Electric motors and generators—the electrical machines that power everything from cars to wind turbines—are getting harder to manufacture as demand for lighter, more powerful, and more reliable designs grows. The UK currently lacks the manufacturing capability to build these next-generation machines at the required cost, quality, and scale. This Hub will tackle the production bottlenecks that stand in the way: manual tasks like coil winding and wiring that need better quality control, extreme precision requirements for safety-critical applications like aircraft, and the shift toward small-batch, customised production. The research will also explore new materials for lighter machines, digital sensors and Internet-of-Things technologies for smarter factories, and ways to train the next generation of manufacturing engineers. If successful, the work could help UK industry capture a significant share of the global electrification market—supplying the motors and generators that quietly keep electric vehicles moving, wind turbines spinning, and aircraft flying, without the manufacturing delays and defects that currently limit production.
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We are witnessing huge global shifts towards cleaner growth and more resource efficient economies. The drive to lower carbon emissions is resulting in dramatic changes in how we travel and the ways we generate and use energy worldwide. Electrical machines are at the heart of the accelerating trends in the electrification of transport and the increased use of renewable energy such as offshore wind. To address the pressing drivers for clean growth and meet the increasing demands of new applications, new electrical machines with improved performance - higher power density, lower weight, improved reliability - are being designed by researchers and industry. However, there are significant manufacturing challenges to be overcome if UK industry is going to be able to manufacture these new machines with the appropriate cost, flexibility and quality. The Hub's vision is to put UK manufacturing at the forefront of the electrification revolution. The Hub will address key manufacturing challenges in the production of high integrity and high value electrical machines for the aerospace, energy, high value automotive and premium consumer sectors. The Hub will work in partnership with industry to address some common and fundamental barriers limiting manufacturing capability and capacity: the need for in-process support to manual operations in electrical machine manufacture - e.g. coil winding, insertions, electrical connections and wiring - to improve productivity and provide quality assurance; the sensitivity of high value and high integrity machines to small changes in tolerance and the requirement for high precision in manufacturing for safety critical applications; the increasing drive to low batch size, flexibility and customisation; and the need to train the next generation of manufacturing scientists and engineers. The Hub's research programme will explore new and emerging manufacturing processes, new materials for enhanced functionality and/or light-weighting, new approaches for process modelling and simulation, and the application of digital approaches with new sensors and Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) technologies.
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