The School of Engineering is part of a network of leading UK universities and international industry bodies aiming to accelerate the switch to green energy and propulsion across road, rail, sea and air freight modes. Three academics from our School are representing the University of Edinburgh in the network: Dr Ignazio Maria Viola who is Co-Investigator on the project, alongside Professor Steve Finney and Professor Markus Müller – all from the School’s Institute for Energy Systems (IES).
Dr Rory Hadden has been working with engineers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Maryland, USA, the US Forest Service, and New Jersey Forest Fire Service to observe the behaviour of forest fires from within using a 360-degree water-cooled camera. The cutting-edge equipment provides scientists and engineers with the ability to see inside prescribed fires and potentially wildfires using virtual reality technologies together with footage captured using the 360-degree camera.
Researchers from the School's Institute for Multiscale Thermofluids (IMP) have revealed insights into how minute, yet powerful, bubbles form and collapse on underwater surfaces. The findings could lend valuable insight into damage caused on industrial structures, such as pump components, when these bubbles burst to release tiny but powerful jets of liquid.
Nikolai Gerasimov, a postgraduate researcher in the School’s BRE Centre for Fire Safety Engineering, has won a Worshipful Company of Scientific Instrument Makers (WCSIM) research grant for an innovative advance in fire performance testing. The awards are given in recognition of projects which involve innovative scientific development, and enable recipients to become Society of Instrument Maker (SIM) Scholars.
The School’s Dr Martin Sweatman has decoded a system of Pictish symbols and revealed its link with other symbol systems used by ancient civilisations across the world. Dr Sweatman, who is a Reader in Chemical Engineering in the School, had previously used his scientific training to decode an early zodiacal system found across western Eurasia, from European Palaeolithic caves to sites in Turkey, Egypt and Mesopotamia. He has now gone one step further by linking Pictish symbols to this system.
Researchers from the School of Engineering are part of a pan-University research hub for quantum-enhanced imaging systems, which just received a £28m funding boost from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Chancellor’s Fellow in Electronics Dr Danial Chitnis and Professor Robert Henderson from the School’s Institute for Integrated Micro and Nano Systems (IMNS), are members of the UK Quantum Technology Hub in Quantum Enhanced Imaging (QuantIC) which received the funding.
The School’s Deputy Head of School and Bert Whittington Chair Professor Gareth Harrison is part of an expert panel which recently concluded a major inquiry into the future of Scotland’s energy. The two-year long inquiry was initiated by the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE), Scotland’s National Academy, to address the challenge of meeting Scotland’s future energy requirements in the face of increasing demand, power station closures, and pressing carbon reduction targets.
Researchers from the School of Engineering have devised a fabric dressing which could improve wound recovery for patients suffering from burns or skin grafts. Dr Norbert Radacsi, Antonios Keirouz and Mei Zhang from the School’s Institute for Materials and Processes (IMP), and Dr Anthony Callanan from the Institute of Bioengineering (IBioE), are part of a team which produced this super-thin 'artificial skin' using nanoscale technology.
The School’s Dr Antonis Giannopoulos is part of an international team of scientists that have secured support from the International Space Science Institute (ISSI) to advance the search for water on Mars.
