Metallic materials are indispensable to modern human life. From everyday items such as aluminium drinks cans, to advanced applications like jet engine turbine blades and the pressure vessels of nuclear reactors, the positive social impact of metals is difficult to overstate. Yet despite major advances in our understanding of the manufacture and properties of metals, significant challenges remain. Constructing the next generation of electric cars will require improved lightweight alloys and joining technologies. Development of fusion power plants, which will provide near-limitless carbon-free energy, will require the development of advanced alloy systems capable surviving the extreme environments found inside reactors. For the next generation of hypersonic air and space vehicles, we require propulsion systems capable of over Mach 5. Alloys will need to survive 1800 degrees Celsius, be made into complex shapes, and be joined without losing any of their properties. Overcoming these challenges by improving existing metallic materials, developing new ones, and adapting manufacturing methods, then the benefits will be substantial. Now is a particularly exciting time to be involved in metallurgical research and manufacturing. This is not only because of the kinds of compelling challenges specified above, but also because of the opportunities afforded by the emergence of new advanced manufacturing technologies. Innovative techniques such as 3D printing are enabling novel shapes and design concepts to be realised, whilst the latest solid-state processes allow for the design and production of bespoke alloys that cannot be made by conventional liquid casting techniques. Industry 4.0, or the fourth industrial revolution, provides opportunities to optimise emerging and established technologies through the use of material and process data and advanced computational techniques. In order to fully exploit these opportunities, we need to understand the complex relationships between the processing, structure, properties and performance of materials, and link these to the digital manufacturing environment. To deliver the factories of tomorrow, which will be critical to the future strength of UK plc and the wider economy, industry will require more specialists with a thorough understanding of metallic materials science and engineering. These metallurgists should also have the professional and technical leadership skills to exploit emerging computational and data-driven approaches, and be well versed in equality and diversity best practice, such that they can effect positive changes in workplace culture. The EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Advanced Metallic Systems will help to deliver these specialists, currently in short supply, by recruiting and training cohorts of high level scientists and engineers. Through collaboration with industry, and a comprehensive training in fundamental materials science and computational methods, professional skills, and equality and diversity best practice, our graduates will be equipped to become future research leaders and captains of industry.

Surface degradation processes, such as corrosion and wear have very significant societal, economic and safety implications. These degradation processes impact a large number of industrial sectors including, transport (marine & automotive), aerospace, nuclear, oil and gas and their respective supply chains. Corrosion alone costs industry globally $2 trillion each year, of which £55 billion per annum is the cost to the UK and $1.37 billion per year the cost to the global Oil & Gas sector. The resulting cost of wear to the UK economy is estimated at £24 billion per annum, approximately 1.6% of the country's GDP. This programme seeks to tackle this age old problem through harnessing advances in computer modelling, experimental techniques at the atomic level, in operando imaging and characterisation and accessing previously untapped in-field data sets to obtain fresh insights into materials surface degradation under the demanding environments in which they operate. BP invest heavily in research development and innovation and have developed a long term, successful collaboration with the University of Manchester (UoM). In 2012, BP founded the BP International Centre for Advanced Materials (BP-ICAM) a $100m, 10 year investment to address challenges across BP's core business. Following a 'Materials Technology Outlook' workshop hosted by BP, surface degradation was identified as a high priority area for future research with the potential for transformational change. The workshop felt there was an opportunity to replace industrial empiricism with mechanistically driven approaches by exploiting advances in-operando techniques and multiscale modelling to ask fundamental research questions about the nucleation and growth of corrosion scales and tribofilms and how to control them through inhibitors, lubricants and surface coatings and treatments. This Prosperity Partnership will enable us to complement the applied research undertaken within BP-ICAM asking more fundamental research questions about surface degradation than BP-ICAM could tackle. Further this challenge requires additional skills beyond those provided by the ICAM partners and so will benefit from key expertise in the behaviour of materials in high pressure environments and tribocorrosion from the Universities of Edinburgh and Leeds respectively. The preventing surface degradation in demanding environments team will look at how both corrosion scales and tribofilms initiate, grow, and breakdown through a multiscale appreciation identify ways to inhibit or prevent degradation under very demanding environments. This project will consider both the chemical and mechanical effects of surface degradation by understanding the key interaction between the material surface and near surface (10-100nm) fluid environment. It integrates advanced surface analysis studies of realistic conditions in oil and gas operations to gain a better understanding of degradation issues. It is timely as recent advances in the power of computational modelling and imaging enable researchers to look across length and time scales and observe dynamic systems and 'real world' conditions. Finally the basic understanding developed in the laboratory will be held up against big in-field data sets from BP to inform and challenge the research. Through these fundamental insights into the mechanisms underlying surface degradation, this programme will; develop reliable predictive multi-scale models of surface degradation; present new materials systems for protection against, and prevention of, corrosion and wear; create new standardised tests for industry to use in the evaluation of degradation and propose new mitigation strategies to extend operational lifetimes.

This proposal seeks to develop a set of modelling protocols to design, characterize and invent macromolecular materials for molecular capture, separation and detection. The approach combines multi-scale modelling of the structural, dynamic, electronic and optical properties of the target materials with an evolutionary algorithm (EA) approach to the selection of material designs with optimised functionality. Microscopic modelling will provide the relationship between chemical and physical structure and the fitness parameters to be optimized during the EA, while multi-scale modelling and comparison with experiment allow evaluation of the proposed structures. As examples of technologically relevant material systems, we will first study membranes for molecular separations, including small molecule separation and desalination. The methods will then be adapted to other applications, specifically porous polymer materials for photocatalysis and optical sensing, and conjugated polymer based ion sensors. An ancillary aim is to evaluate the EA approach as a tool for materials discovery.

More than 80% of world energy today is provided by thermal power systems through combustion of fossil fuels. Because of their higher energy density and the extensive infrastructure for their supply, liquid fuels will remain the dominant energy source for transport for at least next few decades according to 2019 BP Energy Outlook report. In order to decarbonise the transport sector, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change highlights the important role that biofuels and other alternative fuels such as hydrogen and e-fuels could, in some scenarios provide over 50% of transport energy by 2050. The importance of the renewable transport fuel is also recognized by the UK Government's revised Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation published in April 2018 which sets out the targeted amount of biofuels to 12.4% to be added to regular pump fuel by 2032. In practice, there are several obstacles which hinder the application of low-carbon and zero-carbon fuels. As a zero-carbon fuel, hydrogen can be produced and used as an effective energy storage and energy carrier at solar and wind farms. But its storage and transport remain a significant challenge for its wider usage in engines due to the complexity and substantial cost of setting up multiple fuel supply infrastructure and on-board fuelling systems. Although the low-carbon renewable liquid fuels, such as ethanol and methanol produced from hydrogen and CO2, can be used with the existing fuel supply systems, the significantly lower energy density, which is about half of that of gasoline/diesel, makes them unfavourable to be directly applied in the existing engines for various applications (e.g. automotive, flying cars, light aircraft, heavy duty vehicles, etc.) with high requirements on power density. Whilst there is a drive to move towards electrification to meet the reduction of the carbon emissions, it is vital to innovate developments in advanced hybrid electrical and engine powertrain to provide additional options for future low-carbon transport. This research aims to carry out ground-breaking research on three innovative technologies covering both fuels and propulsion systems: nanobubble fuels and Nano-FUGEN system, fuel-flexible BUSDICE and DeFFEG system. The technologies either in isolation or as a hybrid have the potential to make a major contribution in addressing the challenge of decarbonising the transport sector. At first, I will explore how the nanobubble fuel (nano-fuel) concept can be used as a carrier for renewable gas fuels in liquid fuels in the form of nanobubbles. The technology can be implemented with minimal new development to the combustions engines and hence has the potential to make immediate impact on reducing CO2 emissions through better engine efficiency and increased usage of renewable energy. Secondly, a novel 2-stroke fuel-flexible BUSDICE (Boosted Uniflow Scavenged Direct Injection Combustion Engine) concept will be systematically researched and will involve development work for adapting to be used with both conventional fossil fuels and low-carbon renewable fuels (e.g. ethanol and methanol) and simultaneously achieve superior power performance and ultra-low emissions. At last, based on the developed BUSDICE concept, a Dedicated Fuel-Flexible Engine Generator (DeFFEG) will be further developed by integrating a linear generator and a gas spring chamber, therefore enabling advanced electrification and hybridisation for a range of applications, including automotive, aviation and marine industries. Overall, the proposed project is an ambitious and innovative study on the fundamentals and applications of the proposed fuel and propulsion technologies. The research not only has great potential to bring about new and fruitful academic research areas, but also will help to develop next-generation fuel and propulsion technologies towards meeting Government ambitions targets for the future low-carbon and zero-carbon transport.

CASCADE will be a keystone in the current aerial robotics revolution. This programme will reach across a wide range of applications from fundamental earth science through to industry applications in construction, security, transport and information. There is a chasm between consumer level civilian drone operations and high cost military applications. CASCADE will realise a step change in aerial robotics capability and operations. We will be driven by science and industry problems in order to target fundamental research in five key areas; Integration, Safety, Autonomy, Agility, Capability and Scalability as well as overall project methodology. In targeting these six areas, CASCADE will free up current constraints on UAV operations, providing case study data, exemplars, guidance for regulation purposes and motivating links across the science and engineering divide. The landscape of aerial robotics is changing rapidly and CASCADE will allow the UK to be at the forefront of this revolution. This rapid change is reflected by the wide range of terminology used to describe aerial robots including; Drones, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Remotely Piloted Aerial Systems, and Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (SUAS). Supporting technologies driving the aerial robotics revolution include improved battery technologies, actuators, sensors, computing and regulations. These have all significantly expanded the possibilities offered by smart, robust, adaptable, affordable, agile and reliable aerial robotic systems. There are many environmental challenges facing mankind where aerial robots can be of significant value. Scientists currently use resource intensive research ships and aircraft to study the oceans and the atmosphere. CASCADE will focus on reducing these costs and at the same time increasing capability. Some mission types involve prohibitive risks, such as volcano plume sampling and flight in extreme weather conditions. CASCADE will focus on managing these risks for unmanned systems, operating in conditions where it is not possible to operate manned vehicles. Similarly, there are many potentially useful commercial applications such as parcel delivery, search and rescue, farming, inspection, property maintenance, where aerial robots can offer considerable cost and capability benefits when compared to manned alternatives. CASCADE will focus on bringing autonomous aerial capabilities to a range of industry applications. For both scientific and industry purposes, CASCADE will consider a range of vehicle configurations from standard rotary and fixed wing through to hybrid and multi modal operations. These will bring unique capabilities to challenging operations for which there is no conventional solution. At present, because of concerns over safety, there are strict regulations concerning where and how aerial robots can be operated. Permissions for use are granted by the UK Civil Aviation Authority and operations are generally not permitted beyond line of sight, close to infrastructure or large groups of people, or more than 400 feet from the ground. These regulations currently restrict many of the potentially useful applications for aerial robots. CASCADE aims to undertake research into key underpinning technologies that will allow these to be extended or removed by working with regulating authorities to help shape the operating environment for future robotic systems. CASCADE will prove fundamental research through a wide variety of realistic CASE studies. These will be undertaken with academic and industry partners, focussing on demonstrating key technologies and concepts. These test missions will undertake a wide range of exciting applications including very high altitude flights, aerial robots that can also swim, swarms of sensor craft flying into storms, volcanic plumes and urban flights. Through these CASCADE will provide underpinning research, enable and educate users and widely support the aerial robotics revolution.