Most conventional electronics works reliably at operating temperatures of around 100C or less. However, high temperature electronics needs to function at temperatures of 125C or higher. In the past, solders consisting mainly of lead (Pb) have been used for connecting components to printed circuit boards (PCB's). However, EU environmental legislation eliminated lead from most electronics, and is set to remove lead from even high temperature electronics by 2010. This presents a problem for oil and gas drilling equipment manufacturers in particular, as oil and gas wells are getting deeper and hence hotter (150-200C). Schlumberger, a key equipment manufacturer for oil and gas drilling, and Dynex Semiconductor, a key producer of high power electronics equipment for transport are keen to collaborate with Henkel (a supplier of solder material) and King's College London to find an alternative to lead based solders.One method of improving the reliability of lead free solder joints is to add a reactive component, such as aluminium to the solder. The aluminium reacts strongly with the surfaces on the electronic component and the PCB that are to be joined. Once the aluminium has reacted to form an intermetallic compound (IMC) layer between the solder and the joining surfaces, this IMC layer remains stable. By contrast in a normal solder joint, the IMC layer continues to grow at high temperatures and, being brittle, becomes the weakest link in the solder joint. So why not just add aluminium to the solder to form a new alloy? Many groups have tried, but all have failed until now. It turns out that the very properties that make aluminium attractive as an additive to solder, make its practical use in solders difficult. The high reactivity of aluminium causes the solder to oxidise before the solder joint can form during the soldering process. This means that the solder does not wet and adhere to the circuit board at all. What is needed is a method of releasing the aluminium into the solder after the solder has wetted the joining surfaces. The key innovation of this project is the use of nanoparticles of aluminium, coated with a metal which is easily wetted by the molten solder during soldering (e.g. silver). The coating will dissolve in the molten solder, and rapidly release the aluminium into the solder after the solder has wetted the joining surface. Only then will the stable aluminium based IMC be formed. Producing and coating the nanoparticles before the aluminium oxidizes will be challenging but should be possible with the organometallic synthesis routes chosen. This project will determine the optimum composition and morphology of the particles and will assess their impact on reliability. If the project is successful, then there will be a sizeable market for the nanoparticles engineered in the project. Henkel have already stated their wish to buy in the nanoparticles rather than to produce them in-house so the formation of a spin out company to produce the nanoparticles is one of the key project objectives. There may also be applications outside of high temperature electronics, especially in the mobile electronics area where miniaturisation of solder joints is causing reliability concerns.

The resilience of building and civil engineering structures is typically associated with the design of individual elements such that they have sufficient capacity or potential to react in an appropriate manner to adverse events. Traditionally this has been achieved by using 'robust' design procedures that focus on defining safety factors for individual adverse events and providing redundancy. As such, construction materials are designed to meet a prescribed specification; material degradation is viewed as inevitable and mitigation necessitates expensive maintenance regimes; ~£40 billion/year is spent in the UK on repair and maintenance of existing, mainly concrete, structures and ~$2.2 trillion/year is needed in the US to restore its infrastructure to good condition (grade B). More recently, based on a better understanding and knowledge of microbiological systems, materials that have the ability to adapt and respond to their environment have been developed. This fundamental change has the potential to facilitate the creation of a wide range of 'smart' materials and intelligent structures. This will include both autogenous and autonomic self-healing materials and adaptable, self-sensing and self-repairing structures. These materials can transform our infrastructure by embedding resilience in the components of these structures so that rather than being defined by individual events, they can evolve over their lifespan. To be truly self-healing, the material components will need to act synergistically over the range of time and length scales at which different forms of damage occur. Conglomerate materials, which comprise the majority of our infrastructure and built environment, form the focus of the proposed project. While current isolated international pockets of research activities on self-healing materials are on-going, most advances have been in other material fields and many have focussed on individual techniques and hence have only provided a partial solution to the inherent multi-dimensional nature of damage specific to construction materials with limited flexibility and multi-functionality. This proposal seeks to develop a multi-faceted self-healing approach that will be applicable to a wide range of conglomerates and their respective damage mechanisms. This proposal brings together a consortium of 11 academics from the Universities of Cardiff, Bath and Cambridge with the relevant skills and experience in structural and geotechnical engineering, materials chemistry, biology and materials science to develop and test the envisioned class of materials. The proposed work leverages on ground-breaking developments in these sciences in other sectors such as the pharmaceutical, medical and polymer composite industries. The technologies that are proposed are microbioloical and chemical healing at the micro- and meso-scale and crack control and prevention at the macro scale. This will be achieved through 4 work packages, three of which target the healing at the individual scales (micro/meso/macro) and the fourth which addresses the integration of the individual systems, their compatibility and methods of achieving healing of recurrent damage. This will then culminate in a number of field-trials in partnership with the project industrial collaborators to take this innovation closer to commercialisation. An integral part of this project will be the knowledge transfer activities and collaboration with other research centres throughout the world. This will ensure that the research is at the forefront of the global pursuit for intelligent infrastructure and will ensure that maximum impact is achieved. One of the primary outputs of the project will be the formation and establishment of a UK Virtual Centre of Excellence in Intelligent Construction Materials that will provide a national and international platform for facilitating dialogue and collaboration to enhance the global knowledge economy.

This Centre for Doctoral training in Industrially Focused Mathematical Modelling will train the next generation of applied mathematicians to fill critical roles in industry and academia. Complex industrial problems can often be addressed, understood, and mitigated by applying modern quantitative methods. To effectively and efficiently apply these techniques requires talented mathematicians with well-practised problem-solving skills. They need to have a very strong grasp of the mathematical approaches that might need to be brought to bear, have a breadth of understanding of how to convert complex practical problems into relevant abstract mathematical forms, have knowledge and skills to solve the resulting mathematical problems efficiently and accurately, and have a wide experience of how to communicate and interact in a multidisciplinary environment. This CDT has been designed by academics in close collaboration with industrialists from many different sectors. Our 35 current CDT industrial partners cover the sectors of: consumer products (Sharp), defence (Selex, Thales), communications (BT, Vodafone), energy (Amec, BP, Camlin, Culham, DuPont, GE Energy, Infineum, Schlumberger x2, VerdErg), filtration (Pall Corp), finance (HSBC, Lloyds TSB), food and beverage (Nestle, Mondelez), healthcare (e-therapeutics, Lein Applied Diagnostics, Oxford Instruments, Siemens, Solitonik), manufacturing (Elkem, Saint Gobain), retail (dunnhumby), and software (Amazon, cd-adapco, IBM, NAG, NVIDIA), along with two consultancy companies (PA Consulting, Tessella) and we are in active discussion with other companies to grow our partner base. Our partners have five key roles: (i) they help guide and steer the centre by participating in an Industrial Engagement Committee, (ii) they deliver a substantial elements of the training and provide a broad exposure for the cohorts, (iii) they provide current challenges for our students to tackle for their doctoral research, iv) they give a very wide experience and perspective of possible applications and sectors thereby making the students highly flexible and extremely attractive to employers, and v) they provide significant funding for the CDT activities. Each cohort will learn how to apply appropriate mathematical techniques to a wide range of industrial problems in a highly interactive environment. In year one, the students will be trained in mathematical skills spanning continuum and discrete modelling, and scientific computing, closely integrated with practical applications and problem solving. The experience of addressing industrial problems and understanding their context will be further enhanced by periods where our partners will deliver a broad range of relevant material. Students will undertake two industrially focused mini-projects, one from an academic perspective and the other immersed in a partner organisation. Each student will then embark on their doctoral research project which will allow them to hone their skills and techniques while tackling a practical industrial challenge. The resulting doctoral students will be highly sought after; by industry for their flexible and quantitative abilities that will help them gain a competitive edge, and by universities to allow cutting-edge mathematical research to be motivated by practical problems and be readily exploitable.