Engineering news
The Defence Materials Centre of Excellence (DMEx) will research, create, and prototype new materials for the armed forces that can survive in the harshest conditions, such as temperatures of 1,000°C, ‘polar to tropical operations’, high impact vibrations, shock, blasts and extreme water depth.
The £42.5m research partnership, led by the Henry Royce Institute at the University of Manchester, will bring together UK experts from 23 other partners from academia, industry, and research organisations such as the Catapult Network.
“Advanced materials are the building blocks of the future and an area of great international competition,” said DSTL chief executive Dr Paul Hollinshead OBE.
“Today (30 January) we are putting the UK on path to maintain its strategic advantage by harnessing all the nation’s talents. This highly collaborative partnership between DSTL, academia and industry will create operational advantage for our armed forces, while supporting UK growth and prosperity.”
The organisation’s previous collaboration with industrial and academic partners includes reducing a 40-stage process for production of titanium down to just two stages. That improvement halved the cost of the process, DSTL said, making affordable and lightweight corrosion-resistant defence components a possibility.
DSTL is now working with Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land, the University of Sheffield, BAE Systems, MBDA, Transition International and the Advanced Forming Research Centre on creating more affordable titanium for defence with 30-40% weight reduction.
Research from the centre, which is due to open later this year, could also find civilian applications.
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