Cummins’ partnership with the Royal
Academy of Engineering:
Professor Chris Gerada is the Director of the
Cummins Innovation Centre and the Royal Academy
of Engineering/Cummins Research Chair within
the Faculty of Engineering at the University
of Nottingham. He has been part of the Power
Electronics, Machines and Drives group at
Nottingham for 10 years, with a research focus on
electromagnetic energy conversion in electrical
machines and drives, concerned mainly with
more-electric transport and distributed energy
generation.
so we could have that continuity. And
it had what may well be the largest
power electronics and machines group
in the world.”
The result of this change in philosophy
has been the establishment of the
Cummins Innovation Centre at the
University of Nottingham and the
appointment of Professor Chris
Gerada to a joint Royal Academy of
Engineering and Cummins Research
Chair. The Centre provides Cummins
with a range of world class facilities
and a research community eager to
explore and develop the real-world
industrial applications, with the benefit
of secured research continuity thanks
to the clear focus of the Centre and its
research groups.
Dr Brown said that none of this would
have been possible without the active
support and sponsorship of the Royal
Academy of Engineering. “On cost
alone, it would have been difficult
for us to justify were it not for the
Academy backing,” he said “The Royal
Academy of Engineering’s role in
actively encouraging the setting up
of centres of engineering excellence,
and the keenness of the University of
Nottingham to embrace the concept,
have been crucial.”
Measuring the impact
The impact of the Cummins Innovation
Centre at the University of Nottingham
has been much greater than Dr Brown
anticipated.
“Initially, we expected to have a
research portfolio that the academics
would work on,” he said. In fact, the
relationship with Professor Gerada
and other academics at the centre
has been much broader and more
interactive than had been foreseen.
“We now have a number of our
fulltime employees spending time at
the university, and we have students
and researchers spending time with
us in our facilities,” Dr Brown said.
“We’ve been able to use their worldclass facilities for our research, and
they’ve been able to benefit through
greater opportunity to participate in
projects with real-life applications.
It’s becoming a seamless interaction
between Cummins and the University.
We have a symbiotic relationship which
integrates the creative initiatives at
Nottingham with the ambitions of
Cummins in new products and they
come to us when they’re drawing up
their research plans to see how we can
fit in with them.”
There are range of different research
project areas where Cummins is
benefitting from the collaboration
with
Professor Gerada and his colleagues
– including electrical machine
topology, thermal analysis, machine
prognostics and diagnostics, and
integrating power electronics with
electrical machines.
Thanks to this collaboration and
the additional funding that the
establishment of a centre of excellence
can bring there are always new
projects on the horizon. “It’s quality
research at the cutting edge,” said Dr
Brown. “And the fact that we’ve got a
channel to market through Cummins
provides real value.”
Future plans
As a global company, when looking
for a research partner, Cummins was
particularly attracted to the University
of Nottingham’s international outlook.
“This has been a somewhat unforeseen
bonus,” said Dr Brown. “Nottingham’s
Ningbo campus in China is near our
centres of particular strength in
Shanghai and Wuxi and we’ve already
sponsored two PhD students there.”
“I think the Royal
Academy of
Engineering’s Research
Chairs scheme is
outstanding, and it’s
commitment to
engineering research is
really commendable.”
Dr Neil Brown
Issue 15 PECM
101