Big Ben! Parliament! Advanced Manufacturing!

 

Recently, visitors to the Houses of Parliament in London were presented with an outdoor display of high-value manufacturing technology. The display included the front-fan assembly from the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 aircraft engine, shown here in front of the landmark clock tower that holds the famous bell, “Big Ben.” Attendees at IMTS 2010 may remember this fan assembly, which made its debut appearance at the show in the Advanced Manufacturing Center display.

 

The Trent fan assembly contains a number of key components manufactured with innovative methods pioneered at the University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) in partnership with Boeing. The fan set and AMRC’s MANTRA truck, a mobile showcase for advanced engineering, were parked within the grounds of the Palace of Westminster to celebrate the AMRC’s 10th anniversary. Members of Parliament and other visitors could inspect the high level of craftsmanship and engineering capability these displays represent. The AMRC also presented its work at an exhibition and seminar at the Palace, alongside displays from Rolls-Royce, BAE Systems, Boeing and other research partners working with the AMRC in the new High Value Manufacturing Technology Innovation Centre. The event aimed to highlight the importance of high-value manufacturing to the UK economy.

To learn more about the AMRC and a similar facility that will soon to be added to this network in the United States—the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing (CCAM) in Petersburg, Virginia—read this article, Making Research Real, which was featured in Modern Machine Shop magazine.