barriers to this are mutual road and rail points, staff numbers and equipment types. Furthermore, engineering trains typically start in sidings which may be in remote locations due to available sidings being occupied during large possession works. Consequently, this cause issues in both timetabling and plans that ensure that engineering trains reach worksites at the correct time and in the correct formation. With increasing traffic and reducing availability of possessions this problem is likely to be further exacerbated. Network Rail have identified a requirement to develop solutions for planning procedures such that possession efficiency is increased, resulting in the delivery of infrastructure maintenance work with minimal disruption and cost. Combining Frazer-Nash's deep experience in optimisation of railway challenges and eviFile's possession management solution, we will innovate to develop a product that will support rapid planning and replanning of possessions through the application of optimisation and ML algorithms to identify potential optimal plans. Using wide-ranging railway possessions data we will research and adapt algorithms that will consider (for example) multiple scenarios, locations and types of work, and optimise and efficiently manage resources to ensure minimal impact to infrastructure traffic and capacity. This will deliver possessions more efficiently, help plan work-activities during possessions more precisely, manage infrastructure access more efficiently, allow tasks to be planned more efficiently, and predict the impact of possessions on overall network performance more accurately.

Wind farm control is now an established concept, and the industry is beginning to see full-scale demonstration projects and commercialisation of the R&D findings. These so far centre on yaw misalignment and induction control. An important given is that the communication and control technology exists to control wind turbines as a collective; what is lacking in going further with wind farm control is sufficient quantified understanding of the atmospheric physics drivers on wind farm performance. Recent work on Blockage Effects has advanced that understanding, and provided a suite of modelling tools for yield prediction. In particular, the role of temperature gradient in the atmosphere is much better understood. This project will explore the potential for increasing energy yield by controlling a wind farm differently, by responding to the natural variation of the thermal boundary layer. The project will make use of the very latest expertise and tools emerging from the international community's research and development investment in offshore wind. Should the performance improvement anticipated be realised in modelling, it is expected that the offshore wind owner-operator community will eagerly proceed to full scale trial on real wind farms.

Awaiting Public Project Summary

The public description for this project has been requested but has not yet been received.

Awaiting Public Summary

Awaiting Public Summary

The CAST 2 project will research, develop and test new mesh generation, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), computational aero-acoustics (CAA) and optimisation technology, in order to deliver a competitive advantage to the aerodynamic design and analysis capability of UK industry, and to maintain UK world class expertise in development and application of aerodynamics technology. This objective is achieved through close partnership between multiple partners in industry, research organisations and universities in the UK. CAST 2 builds on the successful partnership and collaboration created in CAST 1, taking the CFD/optimisation technology to a new level of capability and maturity, bringing in CAA development, facilitating greater technology transfer through inclusion of university partners and widening the industrial exploitation to six partners including two partners exploiting the technology in non-aerospace sectors. Exploitation of this technology significantly enhances; transport design for low environmental impact, financial exploitation to improve partner competitiveness, UK position in aerodynamic design capability.