Industrial Doctorate Centre in Composites Manufacture

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The theme area is manufacturing of engineering composites structures, specifically those which comprise continuous highperformance fibres held together with a polymeric matrix. The relevant industry areas include aerospace, automotive,marine, wind energy and construction.The proposal demonstrates urgent and growing need in the UK polymer composites manufacturing sector for suitablytechnically qualified individuals, able to make positive and rapid impact on its international manufacturing competitiveness.The new IDC fills an existing gap in provision of industrially focussed higher level education in the UK, in the specialistdiscipline of polymer composites manufacturing. It will have its centre of gravity in Bristol, with the new NationalComposites Centre (NCC) the natural home-base for the cohort of composites manufacturing Research Engineers,embedded in the composites manufacturing industry. This new applied research activity focussed at TRL 3-5 will bedifferent from but highly complementary to the outputs of EPSRC Centre's composites manufacturing PhD students andthose in the Bristol ACCIS DTC working on more fundamental research topics in composites at TRL 1-3. Achieving aclearer definition of the industrial composites manufacturing challenges and of new knowledge base requirements willprovide direction for the industrially relevant accompanying fundamental research.The EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Composites will establish and maintain a close synergistic connectionbetween the new IDC, the Systems IDC at the University of Bristol and the Manufacturing Engineering EngD Centre leadfrom the University of Nottingham. This will establish a critical mass of industrially focussed composites manufacturingresearch activity in the UK, raising the national and international status of the EngD brand in the composites industry, in academia and in professional institutions by targeted dissemination through the EPSRC Centre, in conjunction with the NCC.