The new partnership forms part of the university’s Advanced Composites Centre for Innovation and Science (ACCIS) and will be housed within ACCIS’s new GBP5.4 million extension to their home in the Queen’s Building.
Paul Weaver, director of the ACCIS Doctoral Training Centre and Reader in Lightweight Structures, said: We are delighted to have the opportunity to establish this new partnership, extending our expertise beyond aerospace to the renewables sector, and look forward to applying our skills in design, analysis and manufacture of advanced composites to wind turbines.
Ian Chatting, vice-president, global research for Vestas, added: Composites are recognised as a vital component of wind turbine blades design and manufacturing capability. We already use composites but increasingly we expect higher performance composites to be applied to increasingly efficient, larger blades. Such capability will strengthen our global competitiveness.
Bristol is a proven world-leading centre of excellence for composites research and development and we are delighted to make this the focus of our own composites research. Academic collaboration is increasingly important, and I expect Bristol will work with our international research network on this important technology area.
The composites centre is part of the Vestas Innovation Network, including partners in the US, Singapore, China and Denmark.
Bristol will have an academic team headed by Weaver and a research team incorporating academic staff, post-doctoral researchers and PhD students.
Professor Michael Wisnom, director of ACCIS, said: This venture represents an exciting diversification for ACCIS and helps fulfil our vision of providing fundamental composite materials solutions to all industries.
