To create many of the complex products and systems we have around us in the modern world we have needed advanced technology. But to enable us to use this, and create the volume and complexity of products we have also needed complex organisational systems and processes. Large complex organisations have in particular relied on the Systems Engineering process, to help guide complex projects through to completion. Many products, such as aircraft, only exist because of this systematic approach. But this systematic approach has a downside. To maintain control of a complex design it is necessary to fix ideas and concepts, and work through detail in a top-down approach. This flow down keeps development within the bounds of the original idea or concept, but naturally prevents innovation and variation. In fact, such variation and innovation are in some ways the enemy of the controlled organisation needed to keep a global enterprise on track. One great fear is the phenomenon of emergence; inherently unknowable behaviour. But ironically, to take advantage of the many opportunities offered by new technologies, such as composite materials or additive manufacturing, this kind of innovation is desperately needed. But marrying these technologies within a complex fixed organisational structure and process is clearly very difficult. This work looks to nature for inspiration, for an unconstrained approach to the creation of engineering designs. It seeks to start from the bottom up rather than top down. The creation of an elemental set of rules based on energy and equilibrium, could allow variation to naturally arise in design. In nature, the rules are applied blindly with no fixed final form. That final form only arising as a consequence of its environment. Trees are a wonderful example of this. So the aim of this work is: to seek an elementary set of rules, akin to a DNA of design, for designing components & systems. Our hypothesis is that by reimagining design as a series of elemental rules and growth mechanisms that react to environment and stimuli, the design of complex systems will be simplified, and emergence could be used as a tool for innovation beyond conventional paradigms. We see three major challenges: * Obtaining growth rules for component seeds to allow components to emerge from the activity * Defining stimuli that will make the component seeds grow and establishing if that growth can be controlled via the stimuli. * Capturing the emergent behaviour into a working set of parameters which can interact with existing design and manufacturing systems - i.e. is there a set of parameters which will define a CAD model? In this project we will investigate theoretical aspects of this approach, and the practical implications of using these elementary rules in engineering design. We will use intelligent software agents to represent component seeds which will create a design depending on the environment around it. The agents will grow to form a more complete component or system which can be envisioned in a CAD system. The agents will have the ability to spawn others as the system develops in response to the environment. For example, as in forming a branch, or root, or in an engineering context a stiffener or hole. The result from the work should be a set of rules encapsulated in a prototype system that will automatically create a component from a simple seed definition. Depending on the information of its surroundings, it will grow large or small, taking form, shape & colour according to need. One seed should be capable of producing a wide variety of solutions, generating innovation naturally. By tweaking the rules and behaviours we expect to allow some emergent behaviour to occur. This feeds back to the aim of this study - to establish if these elementary rules can be put to effective use in design. This study will assess and report on this, its potential and practicality.

To create many of the complex products and systems we have around us we have needed advanced technology. But to create the volume and complexity of products we have also needed complex organisational systems and processes. Large complex organisations have in particular relied on the Systems Engineering process, to help guide complex projects to completion. Many products, such as aircraft, only exist because of this systematic approach. But this systematic approach has a downside. To maintain control of a complex design it is necessary to fix ideas and concepts, and work through detail in a top-down approach. This flow down keeps development within the bounds of the original idea or concept, but naturally prevents innovation and variation. Such variation and innovation are in some ways the enemy of the controlled organisation needed to keep a global enterprise on track. One great fear is the phenomenon of emergence; inherently unknowable behaviour. Ironically this kind of innovation is desperately needed to take advantage of the opportunities offered by new technologies, such as additive manufacturing, or distributed cloud based manufacturing. But marrying these technologies within a complex fixed organisational structure and process is very difficult. Building on the success of the Design the Future project "In Search of Design Genes" this work looks to nature for inspiration, for an unconstrained approach to engineering design. Introducing the concept of 'Biohaviour' we follow the behaviour of natural growth rather than biomimicry. The creation of an elemental set of rules based on energy and equilibrium, could allow variation to naturally arise in design. In nature, the rules are applied blindly with no fixed final form. That final form only arising as a consequence of its environment. Trees and bamboo are wonderful examples of this. Our hypothesis is that by reimagining design as a series of elemental rules and growth mechanisms that react to environment and stimuli, the design of complex systems will be simplified, and emergence could be used as a tool for innovation beyond conventional paradigms. We see four major challenges: * Obtaining growth rules for component seeds to allow components to emerge from the activity * Defining stimuli that will make the component seeds grow and establishing if that growth can be controlled via the stimuli. * Developing fast, scalable, event triggered systems to enable real time creation of complex designs. * Capturing the emergent behaviour into a working set of parameters which can interact with existing design and manufacturing systems - i.e. is there a set of parameters which will define a CAD model? In this project we will investigate theoretical aspects of this approach, and the practical implications of using these elementary rules in engineering design. We will develop novel computational methods for fast, scalable, event triggered systems to represent component seeds' growth behaviour, which will create a design depending on the environment around it. The seeds will grow to form a more complete component or system which can be envisioned in a CAD system. The seeds and shoots will have the ability to spawn others as the system develops in response to the environment. For example, forming a branch, or root, or in an engineering context a stiffener or hole. The result should be a set of rules encapsulated in a prototype Cloud service, that will automatically create a component from a simple seed definition. Depending on its surroundings, it will grow large or small, taking form, shape & colour according to need. One seed should be capable of producing a variety of solutions, generating innovation naturally. By tweaking the rules and behaviours we expect to allow some emergent behaviour to occur. This feeds back to the aim of this study - to establish if these elementary rules can be put to effective use in design - and to create the Blind Watchmaker.

Thermal management has become a critical issue in electronics because of increasing volumetric power densities and the harsh environments in which they are deployed. Active cooling is often required for high rates of heat dissipation because conventional passive cooling techniques are inadequate. Porous metal has been demonstrated to be highly efficient and cost effective in heat dissipation by forced fluid cooling. A main problem impeding its wider application is the high pumping power required to move the working fluid through the cooling device due to its large resistance to fluid flow. This project sets out to address the scientific and technical issues in thermal applications of porous metals manufactured by the space holder methods, which have distinctive porous structure and unique heat transfer behaviour. The aims of the research are to understand the mechanistic relationships between flow resistance, heat transfer and pore structure and to develop technologies to create tailored porous metal structures for significantly enhanced heat transfer performance with minimised flow resistance. A combination of manufacturing, properties characterisation, modelling and process development will be carried out to identify the fundamental structural properties underpinning the thermal fluid behaviour in porous metals, to quantify their effects on heat transfer coefficient and fluid flow resistance, and to design and create heterogeneous porous structures for a step change in overall active cooling performance. The global market for thermal management products is more than $10 billion with an annual growth rate of 6.8%. UK has a significant share in this market and is one of the leaders in developing new materials and technologies for active cooling devices for electronics. This project will provide scientific understanding and technical development underpinning the design and manufacture of a promising class of porous metals that are currently being developed by industry for thermal management applications. This research will ensure that UK maintains the leading position in this niche field. This research will also benefit the research and development of non-thermal porous products for environmental and energy applications, e.g., sound absorbers, porous electrodes and catalyst supports, where flow resistance has a deterministic effect.

Thermal management plays a vital role in determining the efficiency, safety and reliability of technological development in a plethora of industries including aerospace, automotive, computing and renewable energy sectors. The developments in these industries have culminated in a considerable surge in the power densities, which goes hand-in-hand with the increase of generated heat flux and subsequent undesirable temperature rise in system components. Porous materials (i.e. solids, which are permeated by a network of pores) have been demonstrated to be competitive microfluidic materials for effective cooling in high heat flux applications because of their fluid permeability and high surface area, which augments the heat transfer from hot surfaces to the cooling fluid passing through the porous media. Past studies have theoretically investigated the flow and thermal characteristics of the porous media systems for thermal management using the volume-averaged approach, which is a popular low-cost engineering approach for studying transport in porous media. However, after more than a decade of research, this problem has still not been resolved. This is primarily because the splitting mechanism of the external heat flux between the solid and fluid phases in the porous media is unknown and determination of the thermal boundary condition for volume-averaged solvers remains a scientific challenge. This ambitious project will, for the first time, address this fundamental problem of flow and heat transfer in porous media systems through a comprehensive series of experimental and modelling studies. This project will benefit from partnership with world-renowned scientists: Prof Kambiz Vafai (KV)-University of California Riverside, Dr Mahdi Azarpeyvand (MA)-University of Bristol and Prof Kamel Hooman (KH)-University of Queensland, with the involvement of one PDRA and four PhD students. KV is a world-leading scientist in the field of transport in porous media and will bring his key knowledge in understanding the heat flux splitting in the porous media. MA and KH will support the project for experimental measurements of the velocity field in the system. This project is also of direct relevance to industry with the involvement of UK-based companies (Glen Dimplex, B9 Energy, and BL Refrigeration) who will be deploying the fully validated volume-averaged solver developed in the project for the purpose of thermal management using porous materials in application to electronics cooling, energy storage and solar photovoltaic systems, respectively.

Thermal management plays a vital role in determining the efficiency, safety and reliability of technological development in a plethora of industries including aerospace, automotive, computing and renewable energy sectors. The developments in these industries have culminated in a considerable surge in the power densities, which goes hand-in-hand with the increase of generated heat flux and subsequent undesirable temperature rise in system components. Porous materials (i.e. solids, which are permeated by a network of pores) have been demonstrated to be competitive microfluidic materials for effective cooling in high heat flux applications because of their fluid permeability and high surface area, which augments the heat transfer from hot surfaces to the cooling fluid passing through the porous media. Past studies have theoretically investigated the flow and thermal characteristics of the porous media systems for thermal management using the volume-averaged approach, which is a popular low-cost engineering approach for studying transport in porous media. However, after more than a decade of research, this problem has still not been resolved. This is primarily because the splitting mechanism of the external heat flux between the solid and fluid phases in the porous media is unknown and determination of the thermal boundary condition for volume-averaged solvers remains a scientific challenge. This ambitious project will, for the first time, address this fundamental problem of flow and heat transfer in porous media systems through a comprehensive series of experimental and modelling studies. This project will benefit from partnership with world-renowned scientists: Prof Kambiz Vafai (KV)-University of California Riverside, Dr Mahdi Azarpeyvand (MA)-University of Bristol and Prof Kamel Hooman (KH)-University of Queensland, with the involvement of one PDRA and four PhD students. KV is a world-leading scientist in the field of transport in porous media and will bring his key knowledge in understanding the heat flux splitting in the porous media. MA and KH will support the project for experimental measurements of the velocity field in the system. This project is also of direct relevance to industry with the involvement of UK-based companies (Glen Dimplex, B9 Energy, and BL Refrigeration) who will be deploying the fully validated volume-averaged solver developed in the project for the purpose of thermal management using porous materials in application to electronics cooling, energy storage and solar photovoltaic systems, respectively.