Postgraduate research opportunities Health monitoring to detect pre-fault conditions for integrated electrical power – carbon fibre composite structure systems

Applications are invited for a funded four-year PhD scholarship, which is interdisciplinary in nature, spanning the areas of electrical power systems, machine learning and materials. 

The successful candidate will work as a member of the established aero-electrical research team within the Institute for Energy and Environment, alongside a wider team of specialists in electrical power systems, including the Aero-Electrical and Intelligent Systems Teams. The research will be in close collaboration with an industrial partner, providing significant insight into the electrification of flight. The successful candidate will be supported and trained by experts at NPL and will have access to NPL facilities and equipment relevant to the project.

The pathway to decarbonisation of air travel is via a combination of technology, operations and fuels.  Electrification and lightweight structures (predominantly CFRP) have been identified as two of the key enabling technologies to support the pathway to decarbonisation of air travel.  Electrical propulsion for flight is a disruptive technology, necessitating a step change in the power rating of the on-board electrical power system, from ~1.5 MW to multi-MW systems, and the design and development of new, flight critical electrical power systems, which must have appropriate resilience.  A particular challenge is the hazardous environment that the aero-electrical power system must operate in, with high levels of vibration, extreme temperature and low atmospheric pressure.  These all contribute to system degradation, and ultimately electrical faults.  It would be highly advantageous to be able to detect and locate this degradation at an early stage, before an electrical fault can occur.  This requires the design and implementation of appropriate data driven heath monitoring approaches, and is a key focus of this PhD.  Hence the PhD will open up a new area of research, branching out from ongoing research on fault diagnostics and protection for integrated electrical power and composite structure design, into health monitoring and prognostics for these systems.

As part of the project, the successful candidate will also benefit from the training delivered as part of the University of Strathclyde’s Postgraduate Certificate in Researcher Professional Development.  The successful candidate will also gain access to professional development opportunities from NPL via training and support offered through the Postgraduate Institute for Measurement Science.