Risk Assuring Future Structure Critical Systems: Combining 21st Century Science with Engineering Intuition

As you read this you are probably sitting down. When you sat down, were you concerned that the chair would fail? You likely did not even consider it as you may have sat in this same chair hundreds, if not thousands of times before. You used your empirical knowledge that this chair is safe for you to sit in. What if this was a new chair to you? If the chair was brand new, you would take comfort in the fact that the chair has been manufactured to a standard and been subject to some level of quality control. If the chair belongs to an organisation then you would expect that organisation to take responsibility if the chair failed and would have been replaced if reported by another user.

Failure of the chair will, very rarely, be due to a poor design. The chair will be able to withstand any expected loads assuming that it has been manufactured correctly; however, the material that it is made from will be inherently variable and contain defects that are not always apparent at the point of a manufacturing inspection. The degree of that material variability may be slight and the defect sizing understood, but making sure that the design takes account of this variability through life (especially when the chair is mistreated) is often not considered. To some extent we are all materials engineers when we make a judgement that the chair appears to be 'sturdy' before we sit down, but we do this based on our empirical knowledge and not on the science that is available to us.

Are you sure the next time you sit in the chair it won't fail? Your empirical knowledge only informs you of what happened last time not what 'will' happen in the future. The application of materials science knowledge will inform the future performance. Bridging the gap between the atomistic world of materials science that defines the best estimate of mechanical performance and the bounding estimates required in materials engineering that takes account of the variability and defects is key to improving trust in applying materials science to engineering structures.

Assurance is about the trust that we place that the quality system has not failed. The chair may have been subject to a level of quality control before it left the factory, at this stage we need to have trust in the manufacturer. If the chair belongs to an individual or organisation, we trust that as responsible owners, that they would replace the chair if broken and that they have systems in place to check if the chair is broken before someone sits on it.

This fellowship is about developing a similar level of trust for future high integrity or critical applications. We cannot use empirical knowledge, i.e. we don't have thousands of years of experience with building fusion reactors or producing high integrity power transmission systems for aerospace applications, so we must use science. Developing a similar level of trust in the predictive modelling capability in the application of materials science to these complex and high value systems, to the empirical knowledge we all have of our usual chair is key to unlocking the public trust in the safe performance of future critical systems.

The Risk Assuring Future Structure Critical Systems: Combining 21st Century Science with Engineering Intuition Future leaders Fellowship will have impact through the following channels:

Introduce a common understanding of the risk of failure for engineering structures and components throughout UK industry:

All industries work to different rules and understanding of effectively the same topic, how to provide assurance of the future performance of a high integrity structure? Within this is an understanding of the in-service loading and, the subject of this programme, the response of a material to that loading. Each industry approaches this fundamental question from a different angle and make different assumptions of the material behaviour. It is not currently possible to directly compare the level of integrity of common objects to engineering structures such that society understands the materials community. This would build trust in the discipline and an appreciation of science involved.

Highly Trained People:

The post-doctoral researchers and PhD graduates trained during the fellowship will be the most effective vehicles for delivering impact, both during their research and subsequent careers. The fellowship will produce at least 15 years of PDRA involvement, developing people with a skill-set that will combine knowledgeability in three distinct subject areas; application of structural integrity to engineering issues, multi-scale materials modelling methods, and statistical approaches to data analytics. The group will be trained to improve awareness of ED&I issues, creating a future community that is more robust and open to alternative ideas and innovations. This combination provides the fellowship graduates with the skillset to make an immediate impact on their employer and be prepared for future leadership. Furthermore, these researchers will start their careers with an extensive network of national and international contacts throughout the manufacturing sector - enabling them to accelerate their career and access a wide range of expertise and business opportunities.

STEM and Outreach:

Activities to improve the advancement of STEM through outreach at all levels will be woven into all areas of the fellowship. Any concept or idea developed will be examined to establish how it could be best described and implemented at various levels of education, from primary through to post-doctoral, and how that information can be put in the hands of influencers. These influencers would range from STEM ambassadors to university professors in academia; innovation leaders and specification/standards boards in industry; and, government and policy makers where appropriate.

In order to do this the current state of training and perception of structural integrity will be reviewed. The first contact with the topic for many will be as a university undergraduate on specialist mechanical behaviour courses, broadening this to larger and younger groups will improve interest at all levels. The work undertaken in structural integrity is technically challenging yet requires a level of pragmatism to complete successfully, dependent on deterministic assessment alone would mean no to limited progress. The main goal of structural integrity is to ensure that no one is injured due to an engineering failure, as such the work is important to society.

Building large components that have direct impact on the infrastructure of the country and that will last for potentially hundreds of years should capture the imagination of more young future engineers, yet the uptake of materials-based courses by students is dropping. By capturing the excitement of large projects and better reporting why we do what we do to make it safe, or why we now understand something to be safe when we could not before, would be a key goal of any outreach activity.