Future Innovation in Non-Destructive Evaluation at University of Bristol

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The EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Future Innovation in Non-Destructive Evaluation (FIND-CDT) has been created to provide EngD and PhD programmes in the vital field of non-destructive evaluation: an underpinning technology that encompasses a wide range of sensing, imaging and analysis techniques. 

FIND-CDT connects universities with industry. The result is research that makes a difference – EDF, Airbus and E.ON are just a few of the companies our students have worked with to create real impact.

The University of Bristol leads, alongside centre partners Imperial College London and the Universities of Manchester, Nottingham, Strathclyde and Warwick. The CDT has been co-created by a consortium of 49 companies, including Airbus, Rolls-Royce, EDF, BAE Systems and Shell.

The CDT has close links to the UK’s internationally leading Research Centre for Non Destructive Evaluation with a vibrant network of more than 250 researchers across a range of disciplines based in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, physics, mathematics and imaging sciences departments in the participating universities.

With these partners, we have developed bespoke cohort-based doctoral training to equip our CDT graduates with the breadth and depth of knowledge that UK industry requires across this multidisciplinary subject. EngD and PhD students will be trained by leading academic and industrial experts through taught modules on the core technical disciplines, as well as in innovation and entrepreneurship and an industrially linked doctoral research project.

This responds to rapidly changing needs of UK industry and a society that demands low costs with high levels of safety and reliability. This need is driven by many factors such as new materials, advanced manufacturing technologies, digitalisation, the Internet of Things, robotic systems, the civil nuclear renaissance and the pressing requirement to extend the life of our ageing national infrastructure.

The combination of breadth and depth of training equips our graduates with the broad interdisciplinary technical skills to deliver innovative solutions across key industrial sectors and the transferable skills needed to become future innovators and industry leaders.

The Bristol group is recognised as a world leader within NDE, having produced several important research outcomes that are now exploited by industry, both in the UK and around the world.