The University of Nottingham (
www.nottingham.ac.uk) has received a £1.5 million donation from the Wolfson Foundation to fund the purchase of ‘state of the art’ equipment that will advance research into sustainable electric transport.
A new Aerospace and Electric Flight Test Cell Propulsion Unit will take pride of place in the Power Electronics and Machines Centre — a flagship research facility that is due to open in the summer of 2020.
Sam Kingman, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for the Faculty of Engineering, said: “The aerospace industry faces significant technological challenges, as it strives towards all-electric flight propulsion in the coming decades.
"This significant grant will support the university’s position at the forefront of the revolution in automotive, aerospace and marine transportation, expanding our capacity to discover sustainable ways of transporting goods and people and reduce the global dependency on conventional fuel sources.”
Pat Wheeler, director of the Power Electronics and Machines Centre, said: “The creation of a new test cell unit will enable our world-renowned research group to progress its successful research into transport electrification concepts.
"By accommodating a greater volume of interconnected equipment, the group can emulate real environments at higher power levels and therefore model larger-scale applications and systems to find solutions to power management challenges.
"The new facility will also enable us to work even more closely with our industrial partners on research.”
Paul Ramsbottom, the Wolfson Foundation’s chief executive (
www.wolfson.org.uk), said: “The Wolfson Foundation funds research infrastructure underpinning international-quality research.
"Our funding partnership with the University of Nottingham is therefore a natural one, given the strength of the university’s research, and it is a partnership that dates back to the 1960s.
"This award, which is the largest we have ever made to Nottingham, recognises both the quality of the research and its importance to society.”