Impact case study database

4a. Caterpillar

(i) Economic impact

Over the past 10 years, CUL and Caterpillar have worked jointly to develop, design and manufacture Diesel and dual-fuel power systems that meet all global emissions regulation standards. Much of these improvements have been derived by advancements in fuel injection technology and combustion system design. On average, fuel injection pressures have increased from 120MPa to 250MPa on their state-of-the-art engines. Heavy duty applications have demanding durability requirements. In addition to being robust to harsh environmental conditions, these engines must also last tens of thousands of hours of operation at high duty (load) factors. Higher injection pressures, while beneficial, also can result in injector damage via cavitation erosion. Caterpillar has worked with Prof Gavaises at CUL, for more than 15 years to develop, improve and apply simulation tools to design Caterpillar fuel injection systems. City University has led collaborative research projects to improve physical understanding and the fidelity of fuel injection simulations. As a member of these research collaborations, according to Caterpillar’s letter of support (5.1): ‘Caterpillar has thereby leveraged more than £4.5M of simulation tool improvement efforts, and applied these outcomes to develop both common rail and Mechanically actuated Electronically controlled Unit (MEUI) injection systems. While it is difficult to attribute specific sales numbers to the application of advanced fuel injector system technology, and even more so to the enabling simulation technology, it is clear that the contribution these tools made to the £150B of Caterpillar engine sales over the past 10 years, is non-trivial’.

(ii) Environmental impact

By enabling such a large engine population in the field, the positive environmental impact of fuel system improvements over that period of time is significant. Particulate Matter (PM) from Caterpillar’s power dense engines have been reduced by more than 92% in that timeframe and fuel efficiency improved by 5-12% (depending on engine size and application). Furthermore, these higher injection pressures have driven faster combustion rates, significantly contributing to the afore-mentioned improvements in fuel consumption. According to Caterpillar (5.1): ‘Conservatively, over the past 10 years, more than 1.3 billion gallons of fuel have been saved for just Caterpillar-produced off-road machines, based on these engine-derived fuel efficiency benefits’. This is equivalent to the CO₂ emissions of a 150,000 people UK-based city.

4b. Lubrizol

(i) Economic impact

Lubrizol has collaborated with CUL, in two projects that have had, and continue to have, a direct impact on Lubrizol’s business. The first project was the study of the origin of the so-called 'power gain additive’ for diesel engines. The additive was initially developed to keep diesel injectors clean and free from deposits, but also provided an unexpected boost in engine power for the same fuel pressure drop across the injector. Marketing this new state-of-the-art additive proved troublesome due to a lack of understanding of how it worked. Work at CUL, led by Prof Gavaises, explained how the Lubrizol additive induced viscoelastic effects in the fuel flow, leading to a reduction in cavitation inside fuel injector nozzles, therefore increasing fuel flow and causing a corresponding increase in engine power. This new understanding, became central to customer discussions around the performance virtues of this product, and opened unforeseen insight into how fuels flow through fuel injectors and impact engine outputs. According to Lubrizol (5.2): ‘Not only could be marketed as a deposit additive, but also an additive that genuinely provides power gain to the engine. The effects were profound, generating credibility at global OEMs and oil companies and sales were directly influenced by an estimated increase of 10%, (that corresponds to approximately £3.2 million revenue extra per year), which given the competitive landscape, is a remarkable success’.

The second profoundly successful project with Prof Gavaises' research group started in 2017, and similarly addressed a fluid dynamics problem that Lubrizol were unable to solve in-house. It came at the end of an ambitious program within Lubrizol to create a hydraulic fluid that provided energy savings of 3-8% (5.3). Like the engine power-gain project, customer scepticism was a major barrier to gaining sales. In less than six months, an experimentally-proven explanation was presented, based on well-established fluid dynamics and measurement science. According to Lubrizol (5.2): ‘The impact in the industry has been huge. It can be estimated that even with a modest assumption City’s contribution of £2 million of increased revenue are anticipated’.

(ii) Environmental impact

A huge environmental impact of this project has been also realized in terms of energy savings. According to Lubrizol: ‘the estimated CO₂ reduction at global scale over the next two years due to the use of this additive is estimated to be of the order of half million tones’; this corresponds to the CO₂ emissions from a UK-based city of 50,000 inhabitants.

The Sydney Water Corporation (SW), covering Greater Metropolitan Sydney, Illawarra and the Blue Mountains (serving 5 million people), spends ~A$60-80 million annually on management and rehabilitation of deteriorated concrete trunk sewers, corrosion and odour at treatment plants. Conventional humidity sensors for monitoring sewers were found to last for only a few weeks due to the key role of humidity in microbiologically-induced corrosion of concrete gravity sewers. Recognising the magnitude of the issue and the related expenditure, SW has partnered with City, University of London to use advanced sensor technology to combat the problems experienced and improve monitoring. [5.1]

In 2015, Professors Grattan and Sun (the City research team) began working with Sydney Water, carrying out a research project with staff there that demonstrated that, by adjusting the surface chemistry of the protective polymers, the photonics-based sensors that they developed could efficiently be used to monitor humidity in sewers, evaluated over an extended period of 6 months, and now beyond. [5.2] According to the Principal Scientist (Treatment), Sydney Water, the successful outcomes of this project “ has pioneered a new technological approach in our business: the use of photonics instrumentation in the Australian water industry”. [5.3]

Sydney Water had invested approximately A$3 Million (£1.6M) in R&D with other parties and still had no effective way to consistently monitor humidity, prior to working with City. Given that even a slight reduction in humidity can reduce corrosion rates, the project was of paramount importance to Sydney Water, which spends around A$60-80 Million (£35 – 45M) annually on management and rehabilitation of deteriorated concrete trunk sewers due to microbiologically-formed sulfuric acid. [5.3]

Further developments of this technology have led to its deployment as a solution to problems Sydney Water experienced in 2018 with pumping stations and specifically with structural defects in some concrete structures. The City research team successfully assembled a multidisciplinary team which has involved both experts in sensing and in civil engineering to address it. This has allowed the research team to develop a feasible, highly deployable experimental design, to maximize the opportunities for success. The experimental design in this project has recently been done successfully under highly restrictive conditions due to the pandemic that even while preventing the visit of the London-based researchers to the pumping stations in Sydney in the last twelve months, in spite of that the program is continuing ‘on-track’. [5.3]

The technology again has proved very versatile and the project has been successful in the tailored-design and manufacture of strain and vibration sensors of the required sensitivity, creation of monitoring, measurement and testing methodology and thus a predictive failure tool that Sydney Water is aiming to employ to monitor sensitive structures across its entire network. The urgency of the situation is seen in Sydney Water recently having pleaded guilty to two counts of water pollution in the Land and Environment Court and been fined A$175,000 (£100,000) with costs of a further A$22,000 (£15,000) for the release of nearly 3 million litres of raw sewage into the Parramatta River in 2018, not to mention the serious impact on our reputation. [5.4] [5.3]

Sydney Water is further utilizing the research innovations and successful project developments using fibre optic technology from City to measure the presence of the ubiquitous Natural Organic Matter (NOM) in the water entering its ten water treatment plants and to predict its impact on their performance. There have been occasions where the increase in NOM has reduced plant capacity by 40%. Sydney Water has done a desk-top study to assess 35 technology options and has estimated that retrofitting commercially available technologies would cost hundreds of millions of dollars in the next decade. Given the difficult conditions for such measurements in a live water dam environment has highlighted the unique capability of the City research team to tackle this monitoring problem in a realistic and timely way. In response, Sydney Water has opted to use City research team’s expertise in sensor technology, especially in challenging environments, to develop a new ultra violet (UV-)transmitting fibre optic flexible fluorimeter which operates where conventional devices cannot. [5.3]

As in the case of the humidity sensors developed by the City team, Sydney Water have realized a new means of modifying technology in the development and in field testing of the sensor which is assisting in NOM monitoring in situ and which has eliminated problems associated with laboratory monitoring such as storage, transportation, and sample spoilage – as well as eliminating associated costs. These fibre optic sensors developed have enabled deeper-UV optical analysis of the samples and created a flexibility in their use due to the inclusion of optical fibre, rather than the use of rigid optics. All of this offers greater potential for wider use in monitoring natural organic matter, in situ. [5.3]

The impact of the successful work done and collaboration was evidenced in Australia by the New South Wales Branch of the Australian Water Association making the Research Innovation Award in 2017 to the City/Sydney Water team and in the UK by the Worshipful Company of Scientific instrument Makers and Institute of Measurement & Control awarding the team its Dr Derek Cornish Medal for excellence in the field of scientific instrument making, this year. [5.5]

Finally, this photonics research has played an important role in the successful application for a A$21 million a Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) ‘SmartCrete’ from the Australian Federal Government. The Asset Management Program of the CRC SmartCrete will be mainly dedicated to research on concrete and advanced monitoring with photonic sensors. This would not have happened without the 2015 collaborative project between City University and Sydney Water. [5.3]

Spin Out: PDM Analysis

The creation of SCORG software and its immense potential led to the establishment of PDM Analysis Ltd (PDM), a City, University of London spin-out with the responsibility of commercialising the software.[text removed for publication]. [5.1]. PDM has established global partnerships with leading companies in the field of CAE software, such as Simerics (US), Gamma Technologies (US) and through them distribution agreements with 80/20 Engineering Ltd (UK), Hi-key Technology Corporation Ltd (CH) and Wave Front Co. (JP). Simerics has been using SCORG with one of its two primary products, Simerics-MP+ and has integrated the software with their own CFD tool Pumplinx [5.2]. Clients for the final suite in its various forms include DM8 Composites, HSMarine, Hyundai, Dasault and others.

Likewise, Gamma Technology (GT) has created a seamless integration between SCORG and their leading CAE product GT-SUITE. The partnership offers customers reliable advanced simulation capabilities for screw machines based on the complementary strengths of each tool. [5.3] This partnership has allowed the software to reach clients such Mercedes Benz India, Borg Warner, GM Powertrain and others. GT have confirmed that thanks to this partnership they have seen an increasing number of screw machine OEMs (ranging from air compression to air conditioning) adopt simulations via the combined use of GT-Suite and SCORG [5.3]. Use of simulation leads to reduction in the number of design iterations during product development, reducing physical testing, and shortening the product time to market. The increased efficiency in the design process also helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions by curtailing electric energy consumption (current estimate is that 25% of electricity usage in US during summer months is related to compression) [5.3]

Industry Partners: Howden Compressor Ltd, Scotland, UK

Howden is a world-class engineering company with 6,000 employees in 27 countries and is undergoing a period of significant business growth. It provides high-quality air and gas handling products and services to the power, oil & gas, mining and petrochemical industries, with an estimated annual revenue of $351M. Howden has a long-established partnership with City, University of London, which has been instrumental in fostering a decade of rejuvenated research and development within the company [5.4]. During the current period (2014-20) Howden utilised SCORG in the development of the world’s largest oil injected twin screw compressor with 580mm diameter rotors (2016). Digital prototyping with SCORG provided the high level of confidence required to make the significant investment in a physical prototype. This successfully validated the compressor design. By avoiding the need for extensive design iteration and repeat testing, the prototype could be used in commercial projects [5.4].

Howden also utilised SCORG in 2017, during the key phase of the design of a new range of oil free compressor. This work utilised the fast, efficient chamber model and geometry editing features available in SCORG to study a wide range of designs [5.4]. The project,[text removed for publication], led to the launch of the new range of compressors, which aims at increasing its share on the global oil-free screw compressor market by 2021 [5.5] Howden continues to utilise SCORG in product development and education, and in their R&D department when providing critical business support; this can range anywhere from contract proposals through to contract testing [5.4].Thanks to this long standing collaboration Prof. Kovacevic has been named Howden Chair in Engineering Design and Compressor Technology since 2008 and in 2020 he became the Howden / Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair in Compressor Technology [5.6]

Global Impact: Kirloskar (India) and Mayekawa (Japan)

The quality of the research and the software has enabled SCORG’s impact to extend beyond UK borders. Two major international companies operating in the compressor industry have utilised SCORG with positive results. Kirloskar Pneumatic Company Limited (KPCL) has collaborated with Prof Kovacevic and his team since 2015 in a two-phase project. Phase 1 (2016-2019) saw the successful development of a new range of oil injected screw compressors, as well as the creation of a team of dedicated engineers within the KPCL [5.7]. KPCL proceeded with the investment of over £500K to phase 2 (2019-2022), with the aim of developing the best-in-class screw compressors and opening new markets. [5.7].

Similarly, Mayekawa Manufacturing approached the university in 2018 based on the strength of the research generated by the Compressor Centre and Prof Kovacevic’s team. . [text removed for publication]. [5.8]

Both companies have utilised SCORG extensively and have experienced significant positive impact in their development processes. KPLC found that on average 1-2 months of the experimental validation for a design change were saved, along with corresponding savings in man-hour rates and flexible modification costs [5.7]. Mayekawa, found that SCORG helped the company to better map, analyse and understand the processes withing the screw compressor and allowed reducing time-consuming experimentation [5.8]. [text removed for publication]. [5.8].

Continued Industry Engagement and Commercialisation

The success of the Centre and SCORG continues to grow, attracting further interest, engagement, and collaboration with industry. The main vehicle for this is the biannual “International Conference on Compressors and their Systems”, organised by City, University of London and the Compressor Centre. Its 11th iteration, held in 2019, attracted more than 250 attendees from 24 countries, led to the publication of 94 technical papers and hosted 10 exhibitors [5.9] The conference is of such importance to the compressor industry that exhibitors such as Vert Rotors UK Ltd use it as a platform to announce new products [5.10]. SCORG itself continues to attract clients from across the globe such as Ingersoll Rand–Trane, Dow Chemical Company, Hitachi Europe GmbH increasing its impact globally [text removed for publication]. [5.11]

Industry engagement: Industry giant Faiveley Brecknell Willis (FBW), which specializes in the field of electrification/traction for all types of transportation systems, has been a key partner to and supporter of the project from the outset. The company's capability covers design, manufacture, supply, testing, installation and maintenance. FBW has collaborated successfully over the past 8 years with the City, University of London research team in order to develop the capability of the ‘smart pantograph’ [5.4]. Thanks to this collaboration the company has experienced several successes including the Best Innovation Award which was accompanied by a £300k monetary award [5.1], the development and presentation of the prototype to industry [5.2][5.3] and participation in two Innovate UK projects which have garnered substantial funding, designed to improve efficiency and reliability as well as the development of advanced asset and fleet management tools, including remote diagnostics [5.5a] [5.5b]. More importantly, building on the longstanding history of mutual support, FBW is now making detailed plans for the route to market, including the necessary product development of the sensor packages and software, plus a robust spares supply chain, so that customers can maintain this new product in service [5.4].

Technological Success: The ‘smart pantograph’ developed was installed on a Class 90 Loco from July 2019 onwards, this replacing the IEP (Intercity Express Programme) test vehicle currently in use, aiming to provide a more affordable service by August 2019 (ready to validate the welsh portion of the Great Western Electrification). Network Rail expressed their strong support following the successful performance of the ‘smart pantograph’ and associated instrumentation as it allowed the company to complete testing of three route sections (7c, 8, 9) and use the data to satisfy the conditions of the Notified Body and Office of Rail and Road to both prove system safety and to allow trains to be in contact with the overhead line within 5 days [5.6]. Following a recent exhibition of the smart pantograph from 14 to 16 May 2019 at the NEC in Birmingham, discussions with both Angel Trains Ltd and Eversholt Rail Ltd have been made for subsequent installation of ‘smart pantographs’ on their assets, for remote condition monitoring of their vehicles [5.7] .

Commercial Success: Given the success with the on-going test programme with Network Rail and further developments of the ‘packaging’ of the sensor system to allow for ready installation when new pantographs are being built by partner FBW, a company, Sentech Analytics, has been successful ‘spun off’ from City to market the systems developed. This is led by Dr Miodrag Vidakovic, the CEO of the new company, who has been awarded a Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Fellowship to take forward this exploitation, working in collaboration with industry partners and commercial mentoring support from the Academy[5.8]. Building on the quality of the technology and the interest that it has attracted from industry, the ‘spin out’ has already secured a first commercial contract of a value of £50k (March 2020) along with commitments for participating in contracts of approximately £250k and shareholder investment of £300k [5.9].

Reputational Success: In addition to Dr Vidakovic’s RAEng Fellowship, Professor Tong Sun received the Royal Academy of Engineering Silver medal recognizing this work, and that led to FBW and Morganite beginning to build new instrumented ‘smart pantograph’ systems [5.10]. She subsequently was awarded the Faiveley Brecknell Willis/ Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair in Smart Railway Electrification, with the goal of developing new contact, hybrid and contactless electrification systems, based on her and the team’s research [5.11]. She was elected (2020) to the Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering, recognising the work done and impact made in this project [5.11]. Such recognition has also included more than £600k of funding from the Academy (£543,700 Prof Sun, £60,000 Dr Vidakovic) with the intended purpose of enhancing links between academia and businesses through addressing some of these biggest challenges faced by this industry. Professor Kenneth Grattan, himself a RAEng Fellow since 2008, was a Finalist in the 2020 IET Achievement Awards in recognition of his contribution, through making a positive impact from creating novel optical fibre-based solutions for many challenging and hazardous situations for industrial applications, worldwide [5.12].

International Success: The project is on target to achieve significant international impact. The senior management team from Zhuzhou CRRC in China visited FBW and City, University of London on 15 and 18 July 2019 to discuss an agreement on the installation of smart pantographs on their vehicles for Chinese high-speed rail network.