Location: Great Abington, Cambridge
Number of placements: 2
Period of placements: Placements typically last 10-12 weeks between early July and September.
Accommodation arrangements: TWI does not arrange accommodation. The company is located in South Cambridgeshire on the Granta Park site. Students are usually able to arrange their own accommodation (e.g., in College).
Travel options:
- Granta Park commuter bus - Cambridge (central train station, Hills Road, and near Addenbrookes) to the Granta Park site (£1.50 for per journey, £3.00 round trip) - http://www.grantapark.co.uk/park-life/travel/
- Public bus - Cambridge Drummer Street Station to Abington village - route 13a: https://www.stagecoachbus.com/routes/east/13a/cambridge-haverhill/xeao013a.o
- Free onsite parking in a large multi-story car park
Profile of firm:
Established in Cambridge in 1946, TWI is one of Europe’s largest independent contract research and technology organisations. Alongside its professional institution, The Welding Institute, it delivers advances in materials engineering and joining technologies – critical to engineering design and industry practice.
The organisation is responsible for establishing world Standards and Codes of Practice, developing new processes and applying expertise to discover why welded joints and engineering structures fail.
With five UK laboratories and eight worldwide, TWI is a member based organisation, which also drives an international training and examinations network taking knowhow to regions seeking growth through skills development. In 2015, TWI will open The National Structural Integrity Research Centre - a postgraduate education centre for structural integrity research.
TWI welcomes applications from students who are on track to achieve a minimum 2.1 degree in a relevant engineering or science discipline and can demonstrate excellent verbal and written communication skills, self-management, team working and customer focus.
Project areas:
TWI works closely with the oil and gas, power, aerospace, automotive, ship and rail sectors. Example projects include:
X-ray microscopy of MEMS components
TWI is working as part of a consortium to develop a low energy x-ray microscope to image thin lithographically processed wafers for Micro ElectroMechanical Systems. As part of this project the student will produce highly accurate tomographic and two dimensional images of a range of MEMS components. X-ray simulation software will also be used to generate images of the same components. Results will be compared using 3rd party image processing software to establish if the simulation results can be used as a theoretical unflawed image in a baseline subtraction defect detection algorithm.
New polymer based aerospace materials and joining
RIB-AM project develop novel manufacturing technologies applied to large size components belonging to the primary structure of aircrafts. Within this set of manufacturing techniques stand out the Automatic Fibre Placement (AFP) using thermoplastic resins, the innovative additive manufacturing process with short-fibre reinforce thermoplastic materials or the new methodology for components joining based on inductive welding technology. The placement student will aid in material selection and manufacturing of sample aircraft components.
Further project opportunities may be defined.
URL for further information: www.twi-global.com