Public Funding for Hot Coatings Limited

Improving Partial Discharge (PD) performance of electrical wire insulation remains a significant unresolved hurdle to the development of conventional and mainly-electric aircraft. Poor PD characteristics impact safety, reliability, longevity and maintenance costs at the higher operating voltages required for the next generation of aircraft. These aircraft are essential to meet aggressive targets for decarbonisation of the aviation sector. The partnership of Hot Coatings Ltd (HCL), TE Connectivity Ltd (TE) and Teesside University (TU) is uniquely well placed to help the UK establish technical and market leadership in this area. This project will utilise a proprietary development platform created by HCL and TU. This has already produced patented dip coated magnet wire insulation with significantly longer service life and higher temperature rating than solutions currently in the marketplace. HP2\_PD-WIN will add superior resistance to PD. The third partner (TE) adds specific technical expertise and manufacturing capability to allow these high-performance characteristics to be applied to extruded stranded wire. In addition to the aviation sector, outputs of this project will provide economically important UK supply chains in automotive, traction, marine, and energy with superior technology enabling global competitive advantages within their markets. Consequently, this will enable many high value jobs and directly address the UK Government's ambitions for a green industrial revolution.

This project is concerned with developing the materials and associated manufacturing technology required to enable electrical machines, motors and generators to operate at temperatures some 200-300C higher than is currently possible. This will overcome an intrinsic limitation which has limited the environments in which it is possible to use electrical machines since their initial development more than 150 years ago. There are a number of important applications in which this is expected to be of real significance. For example, in the design of civil aircraft engines to enable them to be more fuel efficient - by integrating the electrical and turbine components; in the extraction of energy from geothermal sources where the underground temperature might be as high as 500C, and to allow the extraction of oil from low pressure reserves deep underground or from oil sands requiring the application of superheated steam to enable the oil to flow and be pumped to the surface - where we may require pumps to operate at temperatures of 350 C or more. Such materials may also allow us to design and operate more conventional motors at higher power without failure, enabling smaller and lighter motors to be incorporated into domestic appliances such as washing machines, reducing cost and with the resultant benefits to the environment.