Major laboratory facilities
Our laboratory facilities include:
Acoustics and Vibration Laboratory, with full anechoic chamber and reverberation room: the building incorporates a specialised suspension system to isolate the facility from external ground vibration.
Aeronautical Propulsion Test Cells – two test cells for high pressure (up to 8 bar) nozzle experiments, and the running of small-scale gas-turbine engines.
Automotive Powertrains Laboratory, comprising eight engine test cells and a chassis dynamometer; this includes various optical engines and optical diagnostics equipment, new transient engine dynamometer, CVS sampling and HORIBA emissions analysis equipment. The laboratory is run jointly with the Wolfson School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering.
Display and Demonstration area – adjacent to the main department entrance, this incorporates various hardware exhibits of aeronautical and automotive systems technology, including the full-scale EAP Aircraft (Eurofighter technology demonstrator).
Dynamics and Control Laboratory with new fully instrumented 6-axis flight/car simulator, four-poster vehicle road simulator, and small-scale servo-hydraulics rigs.
Electronics Workshops
Fuel Cells Laboratory
Lift bay for vehicle set-up and instrumentation
Mechanical Workshops
PC and Unix Computer Laboratories
Rolls-Royce UTC Laboratory, comprising four purpose-built test cells for isothermal measurements on complex combustion chamber geometries and other gas-turbine engine components. Instrumentation comprises a range of advanced probe, hot wire and optical instrumentation used for flow-field surveys.
Structures Laboratory, including facilities for composite structures manufacture, dynamic drop testing and ultrasonic analysis.
Undergraduate Teaching Laboratory – for small-scale manufacture and testing of structures, design and make projects, and dynamics and control undergraduate experiments.
Wind-Tunnel Laboratory, incorporating a new low-speed aeronautical/automotive tunnel, plus two smaller subsonic tunnels and a smoke visualisation tunnel.
Water tunnel laboratory with LDA/PIV systems for flow measurement and visualisation.
Wood and Plastics Workshop