STERLING  LECTURE 2005

Topic

Speaker

Professor Julia King CBE FREng,

Principal of the Engineering Faculty,

Imperial College London

Wednesday, 31st  August 2005

PCS Auditorium

4.00 pm

All are cordially invited.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

PROF. (Ms.) JULIA ELIZABETH KING, CBE FREng, is the Principal of the Faculty of Engineering, Imperial College London.  Prof. King graduated from the University of Cambridge with a degree in Natural Sciences in 1975. Her PhD, also from Cambridge, was in materials. She was a lecturer at the University of Nottingham from 1980 to 1987, then at Cambridge from 1987 to 1994. Prof. King was also associated with Rolls Royce where she held various senior positions. She was Chief Executive of the Institute of Physics during 2002-04. She is also Chairperson Defence Science Advisory Council, (Independent advice to Secretary of State for Defence). She has authored over 150 papers on Fatigue and Fracture in Structural Materials, Materials Issues in Aeroengines, and Advances in Marine Propulsion Technology. Her Awards and Accolades includes several prestigious honours such as Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng), Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society (FRAeS), CBE for services to materials engineering, and Extraordinary Fellowship Churchill College, Cambridge, to name a few.

ABSTRACT

Over the past 50 years the aeroengine gas turbine, or ‘jet engine’, has transformed our lives: from the internationalisation of business, to how and where we spend our holidays.  Today’s aeroengines are the result of many innovative, interdisciplinary developments involving materials, manufacturing and mechanical and electrical design.  With the conflicting pressures of the increasing demand for air travel – growing at around 5% per annum – and the ever more urgent need to reduce CO2 emissions, there are plenty of exciting challenges ahead.

Throughout the history of flight we have looked to the birds for inspiration.  The peregrine falcon achieves an impressive 200 mph ‘speed of stoop’ when dropping to catch its prey, through dramatically reducing its surface area.  In the 1960s, the ‘most expensive fighter plane ever’, the F111, was developed with swing wings to achieve a similar effect.  In the 1990s patents and development work were reported for a new aircraft, ‘The Bird of Prey’, a more sophisticated and cost effective swing wing fighter.  The mechanical, control, materials and maintenance challenges for such aircraft are enormous.

The next steps in the development of these ideas must be focussed on increasing efficiency and sustainability, not just increased performance.

Dramatic reductions in drag are predicted from concepts such as the morphing plane, the flying wing, the electric aircraft and active flow and turbulence control.  The second half of the lecture will examine some of the engineering and materials developments which could be critical to delivering ‘sustainable flight’: shape memory polymers, ‘gum metal’, advanced composites, MEMS devices in the form of miniature motors and actuators, new electrical materials and technologies.  We celebrated the centenary of flight in 2003.  The challenges ahead for the next 100  years are more exciting.