Press Release

Academy students L-R: Rory Davis, Sam Thomas, Oliver Sutcliffe, Ryan Dyer

In 2015, S & C Thermofluids trialled a summer Academy for four undergraduate and graduate students. The intention was to provide a vibrant working environment to stimulate innovative ideas and research, as well as to provide training facilities and materials to young engineers wishing to gain experience from an industrial placement. The students selected came from a variety of University courses – from Aerospace Engineering to Mathematics – which provided a wide skill set including theoretical, design and practical knowledge.

The Academy was operational for three months over the University holiday period. The Centre for Modelling & Simulation (CFMS), based at the Bristol and Bath Science Park, allowed S&C to convert one of their conference rooms into a remote office from S & C’s main location in Kelston. CFMS were also invaluable in providing the students with access to their High Performance Computing cluster for running parallel computations, and providing on site technical support and facilities.

“Working in our own office at CFMS gave us a feeling of independence, meaning that we'd be more likely to try and solve any problems we encountered ourselves”

The students completed an impressive number of research and development tasks during the Academy, including:

• Conducting literature searches to provide research for future projects and rig designs
• Measuring items of test equipment and producing CAD models
• Completing complex 3D meshes and running fluid dynamics predictions
• Undertaking practical research tasks for the Chemical Engineering department of the University of Bath
• Interacting with suppliers
• Investigating potential developments of the company’s in house Plumes CFD package and Femview IR infra red prediction software
• Evaluating engineering and programming software packages

Towards the end of the summer the students presented highlights from their projects to customers from Dstl, showcasing the potential for future training facilities in the wider engineering industry.

“My time at the academy increased my problem solving and organisational skills. Additionally I got the chance to present to industry experts which was a unique experience.”

Our thanks go to CFMS for hosting the Academy and to Pointwise, ANSYS, CHAM and the Portland Group for providing temporary licensing solutions for their software packages, allowing the students to gain experience using multiple tools.

“In a world where one needs previous work experience in order to get a job, I think the S&C Academy is an amazing opportunity for anyone that takes part.”

S & C Thermofluids intend to run the Academy in future years. If you are interested in getting involved or would like further information, please email Tony Smith at tony.smith@thermofluids.co.uk