19 October 2011
Reporter caught up with new graduates and their guests, in search of the students’ fondest Imperial memories and their families’ impressions of the day.
Tags: Commemoration Day, Commemoration Day 2011, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Mechanical Engineering
Posted in Students | Comments Off on Out and about on Commem Day
7 October 2011
Dr Tom Reddyhoff (Mechanical Engineering), has been awarded an Engineering and Physical Sciences Career Acceleration Fellowship.
Tags: Mechanical Engineering
Posted in Research | Comments Off on Career Acceleration
22 September 2011
Creating the tools to help the UK automotive industry develop the next generation of low emission vehicles will be the focus of a new £ 3.5 million academic consortium that includes engineers from Imperial and starts work this month.
Tags: Earth Science and Engineering, Energy Futures Lab, Mechanical Engineering
Posted in Research | Comments Off on Aiming for cleaner greener cars
11 August 2011
Reporter spoke to 2nd year PhD student Andrew Jefferson (Chemical Engineering) an alumni of last year’s climate KIC summer school. His team, called Deco, won the business plan competition and he joined this year’s cohort earlier this week to offer them some advice.
Tags: Mechanical Engineering
Posted in College | Comments Off on Climate KIC alumnus
14 July 2011
The chequered flag on this year’s British Grand Prix may have fallen on Sunday, but the roar of engines and screeching of brakes can still be heard around Silverstone, as Imperial students join hundreds of others for the world’s biggest student motorsport contest, starting today.
As the Imperial engineering students introduce their all-electric vehicle to the famous circuit, the eyes of leaders from the international motorsport industry will be on them, with the Formula Student contest acknowledged across the sector as an important career stepping stone for new engineers.
All the cars are built in the Formula style, designed to answer a brief from a fictional manufacturer to design and build a single-seat racing car prototype. Imperial’s entrant this year, IRG04, is a fully battery powered electric vehicle and will be taking part in a class for race cars with low carbon emissions. IRG04 has been developed as part of the Faculty of Engineering’s Racing Green initiative, which draws on the expertise of more than 100 students from across eight different departments in the Faculty.
The competition, which includes 125 teams from 34 countries, will put the vehicles through a number of challenges, including events which test their sprint speed, their acceleration and their manoeuvring. Not only will the student teams be sampling the historic Silverstone track, they will also be working in the pit garages and facilities which only last week were used by Formula One giants such as Red Bull and McLaren. Imperial’s Team Captain, Thea Cooper, a fourth year from Mechanical Engineering, said: “It’s so exciting to be occupying the same space as the F1 teams, even if, because there are so many Formula Student teams, we only have about an eighth of the space the professionals are used to!”
The contest is not limited to the track, with teams having to present the business case for their prototype to a panel of judges. Over the course of the Challenge, from 14–17 July, judges will also assess the design quality of the vehicles, which will be put through a range of tests, including tilting the vehicles to 90 degrees and testing brakes.
A second College team, Imperial Racing, has been developing a petrol powered vehicle to take part in a separate class of the competition. While this racecar is now on track to enter the 2012 Formula Student event, the engineers behind it, led by fourth year, Vlad Kostadinov, have turned their efforts to supporting this year’s Racing Green entry.
While IRG04’s success will rest on team effort, some people will be feeling additional responsibility on the day – the team members taking it in turn behind the wheel. To make things as fair as possible the team all tried out their Schumacher skills at a go-karting track, with the best performers becoming the drivers at Silverstone. One of the drivers is fourth year Mechanical Engineering student David Zong, he says:
“It’s fantastic to be able to say you’ve driven at Silverstone. Having been involved in all the work on the vehicle I know just how much effort has gone into it, so it is quite nerve-wrecking to drive!”
For all the students taking part the competition provides both hands-on experience and exposure to the industry. Dozens of Imperial engineering graduates have gone on to work in the motor racing field, while in the last few months current students securing positions in industry leaders such as McLaren. Dr John Sheldrake, Project Manager for the racing teams in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, said: “’Formula Student provides a unique opportunity for our students to design, make and test a single seat race car and then compete with it at the Silverstone circuit against world class competition.”
Last year‘s Formula Student saw two Imperial teams come third and fourth in a class for vehicles that are not at the fully operational stage. Their entries were an all-electric vehicle, which came third, and one with a combustion engine vehicle which just missed out on a podium place.
Formula Student is run by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers and is now in its 14th year with more teams than ever before competing in 2011.
Readers can follow the progress of the team via its Twitter stream: @RacingGreen04
Tags: engineer, Mechanical Engineering, racing green
Posted in Students | Comments Off on Student Schumachers bid for racetrack glory
16 May 2011
Dr Ferdinando Rodriguez y Baena, Senior Lecturer (Mechanical Engineering), holds a PhD in medical robotics and worked for Imperial spin-out company Acrobot prior to joining the College as a lecturer.
Tags: Inside Story, Inventor's corner, Mechanical Engineering
Posted in Research, Your Voice | Comments Off on Inventor’s corner: Precise steering
16 May 2011
Professor Yannis Hardalupas, Professor of Multiphase Flows (Mechanical Engineering), speaks to Reporter about chocolate, liquid fuel, washing powder and lasers.
Tags: Mechanical Engineering, Mini Profile
Posted in College, Research | Comments Off on Mini profile: Yannis Hardalupas
19 April 2011
The College was ranked fifth in the world for civil and structural engineering by the 2011 QS World University Rankings for Engineering and Technology. Imperial was also ranked seventh in the world for mechanical, aeronautical and manufacturing engineering; eighth for chemical engineering; ninth for electrical and electronic engineering and 15th for computer science and information systems. The QS rankings listed the top 50 highest scoring institutions in the world in each discipline.
Tags: Aeronautics, Chemical Engineering, Department of Computing, Faculty of Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, QS rankings
Posted in College, Research | Comments Off on Engineering world rankings
18 February 2011
At the end of last November, fourth year Mechanical Engineering student Vlad Kostadinov had the opportunity to put his questions to Formula One (F1) World Champion Lewis Hamilton at a special Q and A session. Here he describes his experience:
Tags: Faculty of Engineering, Inside Story, Mechanical Engineering
Posted in Students, Your Voice | Comments Off on Meeting Lewis Hamilton
15 December 2010
A new research centre focused on improving the performance of mechanical systems, such as cars, aeroplanes and industrial equipment, by reducing the friction between moving parts in their machinery, officially opened at Imperial on 2 December.
Tags: Mechanical Engineering, News
Posted in College, Research | Comments Off on Launch of tribology centre
13 December 2010
On 17 November after 140 days of travelling, including 70 days at the steering wheel, a team of Imperial undergraduates, postgraduates and alumni drove their all-electric Radical SRZero supercar to the finish of a 26,000-kilometre journey. Reporter finds out how the talented team designed and built the electric car in just nine months before driving it down the Pan-American Highway, conquering some of the world’s hardest roads and overturning common perceptions about electric vehicles.
Tags: Faculty of Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Racing Green Endurance, Students
Posted in College, Research, Students | Comments Off on Electric dreams
11 November 2010
Dr Frank Ellis, who died on 3 September, was a member of the academic staff of the Department of Mechanical Engineering from 1949–82.
Tags: Mechanical Engineering, Obituaries
Posted in College | Comments Off on Dr Frank Ellis – Obituary
1 November 2010
A new honorary award recognising meritorious service to Imperial was presented for the first time at the College’s Commemoration Day graduation ceremonies on 20 October, which saw over 2,000 graduates receive their degrees in science, engineering and medicine. (more…)
Tags: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Rector
Posted in College | Comments Off on 50 years of service recognised at Commemoration Day
29 October 2010
Radical changes in vehicle technologies and fuel and energy sources will be essential, if the UK is to meet its commitment of an 80 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, according to a new briefing paper on road transport technologies published on 12 October by the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial.
Tags: Faculty of Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, News
Posted in College | Comments Off on Reducing road transport emissions
20 October 2010
A new honorary award recognising meritorious service to Imperial College London will be presented for the first time at the College’s Commemoration Day graduation ceremonies today, which sees over 2,000 undergraduates receive their degrees in science, engineering and medicine. (more…)
Tags: Bioengineering, Centre for Environmental Policy, Commemoration Day, Computing, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering, National Heart and Lung Institute
Posted in College, Students | Comments Off on Ringing endorsement for 2,000 Imperial graduates
