Tag Archives: Engineering

All arms and legs

Leave a reply

Imagine building a humanoid robot with head, arms and legs from different organisations that will not share the technical details of the products, probably because they are worried about their intellectual property being stolen.  The likely result would be a robot that moves in slow uncoordinated jerky steps, unlike those seen at the recent World Humanoid Robot Games in China where a humanoid robot beat Usain Bolt’s 100m record.  We have encountered this problem in attempting to build an industrial metaverse consisting of a connected series of digital twins [see ‘Digital twins that thrive in the real-world’ on June 9th, 2021] that represent different parts of a complex engineering system, e.g., a power station.  The organisations that have developed the digital twins or computer simulations are reluctant to share technical information because they want to protect their intellectual property.  Our solution has been to develop an apex software architecture that seamlessly and securely connects computer models of all of the parts of the system with high-speed two-way exchange of information – the equivalent of the central nervous system in the humanoid robot.  Our architecture reduced the processing times for simulations of a nuclear reactor sixteen-fold compared to current approaches and required one-third of the number of analysts to perform the simulations.  The architecture is readily adaptable too; you can plug n’ play with different computational models – the equivalent to changing a leg on a humanoid robot using a snap-fit connector.  Read our 2022 paper if you would like to know more or get in touch if you would like to use our apex architecture.

Image: Figure 9b from Bowman et al, 2022, showing simulated power distribution and control rod position overlayed on a model of a PWR reactor.

Reference: Bowman D, Dwyer L, Levers A, Patterson EA, Purdie S, Vikhorev K. A unified approach to digital twin architecture—proof-of-concept activity in the nuclear sector. IEEE Access, 10:44691-709, 2022

Mapping the road between digital twins and NDE

Leave a reply

RoadmapMichael Grieves, who probably first formulated the concept of digital twins in 2002, stated that all information about a physical entity should be present in its cyber or digital twin with data flow from the physical entity to the digital twin, and information flow from the digital twin to the physical entity throughout its lifecycle [1] [see ‘Digital twins that thrive in the real-world’ on June 9th, 2021].  The realisation of data flows between cyber-physical twins has been slow and there are relatively few cases where this definition has been fully implemented.  Non-destructive evaluation (NDE) is a well-established set of techniques used to assess the properties, integrity and condition of engineering components and structures that could play a significant role in supplying data to digital twins.  At the moment NDE is commonly used in quality control to check for manufacturing defects, in integrity assessments to investigate damage in safety critical components during maintenance inspections, and for determining the remaining life expectancy of engineering parts.  The integration of NDE in digital engineering has been slow; so, in a recent study, involving representatives from a wide range of industries, we have defined in a roadmap [2] the potential opportunity and the route to its realisation.  This work represents a different approach to research for my group in that we have explored the need or the ‘pull’ from industry rather than delivering innovative technology which can result in a ‘push’ to industry [see for example, ‘Our last DIMES’ on September 22nd, 2021].  My regular readers might also detect the influence of social science, which also surfaced in our recent work on knowledge management [see ‘Opportunities lost in knowledge management using digital technology’ on October 25th, 2023 and ‘Evolutionary model of knowledge management’ on March 6th 2024].  We have used the same methods, based on semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis, across all of these studies.

Image: roadmap [© University of Liverpool] which should be read in conjunction with [2].

References:

  1. Grieves, M., Vickers, J. (2017). Digital Twin: Mitigating Unpredictable, Undesirable Emergent Behavior in Complex Systems. In: Kahlen, J., Flumerfelt, S., Alves, A. (eds) Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Complex Systems. Springer, Cham.
  2. Middleton CA, Nguyen T & Patterson EA, NDE4.0 and digital twins in industry: current user experiences and future development, J. Nondestructive Evaluation, 45:107, 2026.

Worldly goods and routes to happiness

1 Reply

Decorative image of a flowerIn her novel, ‘The Gap of Time’, Jeanette Winterson writes that Buddha and Jesus knew that when you had so much money that you could buy anything, everything, then worldly goods were worthless.  Modern capitalism has generated a small number of owners of capital who have this much money.  For the rest of us worldly goods are not valueless or worthless.  Omnipresent advertising tends to create a desire in many of us for a lifestyle that is unattainable with our income, which can lead us to be dissatisfied and unhappy.  Some surveys have suggested that engineers are amongst the happiest people [see ‘Choosing a career is like going shopping’ on June 17th, 2015].  Perhaps this is because we managed to do as Rutger Berger suggested in his 2025 BBC Reith Lecture, which is to measure our success in terms of our contribution to tackling humanity’s toughest problems.  For many engineers, this is a key component of their role.

Sources

Jeanette Winterson, The Gap of Time, Penguin, London 2015

Simon van Teutem, How our brightest minds get trapped in the city, FT 18/19 October 2025.

Webs of expertise and knowledge

1 Reply

I am writing this post while I am in the middle of leading a breakout activity for more than a hundred PhD students from our Centres for Doctoral Training in nuclear science and engineering, GREEN and SATURN.  We have asked them to construct a knowledge network for a start-up company commissioned to build either a fusion energy power station or a power station based on small modular reactors (SMRs).  A knowledge network is a web of expertise and information whose value comes from the connections and interactions within and outside an organization.  Our aim is to encourage students to think beyond science and engineering and consider the interactions required to deliver safe, economic nuclear power.

We have brought the students together in York from six universities located in the North of England (Lancaster, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester & Sheffield) and Scotland (Strathclyde).  This is an annual event usually held in the first working week of the New Year (see ‘Nuclear Winter School’ on January 23rd 2019).

The breakout activity has three one-hour time-slots on three consecutive days.  In today’s time-slot, we have divided the students into twenty groups of seven and given them paper, pencils, and a circle stencil plus an eraser with which to draw knowledge networks.  We are hoping for creativity, lively discussions, and some fun.  In yesterday’s one-hour slot, they had briefings from the Chief Manufacturing Engineer for a company building SMRs and the Deputy Chief Engineer of a company developing a fusion power station, as well as from a Digital Knowledge Management Consultant whose PhD led to a paper on knowledge networks, which we shared with the students last month (see ‘Evolutionary model of knowledge management’ on March 6th, 2024).  Tomorrow, one person from each group will have two minutes to present their knowledge network, via a portable visualiser, to an audience of several hundred.  What can go wrong?  Twenty two-minute presentations in one hour with one minute for questions and changeover.

GREEN (Growing skills for Reliable Economic Energy from Nuclear) is co-funded by a consortia of industrial organisations and the UK EPSRC (grant no. EP/S022295/1).

SATURN (Skills And Training Underpinning a Renaissance in Nuclear) succeeded GREEN and is also co-funded by a consortia of industrial organisations and the UK EPSRC (grant no. EP/Y034856/1).

Image shows thumbnail of figure from shared paper with knowledge networks for an engineering consultancy company and an electricity generator, follow this link for full size image.