List of questions

What would you like to try in an engineering & construction environment?

Costain would like to make its business available as a living lab. If you are interested in exploring new management processes (Lean, Carbon, Safety or the science of innovation), or technology such as sensor monitoring, satellite / radar or water process associated with waste water treatment, or equipment such as technology that makes asset management easier or chemicals that don’t damage the environment (ie salt for dicing the road) that will allow the next step in your innovation journey, we would like to help.
We are looking for partners that want to collaborate and recognise Costain contribution is the provision of access to a market that will allow the research community to understand the commercial and industrial benefits of their innovation. We are not looking for any ownership of the idea but if suitable opportunities develop from the collaboration, we want to help you accelerate innovation to market or access funds to allow you to move to the next stage of development.
90% of Costain business in the UK in the UK with leading Blue Chip customers in the Energy, Water, Road, Rail, Nuclear Process , Oil & Gas market. Our projects tend to large, complex engineering where we are in long term relationships with the customers. We are focused on total asset care from concept design, construction delivery to maintenance.
If you are interested in exploring some ideas I would be happy to discuss and identify a suitable opportunity for collaboration.

Could robotics remove the worker from the construction site?

Over the last 20 years the construction site has been revolutionised with new technology improving the efficiency of what we deliver. Today we have factory systems under ground, terabytes of data collected about assets and machines being operated remotely to build tomorrow’s infrastructure today. The tunnel boring machine has reduced the human interface and increased productivity. The GPS controlled software manages the earthwork fleet to increase accuracy, removing the cost of earth works. Lidar scanning has removed the surveyor from the road and increase the accuracy of asset location / condition across the highway network. Robotic arms move heavy material into place discreetly to revitalise and extend aging UK infrastructure. What will the next robotics revolution? Will it be the robot, 3D printing or something else? If you are interested in exploring how mechanics or computer simulation and new production techniques could build infrastructure of the future and would be interested to understand what collaboration we could develop, please come and share your ideas.

Software – big data – creating insight - how could you help?

Costain has been awarded this Traffic Management Technology contract for the approval and monitoring of the movement of abnormal indivisible loads. In particular, this involves the provision of specific software for the routing of abnormal loads in England, the provision of a help desk, hardware monitoring, backup storage, disaster recovery, secure hosting, data maintenance, service reporting, minor enhancements, and contract and quality management. Are you interested to develop a pipeline of innovation to improve the delivery of this service for the HA?

In the application of sprayed concrete linings in ground support for tunnels, layers of up to 700mm are sprayed in one operation consisting of a series of continual passes. What factors would influence the cohesion of the various layers sprayed in the operation?

The application of sprayed concrete linings is prevalent in the tunnelling industry. There is an ever present risk of sprayed concrete falling from the completed tunnel crown, sometimes with disastrous consequences. The risk is managed by the implementation of exclusion zones, but in an attempt to combat the risk at source - efforts are being made to gather as much data as possible about the incidents of falls. So far, no correlation has been discovered between the various instances. The data being looked at is technique of the application, the strength gain of the accelerated material, the temperature of the material and the ambient temperature and the build up in various layer thicknesses.

How can the infleunce of water on the optical properties of thin films be controlled?

Some thin films, and particularly those made from proteins and polysacharides can become opaque when wet. Controlling the time to "opaqueness" and the dergree of "opaqueness", or preventing it altogether, to preserve clarity is of interest.

what factors control the hydrothermal stabiltiy of proteins, and how can these be controlled in contnuous and large batch process when manufacturing in the food industry?

the commercial production of foodstuffs would improve with a better understanding of such factors

what are the best techniques for the forensic analysis of the failure of composite thin films and tubes made during large sclae continuous and batch processes

how can we best apply understanding of the weibull modulus/distribution? are there any recomendations of dealing with problems associated with slack, and misalignment in tensiles testing of thin ( <0.05 mm) films

Fabric coatings or constructions that are adaptive in opening to create air permeability in higher temperatures and closing down in lower temperatures.

N/a

We are interested in which standard reference materials are required for new advanced medicine materrial and products inclusive of synthetic biology applications.

We are a Biotechnology group in the National Physical Laboratory who support industry through cutting-edge biomolecular measurements and know-how in the fields of biological metrology, synthetic biology and regenerative medicine.

A number of materials challenges exist in the nuclear industry for the construction of decommissioning plants and equipment, which include what materials are available that are easy to decontaminate or what coatings are there that repel/limit contamination and what materials are there that are easy to recycle, and how do we effectively recycle them in a nuclear context?

The nuclear industry, and Sellafield, have decommissioning plans which will cover many decades. During this time, to avoid contaminating more materials in the process, more effective use of materials will be required.