Engineering alliance picks up Partnership Award

A partnership to develop new electrical steels has picked up an award for innovation.

Cardiff University’s alliance with Cogent Power – a business within Tata Steel – spans several decades.

The relationship has grown from an original programme of measurement and characterisation to support the development of new materials, processes and products.

Together, the partners are working on exciting new research, including the reduction of transformer noise and the manufacture of high-efficiency motor-generators for electric and hybrid vehicles in collaboration with innovative customers.

The project has won the Partnership Award at this year’s Cardiff University Innovation and Impact Awards.

Lead academic Dr Phil Anderson, School of Engineering, said: “The collaboration has allowed the University to develop a world-class reputation for electrical steel research with direct industrial application, whilst Cogent Power has benefitted from the breadth and depth of the School’s expertise in this field...”

Electrical steels are used in the soft magnetic cores of electricity generators, transformers and motors in many applications. As government and business seek to reduce the environmental impact of fossil fuels, the technology has a key role to play in a cleaner, greener world.

Mark Cichuta, Director of Product & Process Development at Cogent Power, said: “The collaboration has enabled Cogent to extend its technical and research capability by utilising the expertise of the Cardiff University team. It has also been able to develop relationships via the pan European Horizon 2020 scheme and other collaboration instruments.

"Wider collaborative ideas have been formulated, including a joint doctoral training centre for electrical steels, which we hope to create in the next two to three years.”

The joint work programme has covered topics including: linking material microstructure and magnetic performance; surface engineering mechanics and new coatings development; and application specific characterisation and optimisation.

The collaboration has enabled lead academics to build an international reputation through a portfolio of high quality published research and PhD projects.

Since 2015/16, Cogent has supported more than a dozen School of Engineering undergraduate projects and industry placement years across industrial research in electrical steels.

Voting is open until 11:00 on Wednesday 21 June.