Dr Nick Baker

Another busy month as I find myself involved with 3 journal papers and 8 conference papers all needing to be prepared in parallel.

We have upgraded our linear rig to be more controllable and can now get some decent looking emf waveforms – although slower movement gives a better video.

IMG_2931.TRIM

Great progress on several linear machines being made in parallel – this cylindrical will be the first one tested early this month

Elsewhere we are looking into a bespoke linear position sensor for long linear machines, still at the ‘desktop prototype’ stage

And this month’s STEM activity invovled a train set and a wind turbine.

  

This month I have been to London on an EPSRC collaboration event, Bristol for a project kick off event, Southampton for a technical review day, hosted an EDrive progress meeting for Edinburgh university and contributed to a scoping event for a potential new electric propulsion centre.
In terms of research Aslan Jalal passed his viva, metal has started to be cut on several machines.

We are also looking into machines capitalising on novel materials. Here is a picture of a PhD student considering the design of a machine made from foam, tape and cardboard….

…or rather trying to help visualise a new way of building a core-back-free translator for a linear machine.

Next week is the beginning of the university term, and it comes with lots of new developments:
*5 new undergraduate tutees,
*3 undergraduate projects (1 working with a tidal energy company, 1 developing a demonstration for STEM activities and 1 working on wave energy converter testing)
*1 industrial placement student, commissioning a new linear test-rig

Also this month we got the results from our linear transverse flux machine, shown below, plus three PhD students submitted their PhD thesis. Below is Liam and Junnan looking pleased with themselves in my messy office.

We had equipment delivered to the new USB, where we are the first people to conduct experimental work in the EPT lab.

In terms of research, I am pleased to welcome 1 new phD student and the ENCASE project started. Mehmet Kulan is confirmed as a member of research staff for the next 3 years, after being one of my PhD students. The ENCASE Project (Enabling Novel Controls & Advanced Software for Engines) is a collaboration headed up by Rolls Royce, and our role is to develop the permanent magnet alternator. Will hopefully involve the design and demonstration of some high end electrical machines which are easy to manufacture in a repeatable process. More details and a website to follow.

Finally, Steve McDonald presented two papers at the Eurpoean Wave and Tidal Conference in Cork (EWTEC 2017) and Ahmed Amoraya presented two papers at the 20th International conference on Electrical Machines and System (ICEMS 2017) In Sydney

1st August 2017 was quite a big day at work:
The formal start date of the new merged School of Engineering
The formal date of my promotion to Senior Lecturer
The formal date I become second year tutor for our EE undergraduates
The successful coming together of Junnan Wang’s PhD machine

Common question from undergraduates this one. Since the end of term, which was about 4 weeks ago, my team and I have been responsible for the submission of 6 new abstracts for review, 4 final conference papers and 3 journal papers. I have also put in motion the employment of an RA for 3 years, lectured to Singaporean students, delivered feedback and written a re-sit exam, attended a summer school, hosted an away day….There is always something going on…

About 29 of us, mainly from the electrical power group went on the annual walk. This year we tackled Dove Cragg in the Lake District

A wise man once told me that doing a PhD was like being married to your supervisor for 3 or 4 years…. in which case this trip was to prevent me and my PhD students getting a divorce.

Fun full day of talking to kids about electrical engineering, and then helping build their entrant into ‘Green Power Goblin Kit Car’. This was an inter school competition where they build their own electric car. As far as I could tell they had had some help with the car assembly, but hadn’t really used the car to explore engineering. I took the oppurtunity to explain how motors work….

I ran the build your own motor workshop for year 4 pupils of Benton Dene Primary. There was literally a ‘wow’ moment as one of the pupils got their motor to spin.

Outside of work I am mainly a father, but also a bit of a runner, swimmer and allotment owner. I presently own a 1968 Triumph Vitesse which is almost road worthy.