This project is a major UK partnership between the University of Cambridge
and the
University of Leeds
and 7 companies. It is funded by a Foresight
Challenge Award administered through the
EPSRC and the DTI.
It will aim to
develop the computer modelling of polymers to the point where direct
commercial benefit can be shown from the academic input.
The industrial side of the partnership consists of 5 polymer producing,
processing and fabricating companies: Courtaulds, ICI (acrylics), London
International Group, TWI and Unilever and two software companies:
Molecular Simulations Ltd and Oxford Materials, specialising in the
production and marketing of materials modelling software and currently
holding 35% of the global markets for the UK. Two groups are involved at
Cambridge, the Polymer group under Alan Windle in the Department of
Materials Science and Metallurgy, and the Particle Flow Modelling group
under John Melrose in the Cavendish. At Leeds, the academic team consists
of Tom Mcleish and Oliver Harlen of the Physics Department and Geoff Davies
of the IRC in Polymer Science and Technology.
The structure of the three year programme is shown in
Fig 1. There is an
academic core to the programme where the research projects will overlap and
lead to publishable results. The individual core projects our outlined in
Fig 2.
The software developments will be applied to the solution of
specific problems presented by the industrial partners, while it will be
futher developed for world markets by the two software companies.
The modelling focus will be at the MESO scale, in an effort to bridge the
gap between the established predictive capability at the molecular level
and the process and solid continuum modelling at the macroscopic level.
One of the prime objectives is the establishment of a hierarchy of models,
which will lead to identifeable benefits with the three year project time
frame.
There are three projects in the Polymer Group of the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy at Cambridge.
![[icon]](images/Poly_tiny.gif)
