Turbomachinery Technology Development for Increased Efficiency

Turbomachinery - the rotating machines that exchange energy with a fluid are responsible for the vast majority of electrical production and all commercial air travel in the world.  These turbines are reliable and quite efficient:  is it worth doing further research on these devices or should we focus our efforts on more novel devices?

This seminar will talk about the successes and challenges of University based technology development programmes using three case studies as a reference point.  Examples from aircraft engines, steam turbines for power generation and on large scale wind turbine operation will be used.  The impact (or lack of) these technology development programmes will also be assessed, and the merits of incremental gains discussed. 

Grant Ingram graduated from Durham University in 1997 on the first cohort of the then brand-new MEng degree. After two years in the electricity supply industry working on power stations large and small, he returned to academia to complete a PhD.  He joined the lecturing staff at Durham in 2005 and was recently promoted to Professor. At Durham he has worked on two key areas of research: conventional turbomachinery and renewable devices. Both of these activities are approached from a fluid dynamics background with a focus on improving engineering designs and processes.

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