Engr Vertical Approach

First for technology & innovation|www.theengineer.co.
uk
DEcEMBER 2012
Up on
the farm
Engineering
a vertical
approach to
agriculture
24
Con-fusion?
Easy drone
Your questions on
mankinds most
promising energy
source answered 28
Ushering in the age

of the affordable
unmanned aerial
vehicle 34
For more news, jobs and products visit www.theengineer.co.uk
Careers
feature
Engineering
opportunities in
the United Arab
Emirates energy
sector 40
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contents
News
12
06 Technology Sail system could

help cut space debris
10 Design Device detects threats in

checked baggage
07 Technology Test success for

SABRE engine technology
12 Business Fuel exemption

charge for low-carbon economy
08 Technology Software speeds up

rotor calibration process
14 Digest The Engineer crossword

and a look back to 1956
Features
24 Cover story Vertical farming

could offer a solution to one of
humanitys most pressing
problems
37 News feature 3D
printing has helped fuel
a new generation of DIY
producers
28 Q&A feature Experts from two

major nuclear projects answer
your questions on the challenges
surrounding fusion energy
40 Careers feature A
number of high-profile
energy projects are
offering increased
opportunities for
engineers in the UAE
34 News feature The development

of and technical challenges
faced by the HALO unmanned
aerial vehicle

28
32
Opinion
05 Comment The UK needs to look

beyond the sure-fire technology
winners
21 Paul Jackson Reflecting on the

challenges ahead in promoting
the discipline of engineering
16 Talking point The rise of the

military robot could have benign
benefits
23 Viewpoint UKs defence

aerospace sector needs to
maintain its spread of skills
18 Mailbox Your letters to the editor

and views from theengineer.co.uk
32 Interview A chat with the

founder of National Instruments
Your number one website for engineering news,

views, jobs and products www.theengineer.co.uk
DECEMBER 2012 | theEnGineeR | 3
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Charlie Jessey
Technical Support Engineer
The new SolidWorks UK Student
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reseller of the year 2004 2011
comment
inyouropinion
inouropinion
Looking beyond the

sure-fire winners
Comment & reaction from
theengineer.co.uk
Policy
Britain is crying out for

an independent panel
of qualified engineers,
seconded on a fixed term
from industry or education,
to be the sole arbiter of
the viability of UK plc
engineering projects
John K
Nobody, it would seem,

looks more than five years
ahead; 2050 is a long way
away, certainly more than
one parliamentary term, so
why worry about it now?
John Fenton
Join the debate here
Energy
Why, when we are

surrounded by tidal water,
beaten by waves and
drowning in floodwater
does the UK government
not open its eyes and
invest in the potential of
generating and storing
power using this medium?
Keith
It has always struck me

as odd that we dont have
significant storage in the
electrical system
Neil Kermode
Join the debate here
Join the debate at

www.theengineer.co.uk
or find us on:
Your number one

website for
engineering news,
views, jobs and
products
theengineer.co.uk
The announcement in George Osbornes Autumn

Statement that the UKs science infrastructure is to
receive a 600m government cash injection has been
pretty warmly welcomed by many in the UKs science
and engineering community.
In fact, the decision to invest in a host of promising
areas, including synthetic biology, energy storage
and advanced materials, has been hailed by some
as evidence that the coalition has got what it takes
to build on the UKs status as one of the best places in
the world to do science. With the government still apparently only really
keen on research with immediate economic pay-off, we wouldnt be quite
so fulsome in our praise, but theres still plenty to be positive about.
Given the above, this is a forward-looking issue, packed with examples
from Reaction Engines incredible SABRE project (p7) to a new take
on UAV development (p34) of UK engineering expertise that could
help shape our economy in the years ahead.
Meanwhile, our latest Q&A feature

Fusion power isnt
(Positive reaction, p28) focuses on a
a topic that you hear
technology that could one day have a
huge impact on our lives: nuclear fusion.
our politicians getting
Fusion power certainly isnt a topic that
very excited about
you hear our politicians getting particularly
excited about. Commercial nuclear fusion
isnt expected until at least 2040, by which time most of our current
administrators will have shuffled off the political stage.
But in their responses to your questions, our panel of experts from
JET (Joint European Torus) and its follow-up programme ITER illustrate
exactly why we should be investing heavily in fusion. The end result
could have profound implications for the human race. Whats more,
our experts are quick to point out that the material breakthroughs
made along the route to commercial fusion power could have a host
of hitherto unthought-of applications.
Its an important reminder that stimulating the growth of new areas
of technology shouldnt just be about picking sure-fire winners. Indeed,
our technology history is littered with examples of how research can lead
to an unexpected economic bonanza. And surely thats a prospect that
should appeal to the short-term instincts of every career politician?
Jon Excell Editor

jon.excell@centaur.co.uk
Centaur Media Plc, 79 Wells Street, London, W1T 3QN

Direct dial 020 7970 followed by extension listed Advertising fax 020 7970 4190 Editor Jon Excell (4437) jon.excell@centaur.co.uk Features
editor Stuart Nathan (4125) stuart.nathan@centaur.co.uk News editor Jason Ford (4442) jason.ford@centaur.co.uk Senior reporter Stephen Harris
(4893) stephen.harris@centaur.co.uk Chief sub-editor Lyndon White Deputy chief sub-editor Andrea Harper Senior sub-editor Sarah Potts
Art editor Steven Lillywhite steven.lillywhite@cedesignstudios.co.uk Publisher Daniel Brill (4849) daniel.brill@centaur.co.uk
Recruitment advertisement manager Mauro Marenghi (4187) mauro.marenghi@centaur.co.uk Senior sales executive Dean Wylie
(4160) dean.wylie@centaur.co.uk Senior sales executive Devraj Ray (4426) devraj.ray@centaur.co.uk Display advertisement manager
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news:technology
Find the latest news, jobs & products at www.theengineer.co.uk
readmore
online
Image courtesy Space Junk 3D website
theengineer.co.uk
Medical & Healthcare
Technology could
assist with treatment
of damaged corneas
Aerospace
UK set to significantly
expand involvement
in space projects
Energy & Environment
Research projects
look set to improve
our use of resources
Civil & Structural
Window technology
directs sunlight deep
inside buildings
Electronics
3D graphene mimics
elastic characteristics
of cork
Satellite management
Setting sail to decrease

volume of space debris
System is able to drag small satellites back to Earth
by STEPHEN HARRIS
Energy & Environment
ELISE testing rig will

accelerate ITER
heating development
Automotive
SMMT announces 12
per cent rise in new
car registrations
Skills & Careers
Crossrail unveils
opportunities on its
graduate scheme
Electronics
Plastic bulb could

replace traditional
fluorescent lights
Aerospace
NASA plans further

Mars rover building
on Curiosity success
For news and jobs visit
us at theengineer.co.uk
Engineers in Scotland have

developed a sail system that
pulls small satellites out of
orbit to avoid increasing the
amount of space debris.
The technology, developed
by Glasgow University and
local firm Clyde Space, is
designed to be installed as a
module on satellites known as
CubeSats and released when
the craft reaches the end of its
life to drag it back to Earth.
The system could enable
CubeSat operators to put their
craft into relatively high orbits
from where they can take many
years to naturally return to
Earth and otherwise add to
the substantial amount of old
satellites and other space
debris, creating an increasing
hazard for operating craft.
Known as the Aerodynamic
End Of Life Deorbit System
(AEOLDOS), it comprises four
thin membranes released via
coiled struts that spring out
from the craft to create sails
with a total area of 3m2.
Glasgow Universitys
Dr Patrick Harkness, who
designed AEOLDOS, told The
Engineer that the technology
was aimed at the CubeSat
6 | theEnGineeR | DECEMBER 2012
community, largely made up

of students, academics and
amateur enthusiasts.
You might want to look at
the end-of-life disposal of your
space craft because youre
dealing with requirements
from your space agency, or you
think its the right thing to do,
or you want to fly in a slightly
higher orbit and still meet the
orbit requirements, he said.
The UN recommends that
CubeSats stay in orbit no
longer than 25 years, less than
the time it takes for craft to
return from higher orbits. But
CubeSats at lower orbits can
also remain in orbit far beyond
the life of their mission and so
add to the debris.
The main challenge for
Harkness was simplifying the
release mechanism as much as
possible to reduce the chances
of anything going wrong with
it over the lifetime of the
CubeSats mission, which
would usually be up to around
five years.
Each AEOLDOS device is
made up of four cartridges,
each containing a folded sail
and a strut coiled around a
central hub, which Harkness
compared to a tape measure.
A tape measure will spring

into a coil when you release it,
he said. Weve turned that on
its head so when you release
the coil, the tape springs out.
Each cartridge is designed
to release its strut in the
direction of the coils radius
(rather than in a tangential
direction of 90o to the radius).
That means each of the four
sails in the cartridges are
symmetrical, said Harkness.
That simplifies the fold pattern
a lot and means you can use
the modules interchangeably.
The hub is shaped like a
flower instead of being round
and that means that as the
tape comes to the end of its
deployment it has a soft stop
rather than stopping suddenly.
Harkness has worked with
Clyde Space to make the
system compatible with the
companys CubeSats and
hopes to make it commercially
available by the end of 2012.
Surrey Space Centre is
developing a similar
technology in partnership
with EADS Astrium.
Click here to comment

on this story
inbrief
engines
SABRE looks sharp for space
More news daily at
theengineer.co.uk
Technology utilises jet turbine and rocket technology

by STEPHEN HARRIS
British engineers have successfully tested new

engine technology that could pave the way for
a high-speed orbital spaceplane.
The team from UK company Reaction
Engines announced on 28 November that the
SABRE engine technology, which could power
a reusable spaceplane known as Skylon that
is capable of entering orbit without additional
rockets, had been proven in tests evaluated
by the European Space Agency (ESA).
The company called the technology, which
could also lead to supersonic flights from
Europe to Australia in four hours, the biggest
breakthrough in aerospace propulsion since
the invention of the jet engine.
Tim Hayter, chief executive officer of Reaction
Engines, said the SABRE engine, which utilises
both jet turbine and rocket technology, would
be made possible by the companys innovative
pre-cooler heat exchanger.
The heat exchanger is the thing that cools
the air from +1,000oC to -150oC in 1/100th of a
second, he told a press conference. This means
that we can build a hybrid air-breathing rocket
engine. This is going to permit orbital and
high-speed propulsion.
He added that as well as creating the
possibility for six to 15 times more space
launches than are currently performed, the
technology could improve the fuel burn of
existing gas turbine technology by five to 10
per cent, leading to savings of an estimated
$10bn (6bn) to $20bn for the airline industry.
Other applications may also be possible,
according to Hayter, including a 15 per cent
efficiency improvement in multi-stage flash
The SABRE engine technology could power

a reusable spaceplane known as Skylon
(MSF) desalination, which is typically used to

create drinking water in many Middle Eastern
countries.
The heat exchanger, which rapidly cools air
so it can be compressed and fed into the rocket
combustion chamber, is made possible by secret
technology that prevents frost from forming and
blocking the exchangers pipes.
With this in place, the exchanger can displace
400MW of heat energy with a weight of around
1.5 tonnes, less than one per cent of the weight
of current technology.
Reaction Engines has also developed a way
to manufacture the exchanger, which is formed
from hundreds of millimetre-thick pipes
arranged in a spiral formation, that involves
checking it for sub-microscopic holes.
After successfully completing 141 tests
with the engine and pre-cooler installation,
the team plans to design the full SABRE engine
and build a demonstration model, largely from
existing gas turbine technology, as well as
flight testing the installation.
Click here to comment on this story
software
More eyes for the keyhole

Researchers develop augmented reality for laparoscopic surgery
by STEPHEN HARRIS
Keyhole surgery could become

easier thanks to new software
that adds a virtual map of a
patients body to the doctors
video feed.
Researchers in London
are developing a form of
augmented reality for roboticassisted laparoscopic surgery,
where 3D video images from
inside the body are overlaid
with data collected from MRI
or CT scans.
You can see structures
inside the organs and you may
be able to direct the surgery
more accurately, for example
excise a tumour with better
margins or protect a blood
vessel or nerve from accidental

damage, said research leader
Dr Danail Stoyanov of University
College London (UCL).
The system builds on
research into algorithms that
can calculate the geometric
co-ordinates and movement of
the contents of images captured
with 3D stereoscopic cameras.
This can be used to determine
the position of visible organs
in real time and matched with
the virtual map of the body
provided by MRI or CT scans.
The real challenge is that
most of the existing work is
based on rigid environments or
on environments where light
reflectance can be simplified,
said Stoyanov, a Royal

Academy of Engineering/
EPSRC research fellow at
UCLs Centre for Medical Image
Computing and Department
of Computer Science.
In surgery the tissue is
deformable and dynamic, plus
it is wet so the light response
can be varied and changes
depending on where you are
looking at the tissue from.
Our work is to overcome
these challenges by building
algorithms that work in such
an environment.

on this story
HS2 makes tracks

Plans to extend High Speed 2
(HS2) to the north west and
West Yorkshire will be set out
by the UK transport secretary
in 2013. The announcement
was made by UK chancellor
George Osborne while
delivering his autumn
statement, which also set out
600m for scientific research
infrastructure, plus a 1bn
loan and guarantee to extend
London Undergrounds
Northern line to Battersea
Power Station. A further
1bn was committed to
road improvements.
Funding into space
Universities and science
minister David Willetts has
announced 1m of R&D
funding for companies
working in, or looking to set
up in, the space community at
Harwell. The funding is part
of the Technology Strategy
Boards Launchpad initiative.
Willetts said: This funding
will support innovative
projects where small
businesses may see it as
too risky to go it alone when
developing their ideas into
new products and services.
Nuclear lifelines
EDF Energy is to extend the
expected operating life of
two nuclear power stations
by seven years. Hinkley
Point B in Somerset and
Hunterston B in North
Ayrshire are now expected
to remain operational until
at least 2023. The decision
follows the five-year
extensions to Heysham 1
and Hartlepool and reviews
of the plants safety cases.
Doubled up
A new report has drawn
attention to the need to
double the number of annual
recruits required to fill
engineering positions to
2020. Engineering UK 2013
Executive summary and
recommendations found that
engineering companies are
projected to have 2.74 million
job openings from 201020,
with 1.86 million requiring
engineering skills.
news:technology
The software is based on 10-year-old research

conducted by Bristols Prof Nick Lieven
electronics
Getting personal
with 3D printing
Carbomorph could benefit education sector
by STEPHEN HARRIS
aerospace
Blade runner
Software speeds up rotor calibration process
by STEPHEN HARRIS
British engineers who used

a 10-year-old mathematical
research project to minimise
vibrations in helicopter rotors
have been recognised with an
industry award.
Researchers from Bristol
University and UK company
Helitune, whose software
is used to balance aircraft
propellers to reduce vibrations,
won best partnership at this
years Technology Strategy
Board (TSB) Knowledge
Transfer Awards for their
collaboration to improve
Helitunes algorithms.
The software, which is
based on a mathematical
technique originally devised
by Bristol Universitys Prof Nick
Lieven, cuts down the number
of test flights a helicopter must
fly to calibrate its rotors by
calculating several different
measurements simultaneously
and speeding up the
adjustment process.
It is a perfect example of
where fundamental research,
which had no application at
the time, has fed into solving
a very practical and difficult
mathematical problem with
direct relevance for industry,
explained Lieven, who is now
pro-vice-chancellor at Bristol
University.
When a helicopters rotor
is first assembled, several test
flights are needed to gradually
balance them by repeatedly
measuring a number of
parameters such as the
angle of the blades and the

distribution of weight across
them and calculating what
adjustments need to be made.
The trick that we could do
that others couldnt was solve
all the different parameters
simultaneously rather than do
them one after the other, said
Lieven. Before, it could take
eight or nine flights now
you can do it in four or five.
Helitune and Bristol
University are now
collaborating on several further
TSB-co-funded projects worth
around 600,000, to apply the
technique to other types of
rotating machinery, including
wind and other powergenerating turbines.
It has moved on because
we now have a far better
understanding of vibration
in machinery and how we
can interrogate it. So we can
now use that to predict when
failures in machinery are
about to occur [based on the
vibrations], said Lieven.
He added: The key to this
was that we were not precious
about intellectual property.
Bristol University is never
going to produce a helicopter,
so letting industry use
the outcome of a piece of
fundamental research, which
was originally paid for by the
UK taxpayer, has been of
benefit to UK industry.

on this story
A new material could enable

people to build personalised
electronic items in their homes
using low-cost 3D printers.
Researchers from Warwick
University have created a
simple and cheap conductive
plastic composite that can be
used to lay down electronic
circuits and sensors as part
of 3D printed items.
They have already used
the material nicknamed
carbomorph because it is
formed from carbon particles
dissolved in a polymorph
plastic to 3D-print a
personalised video game
controller, a glove with haptic
feedback components and a
mug with a liquid sensor.
Weve designed it to work
with the current trend for
low-cost 3D printers: its cheap
and easy to make you could
even make it yourself, said
project leader Dr Simon Leigh.
It is something people
havent really done before.
Usually it would require
modifications to the printer
to get it to work or it requires
some really expensive material
with metal nanoparticles.

At the moment, we envisage
it making an impact in the
education sector. Students
could design a product and
the circuitry to go in it and
print the whole lot.
As well as electrical
connections, carbomorph
can be used to create touchsensitive areas and flex
sensors that alter their
resistance as they bend.
The next step is to work
on printing much more
complex structures and
electronic components,
including the wires and
cables required to connect
the devices to computers.
3D printing has an
advantage in this area in
that sockets for connection to
equipment such as interface
electronics can be printed out
instead of connected using
conductive glues or paints.
The EPSRC-funded research
is published in the open-access
journal PLOS ONE.

on this story
technology
Chemical potential
System could lead to compact drug detectors
by JON EXCELL
Chemical detection technology that instantaneously spots tiny

amounts of explosives, drugs or pollutants could enable the
development of a new generation of compact and easy-to-use
detection devices for security services and the police.
Developed by scientists at Imperial College London, through
research partly funded by the Defence Science and Technology
Laboratory, the system is able to pick out a single target molecule
from 10,000 trillion water molecules within milliseconds thanks to
the surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) of light.
The SERS technique exploits the way in which individual
molecules each scatter light in a unique way. Previous research
has shown that the signal can be amplified by catching molecules
in a particular way on a layer of metal nanoparticles. However,
these sheets are complex to manufacture.
The team overcame this problem by dealing with interfaces of
two liquids that do not mix.
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news:design

Checked baggage inspection is
designed to reduce false alarms
Military and defence
Engineers devise
bullet-proof idea
Vehicle armour withstands multiple hits
by JASON FORD
Military and defence
Case sensitive
Device detects threats in checked baggage
by JASON FORD
A checked baggage-screening
device that overcomes the
limitations of 2D X-ray or CT
scanning systems is being
built by University College
London (UCL) and 3DX-RAY.
Designed to detect threats
including explosive and
incendiary materials, the
proof-of-principle system is
being developed for a project
funded under the Innovative
Research Call in Explosives
and Weapons Detection.
UCL approached 3DX-RAY
after completing a feasibility
study into alternative methods
of producing 3D tomographic
images for baggage inspection.
The Barrow-upon-Soar-based
company then integrated the
university teams tomographic
imaging software to produce
a proof-of-principle system.
Checked baggage inspection
is designed to eliminate false
alarms through a series of
inspections and the first line
of defence is 2D X-ray, which
is prone to delivering false
alarms. CT scanning X-ray
techniques are more accurate
but are costly and slow.
UCL believes its solution will
lower the volume of bags that
go for additional screening.
The research team realised
it could achieve the same effect
as CT scanning X-ray methods
by collecting images from
multiple angles using 2D X-ray
sources and detectors with an
overhead visual camera and
using algorithms to collate
these X-ray slices and to

produce 3D images.
Nick Fox, 3DX-RAYs chief
technical officer, told The
Engineer that in conventional
tomography an object remains
stationary while an X-ray
camera rotates around it,
building up slices of data
that eventually provide a
fully reconstructed CT model.
Fox said: In this instance,
there are multiple stationary
cameras mounted around a
curve in the conveyor system.
As the object passes down
the conveyor, both X-ray and
optical images of the images
of the object are obtained
simultaneously, and as the
object changes its orientation
multiple views of the object
are collected from each of the
stationary cameras.
By relating the X-ray image
to its respective optical image,
it is possible to collate the
X-ray image to the physical
orientation of the bag and
to generate a tomosynthesis
X-ray image of the object
containing sufficient
information to identify
potential threats.
Fox added that the proposed
system, expected to undergo
airport trials in the next two
to three years, has no moving
parts, making it a simple and
low-cost system in terms of
maintenance and lifetime costs.

on this story
Engineers at Surrey University

and Lockheed Martin UK are
working on a project to develop
appliqu vehicle armour that
is able to withstand multiple
ballistic strikes.
Andrew Harris, an
engineering doctorate research
engineer at Surrey University,
explained that ceramic armour
is used on light-armoured
vehicles because it is as
effective as metal and can
withstand a number of threats,
particularly bullets.
Another advantage of
ceramic-based shielding is
that it is lightweight an
important consideration as
armour can account for half
a vehicles mass.
Harris added that, despite
its advantages, ceramic armour
possesses a flaw that has been
a problem for a number of
years. A very basic ceramic
armour would be a very hard
front-face material such as
alumina or silicon carbide
that is bonded to an energyabsorbing backing material,
typically a composite fibre or
metal that absorbs the energy
of the fragments, he said.
When you get a bullet

impact, it transmits a lot of
energy into the ceramic and
that shock causes the ceramic
tiles to come off the backing
material, which makes the
ceramic armour only good
for one hit.
You can get around this
by over-designing the ceramic
armour making it heavier.
What weve done is improve
the bond strength; we tested
it and found that the armour
performance is improved,
Harris said.
The team has developed a
proprietary method of treating
the adhesive and the preconditioning ceramic surfaces
prior to bonding, which has
led to an improvement in
armour integrity.
We now need to optimise
the treatment of the surface
of the ceramic, in terms of
minimising preparation time
and therefore cost, for optimal
performance, explained Steve
Burnage, head of design at
Lockheed Martin UK.

on this story
Medical and healthcare
Time to breathe
System diagnoses tuberculosis and cancer
Breathalyser technology able to rapidly diagnose tuberculosis and
lung cancer could one day find its way into doctors surgeries as a
result of work carried out by engineers from Siemens in Germany.
The system, developed by a team from the companys Corporate
Technology research base, uses a quadrupole mass spectrometer to
analyse the molecules in a patients breath, which can be reliable
indicators of a range of medical conditions.
The device works by applying an electrical charge to the
substances in the breath and accelerating them through an
electrical field that affects their trajectory.Particles of different
weights are deflected to different degrees and therefore land at
different places on the detectors, enabling clinicians to build up
a molecular fingerprint of the patients breath.
Following promising preliminary results from tests using breath
samples from cancer and tuberculosis patients, the group is now
about to begin larger clinical trials. JE
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news:business
inbrief
More business
news daily at
Energy and environment
Reducing the price of power
theengineer.co.uk/
policy-and-business
Fuel-charge exemption could help promote a low-carbon economy
Motor money
Sheffield University spinout Magnomatics has
raised 2.5m to complete
the development of its
magnetically geared motors
for the electric and hybrid
vehicle market. IP Group
will invest 1.06m, Finance
Yorkshire will provide match
funding from its Equity
Linked Fund and Fusion
IP will invest 366,000.
Energy-intensive industries are

to be exempt from upcoming
fuel charges designed to fund
investment in low-carbon
power generation, the
government has announced.
Under the Energy Bill, which
was introduced to parliament
on 29 November 2012, energy
consumers are set to pay
additional charges to fund
the contracts for difference
that will guarantee builders of
nuclear and renewable power
plants a minimum price for
the electricity they produce.
But Business, Innovation
and Skills (BIS) and the
Department for Energy and
Climate Change (DECC) are
considering how much of an
exemption to offer energyintensive industries such
as steel, chemicals and paper
manufacturing in order to
prevent them from being
driven out of Britain by
higher energy bills.
UK manufacturers
organisation EEF welcomed
the announcement but said
energy-intensive industries
werent out of the woods yet
as the size of the exemption
had not yet been determined
and that businesses were
already set to pay a much
higher price for energy through
other charges and levies.
Energy and climate change
secretary Ed Davey said:
Decarbonisation should not
mean de-industrialisation.
There would be no
advantage both for the
UK economy and for global
emissions reductions in
simply forcing UK businesses
to relocate to other countries.
The transition to the
low-carbon economy will
depend on products made
by energy-intensive industries
a wind turbine, for example,
needing steel, cement and
high-tech textiles.
This exemption will ensure
the UK retains the industrial
capacity to support a lowcarbon economy.
DECC and BIS will run
a consultation in 2013 once
the proposed exemption has
been further developed. The
exemption will also require
Just good Sense

Cable-Sense has secured
800,000 in funding from the
North West Fund for Energy
and Environmental and from
UMIP Premier Fund. The
companys infrastructure
management system allows
organisations to improve the
management of their cable
networks, reducing energy,
capital expenditure and
operations costs. CableSense will take on a number
of additional roles in sales,
marketing and development.
Passage to India
UK India Business Council
(UKIBC) has called on
British engineering and
manufacturing companies
to explore the Indian market
before they lose ground
to competition. A UKIBC
delegation is visiting India
in January 2013, focusing on
Gujarat, Pune and Mumbai.
The delegation will help UK
companies understand and
connect with opportunities
in the Indian market and is
seeking businesses interested
in exporting to, sourcing
from, or establishing in India.
Core transactions
Siemens has entered into a
deal to acquire Invensys Rail,
the rail automation business
of Invensys, for about 2.2bn
(1.7bn). The company is also
planning to divest its baggagehandling, postal and parcelsorting activities. Both
transactions are part of the
recently launched Siemens
2014 programme, which is
aimed at strengthening the
companys core activities.
bY STEPHEN HARRIS
state-aid clearance from the

European Commission.
Jeremy Nicholson, director
of EEFs Energy Intensive
Users Group, said: We have
to play out part in cutting
carbon emissions but this
wont be possible in a global
trading environment if costs
get out of hand.
We want to reduce
emissions, not move them to
someone elses balance sheet.
Research carried out earlier
this year by ICF International
based on DECCs estimates
found that energy-intensive

We want to
reduce emissions,
not move them to
someone elses
balance sheet
industries in the UK would

be paying around an extra
28 per megawatt-hour for
its energy by 2020 as a result
of climate change policies
including emissions trading
and renewable energy
measures one of the highest
figures among the worlds
largest economies.
Nicholson added that it was
in energy-intensive industries
interests to improve energy
efficiency and that existing
financial incentives such as a
discount on the climate change
levy were already encouraging
The exemption is hoped to help

keep manufacturers in Britain
them to make changes that

would cut emissions.
In addition to exemption
from the new charges, a
separate 250m scheme to
compensate certain energyintensive industries for
additional costs associated
with the Carbon Price Floor
and EU Emissions Trading
Scheme is already the subject
of a current consultation.
The governments Energy
Bill is designed to use the
contracts for difference
to ensure the substantial
investment in the UKs energy
infrastructure needed to
replace ageing power plants
and cut carbon emissions.
DECC has also launched
a consultation on ways to
reduce demand for energy.
Dame Sue Ion, fellow of the
Royal Academy of Engineering,
said: Contracts for difference
will be struck in the future
so there is still a way to go to
give investors the confidence
they need that the strike price
across a range of technologies
will make investment attractive
to proceed.
Investors need certainty
more than anything else if
we are to attract the massive
amount of capital needed to
refresh our infrastructure.

on this story
news:digest
thismonthin1956
prizecrossword
Engineer redesigns iron lung machine to make

it more efficient and comfortable for patients
When completed, go to www.theengineer.co.uk

to fill in your answers and the first correct answer
received will win a 20 Amazon voucher
Reading back through the archives of The Engineer can give

some startling insights into how our world has changed:
quickly in some ways, slowly in others. For example,
its quite startling to see in an issue from the late 1950s,
well within the lifetime of many of our readers, detailing
improvements in the designs of mechanical breathing
machines better known as iron lungs to help with
the epidemics of polio that occurred every summer.
Indeed, 1956 the year of this article had been
a bad year, with epidemics in Ireland and the Netherlands.
The vaccine, which has eradicated the disease in the
industrialised world and come close to wiping it out
worldwide, had been developed by Jonas Salk only a few
years previously and was still in trials. Polio was feared
everywhere and with good reason: it killed and crippled
hundreds of people, mostly children, every year.
The article in The Engineer was taken from a lecture
given by Captain George Smith-Clarke, who had been chief
engineer at British car manufacturer Alvis from 1922 to
1950 and had designed
Image courtesy
cars that won races
www.nmsi.ac.uk
at Brooklands and
Le Mans. In 1952,
he had taken on the
chairmanship of
the Coventry and
Warwickshire Hospital
board of management,
and as part of this role
hed been asked to look
at the engineering of
mechanical ventilators.
Smith-Clarke wasnt
impressed.Some may

Some may think,
think, as many patients
as many patients
have done, that it had
a very uncomfortable
have done, that it
resemblance to a coffin,
resembled a coffin
and for this reason
screens were
sometimes placed around it so that patients could not
see it when being put in. Upset at the distress hed seen
in children being taken out of iron lungs, he redesigned
the machine used most at the hospital, the Nuffield-Both
system, which had been in use since 1939.
I took over a disused air-raid shelter in the hospital
grounds and, with the help of the senior physicist and
a member of his staff, a Nuffield-Both machine was
completely dismantled, he recalled in his lecture. It was
found impossible to obtain working drawings and I had
to make dimensional free-hand sketches. Alvis made the
castings for the larger parts, while Smith-Clarke himself
machined the smaller parts needed.
As well as making the machines more controllable and
efficient at helping patients to breathe, Smith-Clarke also
made them more comfortable. He included more ports in
the side of the machine, so the patient could be reached
for nursing care without affecting breathing. SN
Click here to read the original article

ACROSS
DOWN
1 A street with only one

way in or out (3,2,3)
2 Lacking pathways (9)
6 Repetition of a sound
resulting from reflection (4)
8 Person who lives in a
new colony (7)
9 Long narrow depression
in a surface (7)
11 Normal heat of an
environment (4,11)
3 Reduced in strength or
concentration (6)
4 A carving usually by
American whalers (9)
5 A hidden storage space (5)
6 Lifting platform (8)
7 Japanese verse form of three
short lines (5)
12 Comes to a stop (4)
8 Supported lamp on a
roadside (11)
13 A regulator for
automatically regulating
temperature (10)
10 A solution that conducts

electricity (11)
17 In the direction of the

longest dimension (10)
18 A set of three similar
things (4)
20 Electrical device with a
number of voltaic cells (8,7)
23 Doomed large passenger
liner (7)
24 Horizontal plant stem (7)
14 Woody brambles bearing

red fruits (9)
15 Proved to be in the end (6,3)
16 Filter to retain larger pieces
while smaller ones pass
through (8)
19 As one chooses (2,4)
21 A metric unit of capacity (5)
22 Make oneself subject to (5)
25 Become superficially
burned (4)
26 Very acidic volcanic rock
(8)
For a chance to win, click here and fill in the answers
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For more news, views and information visit www.theengineer.co.uk
inouropinion
The rise of the military robot

could have benign benefits
The military robot is on the
rise. Indeed, according to
the latest figures from the
International Federation of
Robotics, defence applications
accounted for 40 per cent of
the total number of service
robots sold last year.
Many of the robots used
by the defence sector are
relatively benign. A large number of devices
are, for instance, used for IED detection or bomb
disposal. But, in a trend that is the cause of much
ethical hand-wringing, an increasing number are
being used for offensive purposes.
For military strategists, robot warriors
represent an opportunity to put troops out of
harms way and potentially attack targets with
far greater precision, thereby reducing civilian
casualties. For robotics engineers, the defence
sector represents a tantalising proving ground for
the technology and one of
the few routes to market.

Great technical
But many are concerned
leaps have sprung
about the implications of
from the incubator
the rise of the robot. And
of military necessity its not just because their
fears have been stoked by
Hollywood. The increasingly popular US military
strategy of using drones to carry out targeted
killings is, for many, a striking example
of why we should be worried about
relying too heavily on robots to do
our dirty work. Despite denials
from Washington, accusations
are growing that US drones are
responsible for large numbers of
civilian casualties; a concern
that is backed up by a report
published this summer by
Stanford and New York
universities.
Were a long way from the so-called
Terminator scenario although the fact
that top experts, such as those
gathered at this weeks Military
Picture: Boston Dynamics ATLAS robot
Robotics conference, now regularly talk in

po-faced terms about fleets of robot soldiers is a
sign that the gap between science fiction and
real life is getting narrower. While UAVs
represent the most significant deployment
of armed robots, the pace of technological
development is astonishing.
Leading the charge is DARPA, the US defence
departments advanced research agency, which is
driving the development of a range of military
robotic systems. Earlier this autumn, DARPA
launched its robotic challenge, a competition set
up to fast-track and stimulate the development of
defence robots able to perform human tasks. At
the heart of the competition is Boston Dynamics,
whose Big Dog robot can be seen in action here.
The company is now working on the
development of ATLAS, an autonomous
humanoid robot that will be used as a platform
for other competitors to test software and
artificial intelligence systems. You can view a
video of the latest iteration of ATLAS here. Other
robots being developed through the competition
include Raytheons Guardian lightweight
humanoid robot, and Virginia Techs THOR
(Tactical Hazardous Operations Robot).
The systems being developed through the
competition will do little to calm the
nerves of those concerned by the
prospect of science fiction becoming fact.
But its worth remembering that many of
our greatest technical leaps from the
development of nuclear energy to the
invention of the jet engine have
sprung from the incubator of military
necessity. And while few us would
regard the rise of robot soldiers
without a shiver of distaste, the
script unlike that of a movie
is not yet written. In
conquering the technical
challenges of operating robots
in a war zone, engineers are making
breakthroughs that could one day benefit
mankind in more benign applications.
Jon Excell Editor

jon.excell@centaur.co.uk
yourcomments
I joke to my friends that robots will kill us
all but in a sense its not really a joke.
Asimovs three laws arent going to
happen, I believe, because there is no way
that humans all over the world would stick
to making robots that fitted that code. Even
if most did, a significant few wouldnt.
Robots will have to be able to make up
their own minds and have initiative and
creative thinking. Whatever safeguards are
created will have bugs and there will also be
those actively trying to produce unguarded
machines because there is always an idiot
somewhere. When these ever more
intelligent machines decide they dont
need us, well be in trouble.
Tim Murphy
The most distasteful responsibilities in war

are the largest ones, so it would be logical
to see their delegation to machines as the
desired endpoint of the process in train here,
which appears to be a disengagement by
humans from war.
If we delegate our unpalatable
responsibilities, we have to live with the
decisions of those we delegate to. Humans
generally end up doing the right thing,
having tried all the alternatives.
It seems to me that in the last 70 years
were starting to have to choose between
alternatives that are not just unpalatable,
but in some cases unsurvivable.
Andrew Troup
Andrew Troup is to be congratulated for

enunciating a possible code for engineers.
Let us be clear. If we, who have the privilege
of manipulating natures laws to benefit all
mankind (not, as many other so-called
professions do, manipulate mans laws to
the benefit of the highest bidder) were to
simply state that we will no longer research
and/or create the tools for conflict, that
would be the end of such.
I take the 70-year point well: up until
August 1945 those in power both political
and military could (and did) happily send
millions of primarily young men in the
services to their death and hardly concern
themselves with the effect on civilian
populations, knowing full well that they
were very unlikely to suffer or be in receipt
of death and destruction. I believe the
prospect of their own lives ending
involuntarily has concentrated their
minds wonderfully in the interim.
Mike B
I challenge the contention that this is

military necessity, but I would be wrong
if the opposition is developing the same
technology. If they are (whoever they turn
out to be), then we would have a new spin
on the old concept of kings sending forth
their champions to settle the dispute in
single combat in other words, by the hand
of someone expendable.
But modern conflict doesnt seem to be
theengineerpoll
anywhere near the still-quite-recent
concept of mass battles between sovereign
states, even though the Iraqi debacle was a
notable exception to that trend at least
briefly. Iraq and Afghanistan have soon
fallen back into the more typical modern
picture where hard military resources on
one side are opposing a shadow army on
the other side and so have, indisputably,
become unwinnable. In short, the war on
terror is actually an attempt at wrestling
smoke. Robots are no better wrestlers than
humans maybe even worse.
The problem with using automatons
driven by blokes in braces sitting at desks in
Langley, Virginia, is that the chosen target
in this war cannot fight back. The thuggish
one-sidedness of stand-off cyber conflict
cannot be countered by the weaker party,
unless he uses stealth to get at the guy in
Langley. His only way to exploit that
weapon is actions of the 9/11 type, which
the perpetrators of that particular outrage
would describe as retaliation anyway, just
as the west regarded the subsequent
invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Look where retaliation got us.
I believe that the use of UAVs is already
building this mood in the minds of the
communities that are able to recruit suicide
bombers and it can only get worse if the
concept is ever extended to ground forces
of occupation. The answer is not to build
substitutes for human forces of occupation,
but to build the consensus that puts an end
to the desire to occupy.
John Douglas
The greatest danger embodied in robot

soldiers is that governments will ultimately
use them to turn on their own citizens when
those citizens dont co-operate with
government policies. Today, the soul of the
human soldier that causes him not to act on
an order to fire upon his fellow citizens at
the order of his government is the last line
of defence that we civilians have.
No matter what the governing
documents of a nation might say about use
of its military for domestic purposes, when
its government knows that all it has to do
is push a button to use its national
military to robotically suppress its
citizens, whatever personal freedoms
exist will soon fade away.
Poll analysis: From the

unmanned air vehicles (UAVs)
increasingly used to strike at
targets thousands of miles
away, to a host of robotic
vehicles, animals and even
humanoids currently under
development, robots look set to
dominate the battlefield of the
future. Should we be worried?
There was a definite split in the
responses to our poll last week, with
large numbers of respondents in both the
concerned and unconcerned camps
about the development of unmanned
systems for the defence sector. The
largest group the 40 per cent who said
that they werent worried about military
robots, focused on the spin-off from the
research that might find applications in
other sectors; but the next largest, 37
per cent, saw the development as an
escalation in the arms race. Just under
20 per cent said that robots will reduce
human casualties in the battlefield,
while the smallest group, four per cent,
thought that legal issues would prevent
the use of robots in war.
Yes. The field of military robotics
represents a terrifying escalation in
the arms race 36.5 per cent
Military robotics will bring cost
efficiencies and reduce the number
of casualties 19.3 per cent
Legal issues will prevent large
numbers of robots taking to the
battlefield 3.5 per cent
Advances in military robots should
be welcomed as the technology will
have beneficial spin-off applications
in other sectors 40.5 per cent
Anonymous
Unfortunately history has proved it is

only through military need that we
have developed suitable technology
to progress into our everyday lives.
Unfortunately the military need inevitably
leads to a level of death and destruction
before such technologies progress to a
more useful arena.
Geoffrey
Click here to join the debate

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For more news, views and information visit www.theengineer.co.uk
thehottopic
New dash for gas muddies the UKs energy future

Fear not: the current government is being
run by a bunch of apprentices who are
learning as they go. You may be aware of
the continuing urgency to get broadband
to every area in the UK so that we can
use our computers or handheld thingies
to see the world and purchase food and
goods. Well these items need electricity
to work, but it seems that the various
departments controlling us have not yet
realised that you must first generate the
electricity. However, it is a known fact
that gas can be treated to burn more
completely, thereby reducing emissions,
which may allow a safer operation for
the electricity generators. So by 2050,
perhaps the boffins will have worked
out how to obtain clean gas use.
Trevor Best
garage unless the boilers can be made

near silent, e.g. fuel-cell technology.
Anonymous
When weve burned all the carbon and all

the furniture and still not built the nuclear
stations we so need for bulk power, then
as the lights go out the strikes will force a
government to make a long-term decision.
This will happen in my grandchildrens
lifetime and they deserve better from us.
Ron Mitchell
I hate to say it as an engineer in the

renewables sector, but I reckon nuclear is
the best stop-gap until low-/zero-carbon
technologies can be proved to fill the
gap. There are already many technologies
out there that are under-utilised and the
impression is that the history graduate
who is making the decisions neither
knows nor cares about them.
Paul Arrondelle
I wonder if an alternative of subsidising

the replacement of gas heating boilers
with micro CHP [combined heat and
power] plants has been properly
considered. This might bring about a
more efficient use of the gas. It could be
applied to commerce, hospitals, schools,
flats and the like, followed by individual
houses possibly just those with a
We all talk about wind, wave and solar,

but no one seems to remember that the
large mills in the past were driven from
one water wheel that drove everything in
the mill. Im thinking not just one but lots
of them on all rivers where the fall allows
even create the fall on some plus design
them floating to accommodate floods.
Jim Holden
inyouropinion
Greenstuff
The launch of the governments

green investment bank was
broadly welcomed by readers.
It may not tick all the boxes
for all of the people, but its a

welcome start and will clearly
have an impact greater than
that of green enterprises alone.
Gerry
Why, when we are
surrounded by tidal water,

beaten by waves and literally
drowning in floodwater, does
the government not open its
eyes and invest in the potential
of both generating and almost
importantly storing power
using this medium?
Keith
By all accounts, Britain faces shortages

of generated power quite soon. Until a
long-term electricity-generating strategy
is developed, we will need home-produced
fuel to provide stability of supply.
Fracked gas is just gas. If we need
it, then get on with it. Gas-fired power
stations would last the 30 years or so until
UK power is stable and future needs are
protected by whatever means. Given
that wind is showing itself as unfit for
purpose if produced off shore and entirely
anti-social for on-shore sites, we had
better get moving. A nuclear-powered
base generation capacity seems an
absolute necessity. Naturally powered
devices will only become useful, as stated
above, if high-capacity, efficient storage
processes are developed.
Micro CHP sounds great, but I suspect
if it has a return on investment of more
than circa seven years it will not be
viable for home use.
Many and varied are the views, and
many and varied are the solutions, and
once again I will harp on that Britain is
crying out for an independent panel of
qualified engineers, seconded on a fixed
term from industry or education, to be
the sole arbiter of the viability of UK
plc engineering projects such as power
generation, rail franchises, road building
et al. The panel will be solely responsible
for appointing successor engineers.
John K
A very good initiative. I will
be knocking at the door for

investment in waste-to-energy
technology: microbial fuel cells.
of energy technologies that

remain stifled by the power
of large corporations and
callous financiers.
David Simpson
David Leigh
If the government has
created this so-called Green

Investment Bank, why are we
being charged in our electricity/
gas bills for green energy
investment?
Cliff Pattrick
With more than 2,500 miles
of navigable waterways,
millions of miles of drainage
systems and a veritable
deluge, why do we not have
more than a handful of micro
hydro systems installed? There
exists a veritable plethora
Slavetotechnology
Our article looking at whether

we view technology as our
servant or master provoked
some lively debate
The main problem with any
technology is that people think

it is capable of solving the
problems for them and at
the moment it cant. We need
to use our brains more and
dont get to be cabbages as is
happening with so many kids
at school nowadays. They have
to learn their subjects and

actually know something about
them instead of just learning
how to pass a test. This seems
to be the governments way of
doing things with everything
from the NHS to learning how
to drive.
Martin
Mathematics was also
described as both the slave

and queen of the sciences
and as engineers we use it in
both modes? Well dont we?
Unfortunately, far too much
of the skills in manipulating
natures laws to the benefit
of all humankind that we as
engineers possess are still
used to support and maintain
the posts, positions and power
thesecretengineer
Click here to comment on the secret engineer
A trip to China leaves our anonymous

blogger wondering about its future
as the worlds manufacturing centre
Last month I once again had reason to fly
out to China. Hong Kong was as impressive as
always, the concentrated spirit of the bustling
cosmopolitan city. It stands alone though within the Peoples
Republic of China (PRC) and, although incorporating many
features of the typical Chinese urban environment, it is not
representative of the country as a whole.
We headed straight out to, well, shall we say somewhere
in the hinterland, and were soon into a less sophisticated
environment. For those of you who havent been, it is certainly
an experience.
I still remember my first time, when the shock wasnt so
much the seemingly endless miles of pothole-strewn dual
carriageway taking me past the hundreds of square miles of
high-rise blocks, tenements and factories but rather an intrinsic
dichotomy.
China has been on an accelerated development and in many
ways is very modern, but this relates to the buildings and
infrastructure; people have a
greater inertia. This is

For those of you nothing peculiar to the
Chinese of course. It is a
who havent been,
truth of human society that
there will be those who
China is certainly
immediately embrace
an experience
change and equally there
will be those who cannot or
who do not wish to. There will also be inertia within a societys
structure where the process of laws and law making cannot
keep apace with the whirlwind of industrial revolution.
Most notably, China has a conspicuous construction
programme that redevelops, tearing down the almost new and
building yet newer. An intrinsic impermanence made manifest
by an overall griminess to most of the buildings, only the very
newest seeming to be free of flaking paint and the orangebrown tears of rust streaming down from steel balcony rails.
There is an aggressive investment in development that
has driven up prices along with the subsequent pressures
for profit on any given plot regarding which the government

has only just acted, hoping to curtail the inevitable upward
spiral that this creates.
Whatever the cause, this has seemingly resulted in a system
where, within 10 or 20 years, many buildings fall into fatal
disrepair. I find it difficult to believe that this can be anything
but harmful.
The newer building is bigger but by replacing another
its addition to the economy is diluted. Also, an increased load
on existing services rather than implementing new layouts in a
holistically planned way will more likely lead to stop gaps and
eventual overload.
What does this have to do with us as engineers? If we are to
continue manufacturing in China, then we need to look far
beyond the direct economic influences on what we do. I fully
expect another global region to become the centre for
manufacture one day; this is the cyclic nature of things.
However, the first sign of such a move may not be the cost to
produce an item but rather an indicator linked to Chinas
appetite for perpetual rebirth ironically one of the core
activities that has powered it to its current position.
inyouropinion
real, imaginary, usurped,
democratic? of different
aspects of the conflict groups:
those who manipulate and
hide behind mans laws mostly
to the benefit of the highest
bidder. I have always
maintained that natures
laws are the same in Tokyo,
Tubingen and Tunbridge
Wells. There are no
differences. Every great
advance of humankind has at
its root an unlocking of another
of natures secrets. Few, if any,
result from a new law. If we
continue to allow our skills
to be usurped and wasted
and that solution is simple
and in our hands. We must
accept the lowest place in
so-called professional society

and have the debates that this
article requires.
Mike Blamey
Upintheair
Our piece on the future of the

UK aerospace industry drew
out a wide range of viewpoints
and opinions
We need more collaboration
with countries that dont

historically build much of their
own defence equipment. If we
can offer them a part in the
design and manufacture of
their own equipment while
using them to increase the
scale of our market, perhaps
we could generate a symbiotic
relationship large enough to
sustain sovereignty. The

obvious nations are Canada,
Australia, South Africa and
New Zealand, although some
consolidation of companies
across these nations with
our own would be needed.
Nathan
It seems to me that the
hardest part in all this is the

concept of the long-term view
when UK governments have
a problem with anything that
stretches beyond their fiveyear term of office. If we could
only convince our politicians to
take a longer-term view 30
years? maybe we wouldnt
get ourselves is the same
messes we get into now.
Graham Field
Another subject that cries
out for an independent panel

of engineers seconded and
rotated regularly who have sole
decision-making powers for
major technological projects.
This will protect important
issues from the short-termist
thinking of politicians.
John K
And it isnt just in the
aerospace industry: I gave

a talk last week about the
disappearance of the fledgling
UK wind-turbine industry,
and now the tidal industry is
heading the same way with
the last UK turbine developer
TGL being sold by
Rolls-Royce to Alstom.
John Armstrong
the Paul Jackson column
Seize the time to

inspire learners
The 10-year anniversary of EngineeringUK is a chance to reflect
upon the challenges ahead in promoting the discipline
Its EngineeringUKs
anniversary this month. Around
this time 10 years ago the
Engineering and Technology
Board now EngineeringUK
came into being, with a remit
to promote engineers and
engineering. Engineering is a
profession with a glowing history.
But it is our glowing future that
EngineeringUK is passionate

We must meet
about; an exciting future that we
the challenge to
can only realise by inspiring our
next generation of engineers.
inform, inspire,
We have come a long way
attract and retain
since 2002. We held a very
grown-up do at the Science
new talent
Museum to launch the
Engineering and Technology Board. Any event we run
now would be jam-packed with young people. The
EngineeringUK report will be published for the 15th
time this December and has become a staple for the
wider engineering community government,
business and industry, professional bodies and
education alike. It helps us to understand the
economic environment were working in and to
identify challenges to the industry, and it informs
the way we collaborate to combat them.
The Engineers and Engineering Brand Monitor is
five years old, giving us an understanding of how
engineers and engineering are viewed by the public,
and the pathways to influence their perceptions. The
British public has come a long way in terms
of its understanding and
perception of engineers and
engineering. The findings
of our 2012 Brand Monitor
provide the engineering
community with a clear
call to action for how to
promote engineering
careers effectively.
Our programmes, The Big
Bang Fair and Tomorrows
Engineers, are doing what
they were created to do:
inspire our future engineers.
It was great that these
programmes were commended by business secretary

Vince Cable, in his speech at the Confederation of
British Industry conference on 19 November.
Looking at our programmes, its difficult to believe
that our first Big Bang Fair took place in 2009
attracting 6,500 visitors. In 2012, 56,000 people
attended the fair, making it the largest youth event of
any kind in the UK. The 2013 event at ExCeL London
in March looks set to break all previous records. Not
bad for a science and engineering careers fair.
Hearteningly, evidence shows that the collaborative
efforts of the engineering community are making a
positive impact. In 2011, the Brand Monitor found that
11 per cent of all 1216 year olds believe engineering
to be a desirable career. Forty-five per cent of
secondary school students who have taken part in the
Tomorrows Engineers programme and 54 per cent of
1216 year olds who have attended The Big Bang Fair
think engineering is a desirable career, by comparison.
There is certainly no room for complacency,
however. There are plenty of challenges ahead for us
yet. Although science, technology, engineering and
maths STEM subjects are desirable, they are
more desirable to those aged 17+, which is too late for
making those all-important GCSE and A-level choices.
EngineeringUK 2013 gives a positive impression of
the sectors capabilities. Arguably, the most arresting
figure to come out of the report is the size of the skills
demand, however. The UK needs 2.7 million additional
workers over the next 10 years. The message is clear:
if we are to seize the opportunities afforded to us by
burgeoning new technologies and low-carbon targets,
we must inform, inspire, attract and retain new talent.
The learner is central
to EngineeringUK, and
ensuring young people
understand more about
engineering careers is
at the core of all of our
programmes.
Paul Jackson is chief
executive of EngineeringUK
and Big Bang Education CIC

on this story
First for technology & innovation
The Engineer Policy & Projects supplement

4th March 2013
To re
q
free c uest a
the A opy of
e
editio rospace
np
click lease
here
Engineering doesnt happen in a vacuum. This supplement will look at

some of the most important aspects of public policy, which will affect
the companies, and institutions, which make up the engineering sector
over the coming year.
Features will include:
R&D credits
Legislation and stimuli for environmental technologies
Intellectual property protection and inward investment
Current major projects which are likely to have a
transformative effect on the engineering sector.
The UKs infrastructure
viewpoint:Keith Hayward
Taking flight
for strategy
The UKs defence aerospace sector needs
to maintain its spread of skills, says Keith
Hayward of the Royal Aeronautical Society
he government has widely advertised

its support for UK aerospace as a core
manufacturing asset. It has backed
its words with financial support for civil
aeronautics and space. However, Britains
military aerospace sector faces a more
uncertain future. There is no doubting
the importance of air power to the security
of the UK, nor the value of an on-shore
industry capable of supporting British
armed forces. Military aerospace also
provides the bulk of UK military export
sales. But the governments public
statements on the defence industrial base,
F-35 participation should garner
including aerospace, have been vague and
a good return for UK companies
ambiguous. Indeed, some of the policies
pursued by the UK Ministry of Defence
contribution to national economic welfare.
(MoD) have tended to work contrary to
This feeds a manufacturing supply chain,
the interests of an indigenous military
from international prime contractors to a
aerospace industry.
myriad of smaller companies, and enables
The nature of the long-term threat
the UK to safely maintain an open and
to capability is subtle, yet fundamental.
globalised approach to defence that has
On the one hand, sales of the Typhoon
benefited the MoD and British industry.
and other current products, as well as the
Should this IP begin to seriously diminish,
promise of substantial production returns
all of these benefits will rapidly disappear.
from participation in the F-35 Joint Strike
The Royal Aeronautical Society believes
Fighter, should offer a substantial return
that this is indeed the case. The UK cannot
to British companies, supporting
entirely rely on the production of overseasthousands of jobs. On
designed equipment,
the other hand, there is
or on the technology,

The UK cannot
risk to future high-value
important though it is,
rely on production of novel concepts such
business, the noble
work contained in the
as unmanned aerospace
of equipment that
deep and wide body of
systems. There is a
aerospace knowledge
has been designed need to support core
built up over several
technologies, especially
overseas
decades. This body of
in avionics and
knowledge comprises
electronics; this may
such complex skills as systems integration,
be best achieved through a programme
advanced propulsion systems, avionics
of technology demonstration.
and electronics. Indeed, the latter is now
The UK must also continue to exploit the
often a valuable element of overseas
advantages of international collaboration
sales via incorporation in other national
with European and US partners. But
aerospace programmes.
the key consideration must again be the
It represents the fundamental
level of technological return delivered
intellectual property (IP) that allows
by co-operation. This may still be best
UK industry to fulfil urgent operational
achieved through working in more
requirements, a degree of independence
egalitarian collaboration with European
and security of supply, long-term support
partners. However, mindful of past
for deployed equipment and a core
mistakes and the economic limitations of
many European collaborative programmes,

future joint ventures must be managed
through strong central structures.
But in order to participate at the highest
level in international programmes and
to ensure the greatest national return,
UK companies must be able to offer
state-of-the-art technology and process
capabilities. This, again, will depend
upon investment in domestic technology.
There is a strong security and economic
case for supporting the UK military
aerospace industry; domestic procurement
policies should not unreasonably increase
the slope of the competitive playing field.
Support does not necessarily include,
desirable though in principle this might be,
commitment to expensive new platforms.
In the future, large new aerospace
platforms will be increasingly rare
(although upgrades, consequently, will be
required), but it is vital that UK systems
integrators for airframes, sensors and
propulsion remain in a position to assume
leading roles in international programmes.
To do so requires a strategic investment
in underpinning technologies.
Prof Hayward is the Royal Aeronautical
Societys head of research
The full discussion paper can be

downloaded here
feature:vertical farming
Up on
the
farm
Could Vertical farming
offer a solution to one of
humanitys most pressing
problems? Jon Excell reports
aignton zoo in Devon is an unlikely site for a revolution:

more likely, you would think, to be noted for its collection of
Cuban crocodiles than its cameo at the birth of a potentially
world-changing industry.
But for the past three years, the zoo has been growing food for its
animals using a Verticrop greenhouse, one of the worlds first
working examples of a vertical farm, a radical new approach to
agriculture that many believe could address one of humanitys most
pressing problems: feeding our rapidly growing population.
Currently around the seven billion mark, the worlds population is
expected to rise to 10 billion by 2050. But with 80 per cent of the
planets usable farmland already cultivated, the effects of climate
change wreaking havoc across large areas of existing farmland, and
more than 10 per cent of humanity going to bed hungry every night,
growing enough food for these three billion new mouths is not
going to be easy.
Its a bleak picture. But theres still time to do something about it.
And as with many of the worlds biggest problems, engineers can
play a major role whether its through the development
of precision farming methods that use satellites and sensors to
optimise agricultural operations, the invention of technology that
can help make plants more resistant to a hostile environment or
some more fundamental change in the way we grow, harvest and
distribute our food.
Dr Dickson Despommier, a former professor of microbiology
at Columbia University in the US, believes there is only one
sustainable solution: sever our 12,000-year-old link with the soil,
embrace technology and move farming indoors and upwards.
Although he doesnt claim credit for inventing the term,
Despommier is widely regarded as the founding father of the
vertical farming movement, and he puts forward a compelling case
Hitting the heights: an artists impression of Plantagons

vertical farm in Linkoping, Sweden
for the approach in his 2010 book The Vertical Farm. In it,
he envisages the creation of urban structures that would enable
urban farmers to cram valuable growing space into high-rise
buildings, exploiting the space-saving benefits of growing upwards.
Using hydroponic and aeroponic systems, rather than soil, and
deploying the latest sensing technology to monitor and regulate
growing conditions, these closed-loop facilities would grow crops all
year round. Plants would be protected from pests and weather, all
water would be recycled and there would be no agricultural run-off
one of the most environmentally damaging forms of pollution.
It sounds far-fetched. But from the terraced rice paddies of
Southeast Asia to the hillside farms of the ancient Mayans, the use
of vertically layered growing techniques is hardly a revolutionary
concept. The hanging gardens of Babylon if it existed is
arguably another, even earlier, example of a vertical farm.
Whats changed, according to Despommier, is that we now have
the technology to take the vertical farm to the next level.
I believe were on the cusp of a logarithmically increasing growth
Verticrop: Alterrus Systems has
built a vertical farm in Vancouver

With 80 per cent of usable
farmland already cultivated,
growing enough food for the
worlds rising population
is not going to be easy
phase for indoor farming so we can control everything indoors,

we can make plants do what we would like them to do and we can
produce so much more of the plants of our choice indoors
than we can outdoors.
And his isnt a lone voice. Since the publication of The Vertical
Farm, prototypes have begun springing up all over the place. Last
year, the South Korean government unveiled one in Seoul, which
is using LED lighting to grow leafy-green vegetable on three
storeys. A similar facility has been built in Kyoto, Japan, and
prototypes are currently being constructed in Sweden, Holland
and the US. And although the scale and volume of these facilities
is currently fairly modest, the concept appears to be gaining
credibility and momentum.
Indeed, just last month (November 2012), the company behind
the Paignton zoo facility Canadian company Alterrus Systems
announced the formal opening of its first fully commercial
vertical farm.
Based on the rooftop of a car park in downtown Vancouver,
the farm is now supplying vegetables to a number of nearby

restaurants through an online local grocery delivery service.
Alterrus chief executive officer Christopher Ng told The Engineer
that his group has consciously taken a step back from the huge
facilities envisaged by Despommier and developed an approach to
vertical farming that can be easily integrated into existing urban
spaces and has immediate commercial potential.
Originally devised in the UK, the companys Verticrop system
uses a low-power conveyor to move a series of stainless steel racks
holding 24 vertically stacked (1m x 0.5m) hydroponic trays around a
greenhouse at around 2.7m/min. The companys latest facility
consists of 120 individual racks, covers 4,000ft2 (372m2) of growing
space and will produce 150,000lb (68 tonnes) of leafy green
vegetables and herbs a year, according to Ng. He claimed that the
greenhouse uses just 10 per cent of the water required in traditional
field agriculture while producing considerably higher yields.
One of the keys to this is the conveyor, which ensures that all of
the plants are exposed to equal levels of light, heat and humidity ->
growthindustry
Food production isnt the only promising
application for vertical farming techniques
Perhaps, though, the most compelling
economic case for vertical farms
currently lies beyond the world of
food production.
For instance, working with $40m
(25m) of funding from the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA) the research arm of the US
military researchers in the US have
built a vertical farm that they believe
could revolutionise the production of
flu vaccines.
Based in San Antonio, Texas,
the so-called Greenvax project, a
collaboration between Texas A&M
University and drug facility manufacturer
G-Con, has built a 145,000ft2 (13,470m2)
facility that utilises tobacco plants to
grow vaccines for a host of diseases,
including flu.
Flu vaccines are largely grown today
in duck eggs, with each egg producing
enough vaccine to immunise one person.
According to the Greenvax researchers,
a plant-based method could radically
boost the amount of drugs that can be
produced and allow rapid response to
newly emerging viruses not possible
with current technology. The current
facility has a projected scale capacity
of 100 million doses per month.
Vertical farming systems are also
being investigated by space scientists
who believe that the technology could
be used to grow food for long-distance
manned space missions and ultimately
to build growing facilities on manned
lunar outposts.
Indeed, working with $70,000 of NASA funding, researchers
at Arizona Universitys Controlled Environment Agriculture
Centre (CEAC) are developing a prototype lunar greenhouse
that they claim could one day form the basis for growing crops
on the moon or on Mars.
The team has developed an 8ft-long tubular structure that
can be collapsed to a 4ft-wide disk for transport and then
embedded in the surface of the moon.
The system is lined with water-cooled sodium vapour lamps
and long envelopes that would be loaded with seeds, ready
to sprout hydroponically.
The breath of the astronauts would be used to provide
CO2 while water for the plants would be extracted from
astronaut urine.
The system is based on technologies developed for CEACs
South Pole Growth Chamber a system developed to provide
fresh food for the South Pole Research Station, which is cut off
from the outside world for up to eight months per year.

Flu vaccines are largely grown in
duck eggs, but a plant-based method
could boost the amount of drugs that
can be produced and allow rapid
response to newly emerging viruses
Moon garden: CEACs

prototype lunar greenhouse
and enables the farms watering and harvesting operations to be

concentrated in a particular area. We can move the entire crop
to two irrigation points on the system, said Ng. Therefore, we dont
have this huge infrastructure of plumbing where we need
to bring water to all the crops. This also means that the crop can be
harvested from one location, which allows us to be even more dense
in the way we squeeze the conveyor system in. We dont need to
allow for workers to be going up and down the aisles.
Ng said he hopes the Vancouver installation will be the first of
many, and added that his team is already looking at developing
a version of the system that features low-energy lighting in the
conveyor tracks and that could be used to grow crops in buildings
with little or no natural light.
Meanwhile, back on this side of the Atlantic, Swedish company
Plantagon is drawing up plans for a large-scale vertical farm thats
perhaps more in tune with Despommiers grand vision.
The company, which intriguingly is 85 per cent owned by
the Onondaga native American-Indian tribe, is currently poised
to begin construction of a vertical farm at a site in the city of
Linkoping, 200km south west of Stockholm.
At the heart of the system is a concept for a helical growing
structure, designed to enable sunlight to penetrate to the core
of the growing area.
Like Verticrops system, Plantagons technology exploits the
production-line benefits of continuously moving crops around
the growing area, but rather than moving the entire conveyor
the company plans to use small machines running along the
underside of the static rail to move the boxes one by one. Plantagon
chief executive officer Hans Hassle said that these devices, which
will be cheap to run and easy to maintain, are currently being
Future farm: artists impression of what

Plantagons farms may one day look like

I believe were on the cusp of a
logarithmically increasing growth
phase for vertical farming
Dr Dickson Despommier
developed by Swedish engineering consultancy Saab Combitech.

However, its the way that the system will be integrated with the
pre-existing local infrastructure that will be watched most keenly.
And Hassle explained that, by deriving much of its energy from
existing sources of waste, the facility will be a demonstration of
how vertical farms could be operated on an economically feasible
basis. Its very difficult today to make a standalone vertical
greenhouse economically viable, but if you think in terms of
industrial symbiosis then you can make it work from an economical
perspective, he said. Hassle added that Linkoping a city that
prides itself on an advanced approach to waste management is
the ideal site to trial this approach and that the farm will be able to
use waste heat from an adjacent power plant as well as CO2
exhaust from a nearby biogas production facility.
But amid all the excitement of cracking the technological
challenges, Hassle is concerned that the vertical farming movement
might have forgotten something: its customers. He believes that
the fledgling industry has a major PR battle to fight in order to
persuade consumers to buy its produce and that, in tandem with
the technical effort, it needs to quickly find a viable business model.
When you go to a grocery store, you can choose 30 different sorts
of lettuce. What we can produce in one building is just a few
vegetables and we cant produce everything at the same time.

Where are you going to deliver your stuff to? Why would people
want to use you? You have to find a totally new business concept
on how to sell the produce.
Its a surprisingly bleak assessment from someone who is
otherwise so enthusiastic about the prospects for the technology,
but Hassle believes Plantagon has developed a compelling business
model. And although he enigmatically declined to reveal details of
what he terms the companys key bit of intellectual property, the
strategy should become clear when the Linkoping farm opens for
business in 2014.
Despite the progress thats already been made, there are clearly
significant technological and economic challenges to overcome
before vertical farming can begin to seriously compete with
conventional approaches to agriculture.
But Despommier believes there is no credible alternative. In
the conclusion to The Vertical Farm, he argues that traditional
agriculture is not working. Without irrigation and lots of additives,
farming could not go on indefinitely in the same place, he writes.
At the same time that our agricultural landscapes have been
pushed to their limits... our population has just about risen to the
point of no return less land left to cultivate but still plenty of
hungry mouths to feed. We have no choice but to conclude that
farming on soil is not a long-term sustainable solution to meeting
our populations energy needs the vertical farm has the potential
[to advance] agriculture to a place in history it has never before
occupied: one of true sustainability.

feature:fusion Q&A
Positive
reaction
Experts from two major nuclear projects answer your
questions on the challenges surrounding fusion energy
and explain its commercial viability
n 1997, JET set the world record for producing the largest
amount of power (16MW) from fusion using deuterium-tritium
(D-T), the fuel proposed for the first generation of fusion
power plants. After a period of upgrades, the project is
preparing an attempt at breaking that record.
The follow-up programme, International Thermonuclear
Experimental Reactor (ITER), will try to go a step further and
generate more power than is used to start the process.
Experts from both projects have provided the answers to
your questions. The Engineer will continue to report on this
fascinating project, as well as the parallel efforts in inertial
confinement or laser fusion currently taking place in the US.
n What are the safety and environmental hazards of fusion,
including waste, what protection systems do you have in place
to deal with this and how does this compare to nuclear fission
plants? The fuels used in the fusion reaction are inherently less
hazardous that those used in fission. Typical input fuels for fusion
will be deuterium and tritium both isotopes of hydrogen, with
the latter being radioactive. The products of the reaction will be
helium and fast neutrons. The neutrons can cause activation of
materials they pass through. As a radioactive gas, tritium is a very
low-energy beta emitter and has a half-life of about 12.6 years.
However, it is highly mobile and can contaminate most materials it
comes in contact with. All fusion machines vary but JET, located at
Culham, Oxfordshire, and ITER, being built at Cadarache, France,
will both have their inner, plasma-facing walls constructed mostly
of beryllium a toxic metal that presents significant health
hazards if minute particles are inhaled.
This means that the major hazards associated with
operating JET or ITER are beryllium contamination,
radiation from fast neutrons, tritium and the activation
products in components removed from the machine.
There is no possibility of the reaction going critical
a major failure of the tokamak and loss of vacuum
will merely lead to the loss of the plasma and thus
the reaction extinguishing. During a reaction, the level
of neutron flux is such that all personnel are excluded from
within the biological shield while the machine is operating. All
operation and maintenance of the machine is overseen by health
physics staff who monitor levels of tritium and beryllium, declaring
Fusion: cutaway view of the ITER cryosat showing the tokomak

surrounded by its field coils
feature:fusion Q&A
radiological and/or beryllium-contaminated controlled or

supervised areas as necessary.
With regard to waste, the first thing to say
is that the production of waste is relatively
modest, with most coming from
maintenance activities or redundant
components when the current research
machines are reconfigured. The main concern
with the waste is radioactive contamination both
from tritium and activation products, which will be
relatively short lived. While much of the waste will be
below the thresholds to even be considered as
radioactive waste, there is some low-level waste and
a very small proportion will be classified as
intermediate-level waste. However, within 100 years
or so, all of this material can be recycled or disposed of
conventionally, leaving no long-term radioactive
legacy for future generations to deal with. Colin
Shimell, head of assurance at Culham Centre for
Fusion Energy
ITER will not generate any long-lived nuclear
waste. Irradiated material will be transferred
within a confinement cask to enclosed,
shielded compartments or hot cells. Inside
the hot cells, several operations will be
performed, such as cleaning and dust
collection, detritiation, refurbishment and
disposal. The waste, classified as medium
level, will be stored in the ITER hot cells. All of
these procedures are a part of the ITER
operation as presented in the Preliminary
Safety Report and are also submitted to
examination of the French Nuclear Safety Authority
as part of the licensing process.
Detritiation systems in ITER have been designed to remove
tritium from liquids and gases for reinjection into the fuel
cycle. Remaining effluents will be well below authorised limits:
gaseous and liquid tritium releases to the environment from ITER are
predicted to be below 10Sv per year. This is well below ITERs
General Safety Objective of 100Sv per year and 100 times lower than
Top: foundation piles for the ITER tokomak

Bottom: support plate for toroidal windings
the regulatory limit in France of 1,000Sv per year. Scientists estimate
our exposure to natural background radiation to be approximately
2,000Sv per year. ITER response
n Why is it taking such a long time to return to experimenting with
D-T fuel and how are you overcoming the problems youve
experienced? The vast majority of JET experiments are done using
deuterium only, which allows us to study most of the physics we
need. JET ran experiments with D-T in 1991, 1997
and 2003 and it is proposed to perform further D-T experiments
in the coming years. The overall use of tritium at JET is limited,
as D-T fusion neutrons cause radioactivity in the JET vessel, and the
cumulative radioactivity of the JET vessel is limited due to
decommissioning requirements. One of the problems encountered in
the D-T experiments in 1997 was the in-vessel retention of tritium in
carbon-based deposits. JET has addressed this issue with the
installation of all-metal plasma-facing components, avoiding the use
of carbon. Duarte Borba, senior scientific advisor at EFDA-JET
n It was reported recently that there were problems with winding
the superconducting magnet coils you plan to use
for ITER. Has this issue been solved? What progress is being
made on the magnet manufacture? Significant progress has been
made in the manufacturing of ITER magnets. More than 350 tons
of toroidal field conductor [Nb3Sn strand], which corresponds to
75 per cent of the total amount needed, has been produced by the six
members involved. Also, 65 tons of poloidal field conductor
[25 per cent of supply] has been produced by China, Europe and the
Russian Federation. It is true we have some delays in the
->
feature:fusion Q&A
manufacturing of the poloidal field coils due to complications in
placing the contract rather than due to any technical issue and it also
took some time to develop conductors for the central solenoid the
big central magnet, or transformer, of the tokamak. But work is
progressing well. There is also good progress on toroidal field coil
winding in Europe. ITER members are still discussing possible testing
at low temperature of the toroidal field coils prior to their assembly in
the tokamak. All parties remain committed to delivering on all fronts
and in line with the ITER schedule. ITER response
n Could fusion energy be used in a different way to driving steam
turbines for electricity production, either for commercial power
generation or more niche applications such as spacecraft
propulsion? Many people have suggested using fusion for spacecraft
propulsion. The ideas range from various types of direct thruster
using the very high-energy plasma ions emerging from the reactor
vessel like a rocket jet, through to variants where a reactor broadly
similar to those we have in mind for electricity generation is used to
do that in space, driving conventional electrically accelerated xenon
plasma thrusters.
Marine propulsion units, akin to todays nuclear submarine
reactors, have also been looked into. The presently valid scaling laws
for fusion power gain lead to machine designs with a large mass that
are not suitable for mobile applications, but perhaps in the future
more favourable empirical scalings will have emerged and such
applications can be realised. Other applications include the combined
generation of electricity and hydrogen from a single fusion power
plant, as part of a hydrogen economy, and the use of fusion energy to
remove zinc and copper deposited in narrow features during the

machining process. To create a full tungsten surface in the divertor, a
process had to be developed for coating 2D carbon-fibre material with
thin layers of tungsten, which was challenging due to the anisotropic
expansion of the material. Guy Matthews, leader of EFDA-JETs
ITER-like Wall project
n What is the biggest obstacle to making fusion technology
commercially viable and what steps will we need to take after
ITER to get there? There are many challenges to creating a
viable fusion power plant, which is a complex integration of
many systems that are intricately connected such that no single
entity can be identified as the major obstacle. One of the most
interesting challenges is developing materials and manufacturing
processes that can withstand the hostile environment of a fusion
reactor where a high level of fast neutron irradiation causes damage
at the atomic structure level and creates impurities by nuclear
transmutation. This affects the bulk properties of the materials so that
structural design is complicated due to variation of the material
property throughout the body. When coupled with high heat flux and
surface erosion rates, these effects preclude the use of most common
structural materials; some special alloys have already been developed
for fusion applications but more work is needed. Elizabeth Surrey
To make fusion energy commercially viable, future fusion reactors
will need to produce a positive balance of energy to harness plasmas
for several hours, avoid too-expensive materials and find materials
that can withstand the heat loads and neutron fluxes expected in
Inside ITER: the

layout of the main
ITER buildings
grow biomass plants. Elizabeth Surrey

Fusion could be used as a source of neutrons. With ITER, we will
have proved that we can harness a plasma and produce a steady
stream of highly energetic neutrons. So an interesting question
is: can we find a better use for these neutrons? In a pure fusion
reactor, the 14MeV neutrons are slowed down in the blanket to
produce heat, but they are not used to their full potential. Another
solution could be to take advantage of their considerable energy to
induce fission reactions in a blanket that would include some fission
fuel, such as natural uranium (U 238) or thorium. By doing this, the
energy produced could be multiplied by a factor of 10. This is what
the hybrid reactor is about. ITER response
n How has JET advanced material science and what other possible
applications could there be for the materials created for JET? JET
has had to develop materials technologies to meet its goals. A good
example of the types of challenges and solutions is given by the
ITER-like Wall project, which involved replacement
of the carbon-fibre-reinforced carbon lining of the JET machine
with ITER-relevant beryllium and tungsten. Vacuum casting of
the high-strength alloy Inconel 625 was used to manufacture the
carriers that supported the bulk beryllium tiles. Prior to this, the
orthodox view was that cast components would not be viable in an
ultra-high vacuum due to gas trapped in leaky voids, but vacuum
casting followed by HIPing [annealing under high pressure] produced
fully acceptable components. The JET requirements
for beryllium machining also pushed the technology to the point that
R&D was required on the limits of wire erosion and methods to
a fusion plant. The aim of the ITER project is to gain the knowledge
necessary for the design of the next-stage device: a demonstration
fusion power plant. In ITER, scientists will study plasmas under
conditions similar to those expected in a future power plant. ITER
will be the first fusion experiment to produce net power; it will also
test key technologies, including heating, control, diagnostics and
remote maintenance.
But ITER is not an end in itself; it is the bridge towards a plant
that will demonstrate the production of electrical power and tritium
fuel self-sufficiency. This is the next step: the Demonstration Power
Plant [DEMO]. A conceptual design for such a machine could be
complete before 2020. If all goes well, DEMO will lead fusion into its
industrial era, putting fusion power into the grid as early as 2040.
There isnt one DEMO concept being discussed, but there are
concepts developed by various countries. We can mention here the
recent IAEA workshop in Los Angeles. ITER response
n What is your best estimate of when fusion power will be
able to supply electricity to the grid? The most recent European
roadmap foresees a demonstration fusion plant to put electricity on
the grid in the early 2040s. JET has demonstrated fusion power;
however, the challenge of making electricity continuously and at
a competitive price is considerable. This challenge involves the
development of materials that remain robust in the challenging
environment of a future fusion power station. Duarte Borba
feature:fusion Q&A
n Are there likely to be any problems in obtaining enough fuel to
run an industrys worth of power plants and, if so, how will we
tackle this issue? The fuels that will be used in fusion power
plants are deuterium and tritium. Deuterium is extracted from
seawater, so supplies are virtually limitless. Tritium is more of a
problem as its natural abundance is low and it must be produced
from lithium in nuclear reactors. A fusion reactor generating
1GW(e) at 40 per cent thermal efficiency will burn about 0.5kg of
tritium per day and the burn-up fraction of the tritium is around
three per cent, so 15kg of tritium must be circulated to generate
that 1GW(e). As the current world civil tritium stock is around 30kg,
it is essential for the fusion reactor to have an efficient tritium
breeding system. This is planned in the form of lithium-containing
blankets surrounding the tokamak in a fusion plant.
Present technology being developed uses the reaction between
the neutrons produced in the fusion process and lithium held within
a ceramic-beryllium matrix or as a LiPb eutectic liquid. The beryllium
and lead act as neutron multipliers as the blanket must produce
Module (TBM) project. The TBM programme will build on tritium

breeding studies that have been carried out for a number of years, in
particular by the EU. The accumulated knowledge permits a high
level of confidence that results from ITER will contribute to full
tritium self-sufficiency in next-generation devices. See also our video
on TBM. ITER response
n In your opinion, is support for fusion among politicians growing
or declining? Political support has increased, especially in China and
South Korea, where the desire to see commercial fusion is highest.
Support in Europe remains robust, which is crucial as Europe
contributes to almost half of the ITER costs. In the UK, there is good
support from the chief scientist to the UK government, Sir John
Beddington, and science minister David Willetts. Duarte Borba
I would say it is stable. This is actually a very good result, given the
current difficulties [economic and so on]. However, there
are big differences from one country to another. Germany, for
example, which is opposed to nuclear fission, is becoming very
critical about fusion. ITER response
n Several readers have questioned the value of committing such
large amounts of money to a project that has already taken many
years and isnt likely to produce a commercial solution to our
energy needs for decades to come, if at all. What would you say to
them to persuade them that fusion is a worthwhile investment?
Energy is fundamental to our lives and a key component in the
worlds economy, so spending on research into all forms of
alternative energy production should be much higher than it
presently is. Current spending on fusion is virtually negligible
when you consider the size of the energy market globally and
the scale of the problem that will face future generations if we
dont make an investment now.

The challenge of making
electricity continuously and a
competitive price is considerable
Duarte Borba, EFDA-JET
more than one tritium atom per incident fusion neutron [the tritium
breeding ratio, TBR] to be viable. Simulations imply TBRs around 1.2
may be achievable but, as yet, there is no source of 14MeV neutrons
of sufficient intensity to test these designs. Tritium can also be
trapped inside the fusion plant by the action of the plasma driving
the ions into the wall and diffusion effects. This increases the
required TBR; for carbon walls TBR~1.3 is needed, which is the
reason for abandoning this material in future tokamaks. Efficient
recovery and recirculation of the tritium is also necessary to the
fusion economy. Elizabeth Surrey
On paper, there is enough fuel to run fusion plants worldwide.
However, if the aim is to use a mix of deuterium and tritium, you
have to sort out the issue of tritium supply. Tritium virtually does not
exist in nature; it has a half-life of 12.5 years. So success relies on
breeding the tritium inside the reactor. One of the missions for the
later stages of ITER operation is to demonstrate the feasibility of one
or more concepts of tritium production through the Test Blanket
The intermittent availability of renewable energies, such

as solar and wind, limits their use for large-scale electricity
production in the absence of viable energy storage solutions.
Therefore, more research is required to further develop wind and
solar technologies, together with the development of Generation IV
fission stations, carbon capture and storage and fusion.
With energy demand growing at an alarming rate, fusion
energy has the potential to provide a long-term environmentally
responsible solution for baseload electricity production. Today at
JET, it is a fairly routine operation to heat plasmas to 200 million
degrees, initiate and maintain a fusion reaction in a controlled and
predictable way and understand and improve plasma performance.
ITER is designed to achieve an energy gain of at least 10 and should
demonstrate that a fusion power plant is feasible.
In David MacKays book, Sustainable energy without the hot air,
he says theres enough deuterium to supply every person in a
10-fold increased world population with a power of 30,000kWh per
day for one million years. It is this potential that justifies the fusion
programme. Duarte Borba
It is very simple: we cannot afford not doing ITER and not trying to
show that fusion could become a new energy source on Earth. If
ITER succeeds, it will open the doors not only to a new source of
energy on Earth but also to peace worldwide as the very large
inventory of hydrogen [the fusion fuel] on Earth is expected to
diminish geopolitical tensions. With regards to the money, the cost of
ITER construction is estimated at 13bn (10.5bn). This has to be
divided by 34 countries and 10 years. It is therefore a small amount
in the members budget. ITER response

interview:james truchard
National treasure
james
truchard
Co-founder, president
and chief executive,
National Instruments
Education
BS and MS in physics
and a PhD in electrical
engineering from Texas
University in Austin
Career
1976 Co-founds NI while still

working at Texas University
1980 NI sales reach $300,000
and Truchard leaves Texas
University to concentrate
full time on NI
1986 Introduces LabView
engineering software
1987 Receives one of the
first Texas High Technology
Entrepreneur awards
2007 Gets elected to
membership in the National
Academy of Engineering
2010 Gets named USs
Sixth Favorite CEO by
FORBES magazine and
Glassdoor.com
2011 Gets named One of
Austins 30 Most Influential
by the Austin Business
Journal
The co-founder of National Instruments believes

that the companys success is largely attributable
to its diverse customer base. Jon Excell reports
ts technology has helped

engineers put rovers on
the surface of Mars, aided
scientists in their search for
physics most elusive particles,
fuelled Formula One success
and assisted in the creation of
new energy sources and a host
of life-saving medical devices.
And although it may not
like a BAE Systems or a
Rolls-Royce be a household
name, few engineering groups
can claim to have had an impact
in as many different sectors as
National Instruments (NI).
Founded in Texas in 1976,
NI has grown over the last
four decades to become one
of the worlds top software
companies. Employing more
than 6,000 people, NI last year
posted a record annual revenue
of $1.02bn (621m). Today, its
flagship LabView product
which enables engineers to
program graphically by wiring
icons together instead of typing
text is perhaps the most
ubiquitous bit of engineering
software in existence.
And the credit for much
of this growth can be placed
with the companys co-founder
and chief executive Dr James
Truchard, or Dr T as hes
known by his colleagues.
Talking to The Engineer
during a visit to his companys
annual London NI Days
conference, Truchard, a quietly
spoken, charismatic Texan,
reflected on the dreams,
decisions and dumb luck
that have driven NIs success
and outlined an approach to
running a business that will
resonate with any technology
group looking to find its feet.
According to Truchard, the
company was born out of a
simple desire to do something
enjoyable. Working in a
research laboratory at Texas

University, and frustrated by
the bureaucracy of applying for
funding each year, he began to
weigh up his options. My goal
was to be able to define my
destiny, he said. I wanted to
create a job that I liked. I liked
working with technology, and
working with customers that
are scientists and engineers
seemed like a good idea.
So, in 1976, in the modest
surroundings of his garage,
Truchard and his university
colleagues Jeff Kodosky and
Bill Newlin launched NI.
Growth was initially fairly
sedate. It wasnt until 1980
that the three entrepreneurs
were able to devote themselves
full time to the project, and
LabView was still 10 years
away from commercialisation.
Instead, the trio started out
by making the general-purpose
interface bus (GPIB) for
connecting instrumentation to
microcomputers, which, in pure

technology terms, represented
a step back from some of the
more advanced stuff theyd
been doing in the lab. The
product we picked was based
on our skill set and how much
effort it would take to create,
said Truchard. We picked
GPIB interfaces even though
wed been working on some
very sophisticated computerbased measurement systems,
so we actually stepped back a
few steps in terms of what we
were doing to find an area in
which we could be successful.
The nascent company even
turned down an opportunity to
commercialise an instrument
theyd developed in the lab
because it would have put
them into direct competition
with their GPIB customers
a move described by Truchard
as very wise.
As the business grew, the
expanding team started to look
interview
Broad base: NIs technology

is used in a variety of
applications, from big
physics experiments to
industrial measurement

I wanted to
create a job I liked.
Working with
customers that
are scientists and
engineers seemed
like a good idea
around for new opportunities

and Kodosky began developing
LabView. He went off for two
years to try to figure out how
to do it and came up with a
solution that nobodys found
a better way of doing.
Truchard admitted that in
the beginning there was an
element of good fortune to
the companys early success.
Nothing beats dumb luck, he
said. We had a list of 10 things
we could do and we voted. That
seems like a pretty random
way to do things, and luck has
to play a role in the success.
Good fortune aside, the
overriding impression of the
companys early days is one
of considered and measured
growth rather apt
considering measurement is
very much NIs stock in trade.
Truchard believes this
gradual growth stemmed from
the companys self-financed
origins. There was no insatiable
demand for instant return from
investors who knew little about
the technology, and this
enabled he and his colleagues
to build a business that would
last and that would weather the
financial storms of the following
decades. We grew steadily
over the years, he said. If we
had been venture financed they
would have found it too slow,
but as a privately financed
company we were able to grow
at a pace where we learned
how to run the company.
Whats more, without

the pressure from external
investors, Truchard and his
colleagues could be absolutely
honest about the state of the
business, an approach that he
claims many smaller companies
today often over-anxious to
impress investors would do
well to mimic. Its important
to assess where you are when
you start. Many businesses fail
because they make assumptions
about where they are that
arent accurate and end up not
getting where they want to go.
This culture and approach
became so much a part of NI
that when the company finally
went public in 1995, Truchard
balanced his new investors
desire for 90-day cycles with a
bold 100-year plan: a roadmap
of goals designed to ensure the
company maintained its longterm perspective. He cites NIs
aggressive recruitment drive
and continued investment
in research and development
in the midst of a recession as
evidence that this approach is
still at the heart of the groups
corporate philosophy.
There are certainly lessons
to be learned from NIs sensible
approach to growth, but
ultimately, said Truchard,
the biggest reason for the
companys success is the fact
that its technology has such
a diverse customer base. If
youre locked to one sector
then almost invariably sooner
or later youre going to take a
downturn, but were very broad
based so theres good business
somewhere. We try to find
where people have got money
and are spending money,
which seems obvious in a
way. Go where the money is.
It makes perfect financial
sense. But perhaps more
importantly its also helped
Truchard and his colleagues
build a company that more than
satisfies the founding ambition
to create something enjoyable.
Were involved in all the big
challenges, he said. Theres a
lot of work going on in medical
areas, energy, communication.
We also work on big physics
projects such as fusion and
carbon sequestration. I like
to visit the big physics
experiments around the world,
the tokamaks, the accelerators,
the light sources Ive been
to CERN several times.

on this story
feature:UAVs
A drone
of your own
UK engineers are showing
how to bring the cost
of UAVs down to
earth. Stephen Harris reports
t was just two minutes into the flight when the team realised
something was wrong. Huddled around their tiny monitor, Dr
Stephen Prior and his PhD students watched the video feed from
the craft they had spent so many months building and realised it
was heading for a collision. Due to an unfortunate drop in the GPS
satellite signal, HALO had lost its orientation and was soon
spiralling towards the forest below. The crash broke one of the
rotary aircrafts arms, destroyed a motor and snapped all six of its
propellers. Due to head back to the UK the following day, Prior and
his team didnt have the time or the spare components to rebuild
their unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Like all the other eight
teams who had come to Fort Stewart, Georgia, to take part in
the UAV Forge competition, the group from Middlesex
University had failed to complete the task set by US military
research organisation DARPA and would be returning
home without the $100,000 (62,049) prize money.
UAV Forge was the culmination of five years work for
Priors team, which is now based at Southampton University. Back
in 2007, the team decided to turn its expertise in robotics to
entering another competition held by the Ministry of Defence
(MoD) to build an autonomous surveillance robot. Although they
were initially unsuccessful in getting it to fly, the group stuck with
the craft and by 2012 had proven its abilities enough to get to the
final of the DARPA event for UAVs costing less than $10,000.
Watching their creation plummet to the ground must have been
heart wrenching.
But the crash was by no means the end of the story for HALO.
The main body of the craft remained intact and its collision with
first the trees and then the ground helped demonstrate its relative
durability. It was sad to see it that way because wed put a lot of
effort into it, said Prior. But it was almost a good thing because we
proved that it can actually disintegrate. We rebuilt it in a day and
we were back flying when we got back to prove the point.
Although the team didnt win the prize money, it did score far
more points than any other group in the competition. Earlier in the
week, HALO had managed to fly the two miles of the course, hover
above the target building and return to its launch point. Sadly, it
was unable to complete the final requirement of landing on the
building and transmitting video footage back to base because the
surrounding trees were so high that they blocked its radio signal.
Coming first on the scoreboard, however, was an impressive
Ground control: the craft is controlled via a tablet PC, which

doubles as a groundstation
feature:UAVs
Video RepoRT
indepth
The ability of HALO to withstand harsh weather
conditions is more important than regulation
HALOs flight controller
enables the user to set a
destination and altitude and
the craft will then use GPS
to take off and fly to it
without further instruction.
With access to maps, it can
navigate the geological
landscape without crashing
into a hillside. What it
doesnt have is so-called
sense-and-avoid technology
to enable it to autonomously
change direction should it
encounter buildings, trees or
other aircraft. The user
currently has to watch the
crafts camera feed and
direct it away from such
obstacles.
Sense-and-avoid systems
will be crucial for craft
wanting to operate in
achievement for a vehicle

that four years earlier at the
MoDs Grand Challenge was
unable to get off the ground. The
key to getting HALO to work was
finding the right flight controller, the
Air permit:
electronic module that enables the
the Civil
craft to fly autonomously. Its the
Aviation Authority
brain of the whole thing and
is expected to open
controls all aspects of the
the skies to
flight, said Prior. Using a
regulated UAVs such
GPS receiver,
as HALO in the next
magnetometer,
few years
accelerometer,
barometer and
three-axis gyroscope, it works out
where the aircraft is and how to fly to
its programmed target. Given the devices importance, the team
understandably went for the best, most expensive flight controller
it could get hold of. The problem was that the company that
provided it hadnt designed it for UAVs. What it had to do is take
one of its helicopter modules and convert it for something we
wanted, said PhD student Mehmet Ali Erbil, who forms Priors
team together with Mantas Brazinskas and Witold Mielniczek.
There were about 1,500 variables that we had to calibrate in the
system We werent flight control experts at the time. We didnt
know anything about it. We wanted to plug it all in and off it goes.
Prior added: Back in 2007 there wasnt as much choice as there
is now. In the last five years a lot has changed and there are many
companies with smaller, faster and cheaper flight controllers We
could make our own flight controller and build the whole thing from
scratch. It would take a long time and cost a lot of money but it
would be exactly how you want it. What we were trying to do was
find something commercial off the shelf that was relatively low cost
but had already done all the trial and error, and the user interface
was built, making it more practical for the user.
The DJI Wookong FC controller the team chose was particularly
suited to the so-called Y6 configuration of HALOs propellers. The
team decided on a rotary rather than a fixed-wing design because
of the likely need to hover in the air as it films its targets. After
experimenting with different rotary arrangements they settled on a
civilian airspace at high

altitudes and out of the line
of sight of the user, once the
UK Civil Aviation Authority
(CAA) opens up airspace to
UAVs. But Dr Stephen Prior
believes that this isnt the
most important concern for
HALO, a surveillance vehicle
that is unlikely to fly at high
altitudes because of the
heavier camera that would
be needed to provide
better-resolution images.
Probably more important for
us is to be able to cope with
weather conditions, he said.
Wind is a big thing, and
obviously snow, rain, hail
and frost. Those are perhaps
more pressing issues than
the red herring of CAA open
space.
design of three carbon-fibre arms jutting out from a central body,

each supporting two co-axial rotors, one above the other and
spinning in opposite directions.
There is a forfeit in that the two rotors do influence each other
and do interfere, said Prior. You lose a little bit of power through
that mechanism, but it is the small size of the whole thing that
allows us to have relatively large props but in a compact
configuration. The design also means that the craft can keep flying
and perform a controlled descent if one propeller is knocked out,
unlike those UAVs with four rotors. This configuration also helped
with the greatest challenge: reducing the mass as much as possible
in order to get the greatest use out of the lithium polymer battery,
which itself accounts for one-third of the crafts total mass. Through
several iterations refining the design down to its most essential
features the team was able to get the mass down to 2.5kg and
increase time between battery charges to 30 minutes.
The craft is controlled via a tablet PC mounted inside the crafts
carry case, which is small enough to be carried on the users back
and doubles as a groundstation by mounting it on the tripod
antenna. This setup reflects both the rules of the UAV Forge
competition and the application for which Prior hopes that HALO
could eventually be used: creating a low-cost, easy-to-use
surveillance robot for the British army.We want to get this into the
hands of the user, he said. We see soldiers dying every day for the
want of being able to see someone waiting to take a shot at them.
These tools are available and capable. They are within reach and
theres no reason why apart from the price tag they shouldnt
have more of these in service with the British military.
There are many obstacles to overcome to reach this point, of
course. As well as battery life and general robustness, the team will
have to solve the communications problem that prevented it from
winning DARPAs prize money, and theres no easy answer to this.
Prior is focusing on creating a more efficient, directional antenna
system rather than beaming out signals from the UAV in all
directions. With the UK Civil Aviation Authority expected to open
the skies to regulated UAV use in the next few years, the HALO
team could be well poised to help bring unmanned aircraft into the
mainstream if it can crack this problem.

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feature:3D printing
Home
makers
3D printing has helped
fuel a new generation
of DIY producers. Ellie
Zolfagharifard reports
new breed of
entrepreneurs,
hidden away in
bedrooms, basements
and garages, are about
to unleash their talent
on the rest of the world.
The movement, which
has rapidly gained
momentum over the
past few years, could
see manufacturing
shift away from mass
production towards
a model of mass
customisation.
The emergence of
these innovators has
been fuelled by 3D
printing, a technique that
builds up solid objects layer by layer.
The technology, also known as additive
manufacturing, has been used in industry since the
1980s. Back then it was the preserve of large engineering companies,
mainly in the aerospace and motorsport sectors, with a typical
machine costing anything between $100,000 to $1m.
The high costs were partly due to the patents held on the
machines. What is really interesting is, over the past few years, we
are seeing a lot of the patents expiring and becoming available to
entrepreneurs, said Andrew Sissons, a researcher at Lancaster
Universitys Big Innovation Centre. Its not necessarily the inventors
of the technology who are the ones to take it forward. We are about
to see an explosion where 3D printers will be used not just in
factories but in shops and in the home.
Adrian Bowyer, a retired lecturer from Bath University and founder
of the RepRap (replicating rapid-prototyper) project, has been a major
driver in bringing 3D printing to the masses. In 2005, Bowyer had ->
Mass appeal: once the

preserve of large engineering
firms, 3D printing is now becoming
available to the masses

Its not necessarily inventors who
will take it forward. We are about to see
an explosion where 3D printers will be
used not just in factories but in the
home Andrew Sissons, Lancaster University
feature:3D printing
the idea of creating a 3D printer
that could print parts to replicate
itself. He achieved this in 2008
and made the files open source,
allowing anyone to build their
own printer for around 300. Since
then, thousands of people have
downloaded, modified and
improved his designs.
There are currently more
than 2,500 RepRap machines
throughout the world. The project
means anyone with a good idea can
produce a printer and later a design
for a fraction of the cost. The
technique frees designers from the
constraints of traditional
manufacturing processes, allowing
them to create intricate
geometries with very little
waste. The method varies
among 3D printers but, in
general, starts with software
most of which is now free
online to create
an STL file.
The STL file divides
the design into triangular
facets, allowing the machine
to read the designs. The
machine then deposits
successive layers of material,
which can either be in liquid,
powder or sheet form. The
layers are jointed together
automatically to create the final
design, corresponding to the initial computer model. Some of the
more common techniques include fused deposition modelling (FDM),
selective laser melting (SLM) and multi-jet modelling (MJM). All have
in common the ability to manufacture customised products for a
fraction of the cost anywhere in the world.
A company set up last year by Nick Allen, 3D Print UK, allows
entrepreneurs to send their STL files in to be created by his
machine. He notes that there has been a spike in activity from DIY
designers who have been inspired by tools such as Thingiverse, a
Low cost: Israeli firm Objet is

helping to usher in a new era
of low-cost 3D printing
site where people upload and
share their designs. Every project
I receive is completely different,
he said. Everything and anything
has come through. Ive had stuff
from 12-year-old boys whove
designed something on Google
SketchUp in their bedrooms, to
Bugatti, to lots of intermediate
designers who are creating small
products such as iPhone cases.
Allen believes the technologys
strength will remain in the creation
of prototypes, but others in the
industry are more optimistic.
A growing number of
companies are using these
improvements to produce
end products, a process
known as direct digital
manufacturing (DDM).
According to industry
consultant Terry Wohlers,
currently around 28 per cent
of money spent on the 3D
printing technology is on
printing final products. He
believes this will rise to
more than 50 per cent by
2016 and more than 80 per
cent by 2020.
With improvements in
materials and processes, the speed of development for DDM has
been rapid. Last month, Warwick University announced that it had
developed a material called carbomorph that could be used within
3D printers. The group was able to build a functional computer game
controller made entirely from carbomorph by laying down electronic
tracks and sensors as part of the 3D structure. Meanwhile, scientists
at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine have created
a hybrid 3D printer that can create implantable human cartilage.
Another group, at Southampton University, has a printed unmanned

Industry consultant Terry Wohlers
believes money spent on printing final
products will rise to more than 80 per
cent by 2020
aircraft from laser-sintered nylon.

Bowyers daughter, Sally, has followed in her fathers footsteps as
director of RepRapPro. She is impressed by commercial
achievements in the field but believes, with improved materials and
DDM capabilities, the future of 3D printing is with DIY designers in
the home. Ive grown up with 3D printers around the house and for
me it seems silly that people wouldnt have one, she said. My mum
hates it because our house is held together with bits of plastic.
Whenever anything breaks, my Dad says I will just design a new
part and print it out. There are real practical uses.
According to Sissons, policymakers still need to be convinced
about its economic benefits. Britain is a leader in online retail and
renowned for its design engineering, he said. The country is in a
good position to take things forward if we can support innovators in
3D printing. Government shouldnt be taking any chances. The
question is, when will 3D printing hit that point when it is a
competitor to mass production?
Do it yourself: there are 2,500
RepRap machines in the world
The Trusted Leader
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NI data acquisition products are the most trusted computer-based measurement devices
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available, offering superior accuracy and maximum performance. NI CompactDAQ

systems feature more than 50 measurement-specific modules and complete breadth and
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careers:UAE
Gulf stream
High-profile energy projects are offering increased opportunities
for engineers in the UAE. Ellie Zolfagharifard reports
he United Arab Emirates (UAE), one

of the Middle Easts most important
economic forces, has undergone a
spectacular transformation. Since 1962,
when Abu Dhabi became the first of the
Emirates to export oil, the region has
grown from a quiet backwater to a fastmoving hub of activity.
With expatriates from more than 150
countries making up 85 per cent of the
countrys population, the UAE is leading
the rest of the world in net migration.
While it was the oil industry that first
attracted foreign workers to the region, an
aggressive strategy of diversification has
created a range of opportunities for
engineers in areas such as construction
and energy.
Each of its states Abu Dhabi, Dubai,
Ajman, Ras al Khaimah, Fujairah, Sharjah
and Umm al Qaiwain has its own
strengths. Dubai, for instance, has set itself
up to be the cosmopolitan gateway of the
particularly those that are British and

American, has been to use the market in
Qatar to start recruiting and increasing
resources in the UAE.
A recent survey by jobs board Naukri
Gulf suggests that more than half of
recruiters in the Gulf Cooperation Council
(GCC) are expecting to hire in the coming
quarter. The gap between demand and
supply for skilled workers is a major issue
with employers finding it most difficult to
hire talent at the four-to-eight years
experience level. While current demand is
being driven from neighbouring countries,
the UAE is beginning to revitalise its talent
pool for projects in 2013.
From a career perspective it is probably
the only place where you will go from the
ridiculous to the sublime in terms of the
types of projects you could be working on,
said Sagoo. Something such as the Shard
comes up once in a blue moon in the UK.
As a construction engineer in the UAE, the

The UAE is currently
leading the development
of nuclear power in the
Middle East
Middle East. The credit boom, coupled with
changes in the laws of foreign ownership,
allowed ambitious projects such as the Burj
Khalifa the worlds tallest man-made
structure to be realised during a period
of frantic activity and investment.
This activity was short lived when the
construction market in Dubai crashed
dramatically following the 2007 global
financial crisis. But the past two years has
seen resurgence in investor confidence.
Gurminder Sagoo, head of Middle East
business development at engineering
consultants, WSP, believes the
announcement of the 2022 FIFA World
Cup in neighbouring Qatar has been an
important catalyst in resurrecting the
industry.
The region here is quite interesting
because it is a bit of a showcase, he said.
Everyone wants to have the best projects
and the best city. With activity ramping
up in Qatar you saw some developers in
Dubai starting to revitalise the projects
that came to an end in 2008 The trend
for engineering consultancies,
Solar farm: Masdars 100MW

Shams 1 solar project
chances are you will get to work on two, if

not, three iconic projects. That is what is
exciting about it out here, the bizarreness
of what you could be working on at quite a
young age.
Opportunities for engineers in the UAE
are also increasingly found in the power
generation, transmission and distribution
sector. Historically, the majority of the
power capacity in the region has come from
natural gas and crude-oil-fired plants. With
rising crude prices on the global energy
markets, the region has been attempting to
diversify its energy mix. The UAE is
leading the development of nuclear power
in the area, with plans to build four
reactors at a cost of $20bn (12.5bn).
According to recent figures by the
Saudi-based Arab Petroleum Investment
Corp (Apicorp), the region needs to pump
nearly $107bn into energy projects over the
next five years. With its natural suitability
to solar power, projects such as the Masdar
careers:UAE
Constructive view: The Burj Khalifa is the
worlds tallest man-made structure

As a construction
engineer in the UAE, the
chances are you will get
to work on two, if not,
three iconic projects
Gurminder Sagoo, WSP
100MW Shams 1 solar project in Abu Dhabi

have already driven renewable energy
expertise into the area. Further projects are
in the pipeline, with Dubai Electricity &
Water Authority (DEWA) announcing plans
for a 1,000MW solar power plant.
For both the construction and energy
sectors, western-educated engineers are in
high demand. But as Jon Lauriston, senior
consultant in engineering at Morgan
McKinley, warns, apprenticeships are not
valued as highly as they are in the UK.
Masters degrees tend to have more weight
with employers, as do engineers who are
business-minded and work well under
pressure. In return, engineers can expect,
on average, a 150 per cent increase in the
salary package. According to Lauriston, in
terms of cash in hand, engineers are around
twice as well off as they are in the UK.
The biggest mistake people make is
that they dont really do any research on
the region they are looking to live and work
in, said Lauriston. People look at the

Middle East as one and the same. Parts of
UAE feel very Western so you dont really
miss anything from home, but there are
regions that are not like that. Another
misconception is that people still think its
ridiculously expensive out here, but its not.
You can get property for around half the
price you did in 2008 it really is a great
time to be out here. There are probably 20
projects larger than the Olympics in Britain
going on in each country in GCC.
Overall, the UAE economy is thought
to have grown by four per cent this year.
People always say that growth this time
will be a lot more sustainable, that
development will not get as crazy as it did
in the times before 2008, said Sagoo.
Unfortunately, in reality, when times are
good people forget the bad times and chase
the money. That is natural the minute
that pattern happens, the rate of growth
means jobs may not last as long.
But, added Sagoo, while jobs in the UAE
may be largely short to medium term, the
region can provide unrivalled opportunities
for engineers. Ive seen a lot of engineers
come here and do quite well. They live a
good lifestyle, the weathers great and they
work on nice projects.
Click here to view the latest

engineering career opportunities
careers
Find the latest jobs at www.theengineeringjobs.co.uk

To advertise, contact Mauro Marenghi t:020 7970 4187 e: mauro.marenghi@centaur.co.uk
Electrical Regional
Sales Manager
25,000 - 32,000
+ Bonuses
+ Car
+ Benefits
(75K OTE)
Leeds, Durham,
Leamington Spa, Fareham
SUPPORTING EXCELLENCE
Description:
A sales career with the UKs largest SolidWorks (CAD) vendor.
We are looking to recruit a Regional Sales Manager for the SolidWorks Electrical
product range. This is an exciting opportunity to sell one of our newest products,
taking advantage of the established SolidWorks brand. We have an extensive
client-base, plus a strong record for delivering customer satisfaction and the
opportunities exist to easily exceed targets/earnings.
We will offer full training and career development to an individual with the drive and
commitment to go the extra mile.
Your Experience:
An electrical engineering background with at least 2 years relevant experience is
essential but a prior sales role is not, as training is provided. If you have good
academic qualifications, have the ability to think laterally and are keen to focus your
energy on the needs of our design customers, we would like to hear from you.
The Role:
To find and convert SolidWorks Electrical opportunities as new business or from
within our existing client-base. The successful candidate will also be responsible for
developing and managing these clients electrical needs moving forward.
To Apply:
Please send your CV to Alan Sampson: recruitment@solidsolutions.co.uk
www.theengineer.co.uk/jobs
Premier engineering vacancies
in print and online
more than 1,000 jobs listed every day from

the worlds leading engineering companies
Follow us on
Connect with us on
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careers
The place to find products and services

To advertise, contact Daniel Gray t:020 7970 4337 e: daniel.gray@centaur.co.uk
Fine Pitch
Precision Gears
Water jet is a cold cutting process which is capable
of cutting profiles from virtually any material up to
200mm thick. ICEE also offers fibre laser cutting
which is faster and uses less heat than conventional
lasers for thinner metal sheets for a fast turnaround.
Also available is a full sheet metal fabrications and
bespoke enclosure manufacturing.
Contact ICEE for a quote today.
Fine pitch ground gears

Brass gears
Gears range from 0.2 module
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Selected gears available for
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sales@icee.co.uk
02392 230604 option 1
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Bespoke precision
gears to order
Tel: +44 (0) 1484 601060

www.rpmechatronics.co.uk
12/10/2012 15:18
Lorien further develops global reach
Lorien Engineering Solutions has demonstrated its growing global reach over the last 12 months
working with clients in Japan, China, the USA and New Zealand.
Tony Reynolds, compliance manager at Lorien, has been advising a division of Kodak which
manufactures bespoke printing and book binding machines as well as a bread slicing and
bagging machinery supplier in Los Angeles and a basket conveying system engineering company
in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Lorien has recently been awarded its fifth Order of
Distinction from RoSPA recognising its continued
commitment to workplace safety. Our specialist skills
in areas such as CE Marking of production lines and
DSEAR/ATEX assessments provide clients with a onestop shop when it comes to safety best practice during
capital investment projects, Tony concluded.
Tel: +44 (0) 1543 444244

www.lorienengineering.com
New Rittal CS Enclosure
To overcome the problems associated with the need to design, source and build outdoor enclosures
to order, Rittal has a range of CS basic aluminium enclosures available from stock and ready for
immediate use. Specifically designed to house sophisticated communications and electronics
equipment in outdoor environments and to protect the internal components against outdoor
influences such as temperature variations and penetrating rain. Rittal CS enclosures are ideal to use
in applications such as telecommunications, traffic guidance and signalling through to gas, water
and the electricity supply industry where the installed equipment is
either passive or has minimal heat loss. Available in a range of standard
sizes with either single or double doors, all Rittals CS enclosures are of
a solid construction with an open base suitable for immediate mounting
on a standard plinth, including an integral rain canopy and inbuilt
ventilation. Internal mounting, based on accessories from Rittals
market leading TS 8 range, allows an extensive range of configurations
to be quickly and simply achieved for the perfect solution.
Email: information@rittal.co.uk
Tel: 01709 704000 www.rittal.co.uk
Norbar sponsors Bloodhound land speed record bid
Banbury based Norbar Torque Tools has joined the list of specialist companies, educational
and professional organisations supplying products, services and expertise to the
Bloodhound SSC (Super Sonic Car) project, that aims to push the world land speed record
to an incredible 1,000 mph. As a Product Sponsor for the project, Norbar is supplying a
range of torque wrenches, measurement equipment and their consultancy expertise in
ultrasonic bolt testing.
Bloodhound SSC will be driven for this record breaking bid by Andy Green, who set the
existing land speed record of 763 mph driving Thrust SCC
in 1997. The new land speed record attempt will take place
in 2013 in the Northern Cape desert region of South Africa.
Further information about the project and its history can be
found at www.bloodhoundssc.com.
Tel: +44 (0)1295 270333

www.norbar.com
Slimline switching solutions from Weidmuller

Weidmuller has introduced its new TERMSERIES range of relay modules and solidstate relays with one or two changeover contacts housed in a slim line design with
screw or tension clamp connectivity. Housed in widths of just 6.4 mm and 12.8 mm the
compact design means they require very little space on the mounting rail and makes
it possible to plan and implement smaller electrical cabinets.
Users are able to choose between products
with fixed voltage inputs and a unique multivoltage input version, which allows signals from
24-230 V AC/DC to be conditioned with just a
single module.
For more information visit

www.weidmuller.co.uk or call 0845 094 2006.

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See what you missed at NIDays 2012: download presentations,

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06 Technology Sail system could

10 Design Device detects threats in

07 Technology Test success for

12 Business Fuel exemption

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14 Digest The Engineer crossword

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Setting sail to decrease

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ELISE testing rig will

Plastic bulb could

NASA plans further

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6 | theEnGineeR | DECEMBER 2012

community, largely made up

A tape measure will spring

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SABRE looks sharp for space

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Technology utilises jet turbine and rocket technology

British engineers have successfully tested new

The SABRE engine technology could power

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More eyes for the keyhole

Keyhole surgery could become

vessel or nerve from accidental