UK RESEARCH CENTRE IN NON-DESTRUCTIVE EVALUATION (RCNDE) 2014-2020

无损检测（NDE）采用传感器和成像技术来评估各种部件、设备和工程结构在制造和使用过程中的状况。英国NDE研究中心（RCNDE）是由帝国理工学院领导的6所大学和16家大型正式会员公司（这些公司是该技术的最终用户）以及30多家主要来自技术供应链的准会员合作成立的。该中心在这一技术领域进行大胆的研究，这对英国工业的安全和可持续未来至关重要，包括高价值制造业、航空航天、发电、国防和石油和天然气。该中心现已成功地确立了英国在多学科无损评估（NDE）研究方面的世界领先地位，并为几十年来一直支离破碎的领域提供了广泛的新技术，专业知识和人员。RCNDE吸引了超过750万英镑的工业现金，并在不同的发展阶段产生了50多种可开发的NDE产出。这已经通过改进技术来满足当今先进的制造和工厂运营要求。行业成员现在已经为NDE的激进新方法制定了一个跨部门的愿景，这将需要提供检验和资格认证能力，以满足他们未来20年乃至更长时间的业务抱负。因此，该提案旨在满足这些新的长期研究挑战，建立在该中心迄今为止的成功记录之上。该中心将包括一系列广泛的活动，从可行性研究和长期、高风险的冒险性研究，到中期应用研究和发展，再到短期实际项目和与最终用户和供应链的技术转让活动。EPSRC基金是该提案的主要主题，将支持4个关键优先主题的长期冒险研究：(i)增强成像-专注于提高可靠性，自动化和从检查数据中提取最大信息；（ii）准确的特性-最佳地利用从成像技术获得的检测数据来量化组件状况；（iii）新技术应对新挑战——开发新的模式、技术和传感器技术，以满足长期工业需求所需的高价值能力缺口；（iv）永久性监测技术，以逐步提高nde的可靠性。该中心在6年计划中55%的成本将由工业和大学提供，45%的成本将由EPSRC提供。行业资金将用于部分支持前4年的研究，并全额资助后两年的研究；它还将资助可行性研究、技术转让和公众参与活动，以及该中心的所有运营成本。可行性研究、水平扫描研讨会和最初4年研究计划的产出将在最后2年为行业资助研究的主题选择提供信息。研究成功的含义将是深远的，在启用新的工程设计，优化高价值的制造过程，提高运营效率，降低生产和运行成本，这些都将有助于英国的竞争优势。

Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) employs sensor and imaging technology to assess the condition of components, plant and engineering structures of all kinds during manufacture and in-service. The UK Research Centre in NDE (RCNDE) is a collaboration between 6 universities led by Imperial College and 16 large full member companies who are end users of the technology, with over 30 associate members largely drawn from the technology supply chain. The centre undertakes adventurous research in this technology area which is key to the safe and sustainable future of a broad cross-section of UK industry including high value manufacturing, aerospace, power generation, defence and oil & gas. The centre has now successfully established the UK as a world leader in multi-disciplinary Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) research and delivered a wide range of new technology, expertise and people into an area that had been fragmented for some decades. RCNDE has attracted over £7.5M of industry cash and generated a pipeline of more than 50 exploitable NDE outputs at different stages of development. This has already delivered impact through improved technology for today's advanced manufacturing and plant operation requirements. The industrial members have now developed a cross-sector vision for the radical new approaches to NDE that will be needed to provide the inspection and qualification capabilities to meet their future business ambitions over the next 20 years and beyond. This proposal is therefore aimed at meeting these new long term research challenges, building on the successful track record of the centre to date. The Centre will include a wide portfolio of activities from feasibility studies and longer term, higher risk adventurous research, through medium term application research and development to short term practical projects and technology transfer activities with end-users and the supply chain.The EPSRC funds that are the main subject of this proposal will support longer term, adventurous research in 4 key priority themes: (i) Enhanced imaging - focussed around improving reliability, automation and extracting maximum information from inspection data; (ii) Accurate characterisation - to make optimum use of the inspection data obtained from the imaging technology to quantify component condition; (iii) New techniques for new challenges - developing new modalities, techniques and sensor technologies for high value gaps in the capabilities needed for long term industry requirements and (iv) Permanent monitoring technology to provide a step improvement in the reliability of NDE.55% of the cost of the centre over the 6 year programme will be met by industry and university contributions and 45% is requested from EPSRC. Industry funding will be used to partially support the first 4 years and fully fund the final two years of research; it will also fund feasibility studies, technology transfer and public engagement activities together with all of the centre running costs. The feasibility studies, horizon scanning workshops and outputs from the initial 4 year research programme will inform the choice of topics for the industry funded research in the final 2 years. The implications of research success will be profound in terms of enabling the use of new engineering designs, optimising high value manufacturing processes, improving operational efficiencies and reducing production and running costs which will all contribute to UK competitive advantage.