Fibre-reinforced composites are finding increased usage in load-bearing structures in a variety of applications in marine, automotive and rail transport industries owing to their specific strength and stiffness properties. A serious problem with these composite materials, particularly glass-reinforced polymeric composites, which are the most prevalent in marine and other surface transport applications, is that they support combustion and in fire conditions burn, most often with heavy soot and smoke. Insulation can reduce the fire hazard, but does not eliminate it. Moreover the insulation adds weight and cost to apply.The combustible part of the composite is organic resin matrix. Most common method of fire retarding the resin and hence, the overall composite is the physical and chemical modification of the resin by either adding fire retardant element in the polymer backbone or using fire retardant additives in the resin. For polyester or vinyl ester resins, usually halogenated chemicals are used. While the presence of halogen significantly reduces the flammability of the resin, due to increasing environmental awareness and strict environmental legislations thereof, halogen - containing fire retardants are being strictly scrutinised. When non-halogen flame retardants are used, invariably they are required in large quantities (>30% w/w) to achieve required level of fire retardancy. The high concentrations of additives however, can reduce the mechanical properties of the composite. Moreover, they also affect resin's processability for resin transfer moulding technique, commonly used for these types of composites. We propose here a step change in the resin matrix by reducing the combustibility of vinyl ester and/or polyester resin by co-blending with inherently fire retardant resins, such as phenolic or melamine-formaldehyde resin.This proposal is a joint attempt by 'Fire Materials' group at the University of Bolton and 'Fluid Structure Interactions Research Group (FSIRG) at the University of Southampton to develop, construct, test and model novel, fire-retardant composites, initially for marine applications. The principal focus is to develop a modified polymeric matrix to reduce the combustibility of the vinyl ester or polyester resins by blending with appropriately modified phenolic and melamine resins, which will increase the thermal stability and char-forming capacity of the matrix. The physical and chemical properties of the modified resin will be optimised to enable: (a) the resin to be infusible for moulding leading to good processing ability: (b) low temperature cure capability to maximize compatibility and bonding with glass fibres; and (c) up-scaling to produce large laminates and structures. It is proposed that two different approaches will be taken: the first one 'Material' based, mainly by Bolton, and the other 'Structure' based, to which both Bolton and Southampton will contribute. The specific tasks include resin blending, chemical / physical modification of the resin, process modelling and resin infusion, composite laminate preparation and flammability evaluation. The composite laminates and structures thus produced are expected to comply with the fire performance requirements contained in the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) as `IMO/HSC Code (Code of Safety for High Speed craft of the International Maritime Organisation). Additionally, the structural performance of the composite would be expected to be comparable with current glass/vinyl ester. We also propose to conduct fire performance modelling, mechanical characterisation and progressive damage analysis from a structural design viewpoint.We expect these composites to find applications also in other engineering arenas for which low-weight, thermally resistant and fire-retardant structures are increasingly being sought.

A recent NERC-funded proof of concept award successfully demonstrated that Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals reflected off the sea surface and received by very low cost (<£30) GPS receivers can be used to estimate the difference in height between the receiver and the water. This represents a method of remotely sensing tidal elevations and, if averaged over time, mean sea level. These could be routinely and remotely measuring sea level at a cost that would allow unprecedented numbers of systems to be deployed around the world by organisations of all sizes and levels of funding. Here we propose to take the initial proof of concept from TRL 3 up to TRL 7 by designing a self-contained unit that receives, records and processes the required signals to output a tidal water level in near real time and at a target hardware and assembly cost of less than £100. The demonstration units will be tested and used by our project partners, the RNLI, initially to provide tidal information at an intertidal causeway with a history of RNLI rescues of members of the public who have become stranded by the rising tide. The technology has the potential to be rolled out not only across the UK but globally, potentially as open source designs & firmware, revolutionising the ability to collect tidal and sea level data at an unprecedented price point and operational simplicity.

The achievements of modern research and their rapid progress from theory to application are increasingly underpinned by computation. Computational approaches are often hailed as a new third pillar of science - in addition to empirical and theoretical work. While its breadth makes computation almost as ubiquitous as mathematics as a key tool in science and engineering, it is a much younger discipline and stands to benefit enormously from building increased capacity and increased efforts towards integration, standardization, and professionalism. The development of new ideas and techniques in computing is extremely rapid, the progress enabled by these breakthroughs is enormous, and their impact on society is substantial: modern technologies ranging from the Airbus 380, MRI scans and smartphone CPUs could not have been developed without computer simulation; progress on major scientific questions from climate change to astronomy are driven by the results from computational models; major investment decisions are underwritten by computational modelling. Furthermore, simulation modelling is emerging as a key tool within domains experiencing a data revolution such as biomedicine and finance. This progress has been enabled through the rapid increase of computational power, and was based in the past on an increased rate at which computing instructions in the processor can be carried out. However, this clock rate cannot be increased much further and in recent computational architectures (such as GPU, Intel Phi) additional computational power is now provided through having (of the order of) hundreds of computational cores in the same unit. This opens up potential for new order of magnitude performance improvements but requires additional specialist training in parallel programming and computational methods to be able to tap into and exploit this opportunity. Computational advances are enabled by new hardware, and innovations in algorithms, numerical methods and simulation techniques, and application of best practice in scientific computational modelling. The most effective progress and highest impact can be obtained by combining, linking and simultaneously exploiting step changes in hardware, software, methods and skills. However, good computational science training is scarce, especially at post-graduate level. The Centre for Doctoral Training in Next Generation Computational Modelling will develop 55+ graduate students to address this skills gap. Trained as future leaders in Computational Modelling, they will form the core of a community of computational modellers crossing disciplinary boundaries, constantly working to transfer the latest computational advances to related fields. By tackling cutting-edge research from fields such as Computational Engineering, Advanced Materials, Autonomous Systems and Health, whilst communicating their advances and working together with a world-leading group of academic and industrial computational modellers, the students will be perfectly equipped to drive advanced computing over the coming decades.

Launch and recovery of small vehicles from a large vessel is a common operation in maritime sectors, such as launching and recovering unmanned underwater vehicles from a patrol of research vessel or launching and recovering lifeboats from offshore platforms or ships. Such operations are often performed in harsh sea conditions. The recent User Inspired Academic Challenge Workshop on Maritime Launch and Recovery, held in July 2014 and coordinated by BAE systems, identified various challenges associated with safe launch and recovery of off-board, surface and sub-surface assets from vessels while underway in severe sea conditions. One of them is the lack of an accurate and efficient modelling tool for predicting the hydrodynamic loads on and the motion of two floating bodies, such as vessels of different size which may be coupled by a non-rigid link, in close proximity in harsh seas. Such a tool may be employed to minimise the risk of collisions and unacceptable motions, and to facilitate early testing of new concepts and systems. It may also be used to estimate hydrodynamic loads during the deployment of a smaller vessel (for example, a lifeboat) and during recovery of a smaller vessel from the deck of a larger vessel. The difficulties associated with development of such tools lie in the following aspects: (1) the water waves in harsh sea states have to be simulated; (2) the motion of the small vehicle and change in its wetted surface during launch or recovery can be very large, possibly moving from totally dry in air to becoming entirely submerged; (3) the viscous effects may play an important role and cannot be ignored, and will affect the coupling between ocean waves and motion of the vehicles. Existing methods and tools available to the industry cannot deal with all of these issues together and typically require very high computational resources. This project will develop an accurate and efficient numerical model that can be applied routinely for the analysis of the motion and loadings of two bodies in close proximity with or without physical connection in high sea-states, which of course can be employed to analyse the launch and recovery process of a small vehicle from a large vessel and to calculate the hydrodynamics during the process. This will be achieved building upon the recent developed numerical methods and computer codes by the project partners and also the success of the past and ongoing collaborative work between them. In addition, the project will involve several industrial partners to ensure the delivery of the project and to promote impact.

The proposed multi-disciplinary project aims to making South Indian artisanal fishers' livelihoods more secure and sustainable by improving safety at sea. Bringing together these small-scale fishers with weather forecasters and government agencies, it will devise, test and promote effective means for the co-production and communication of accurate weather forecasts, thus increasing resilience of the fishers amidst a trend of extreme and hazardous weather conditions in a changing climate. Moreover, the project will devise an "action template" of practical methods and a road-map for co-producing and communicating accessible and effective weather forecasts to artisanal fishers elsewhere in India and beyond. It will also contribute to academic debates concerning: the understanding and response to environmental risks; the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in disseminating information and warnings to diverse and vulnerable populations; and the knowledge, practices and livelihoods of fishing communities in Asia. The main objective of the proposed project is to close the gap between what marine weather forecasters produce and disseminate, and what artisanal fishers recognize as relevant and actionable inputs for decision-making. Access to trusted and actionable forecasts helps fishers make informed decisions to go to sea or not under hazardous weather conditions, thus reducing risk of potentially life-threatening accidents at sea, diminishing the loss of gear and boats, and, more generally, building resilience against hazardous weather conditions. Such weather-resilient pathways will contribute to promoting more secure and sustainable livelihoods for artisanal fishers in India and elsewhere in the Global South. This project will be part of a larger effort called the Sussex Sustainability Research Programme (SSRP) to provide science relevant for implementing the SDGs in seventeen low and medium income countries. Drawing on the expertise of a multi-disciplinary research team--comprising anthropologists, geographers, atmospheric and marine scientists, and ICT and media experts - the proposed project combines complementary methodological approaches. It utilizes ethnographic methods to study the wider social, economic and cultural practices underpinning artisanal fishing, as well as to gauge fishers' forecast usage and uptake. It uses satellite and in-situ weather observations to gain insights into changing hazard patterns and forecast challenges, as well as to acquire the necessary data to co-produce area-specific weather forecasts with fishers, forecasters and other stakeholders. It will employ participatory approaches and technologies developed in the fields of human-computer interaction and ICT4D to co-produce and test effective, culturally appropriate communication platforms to disseminate weather forecast and provide feedback on the same. To account for variations in fishing techniques and technologies, and in the socio-economic organization of fishing, as well as different forms of social organization and cultural orientations the field-research will take place in three different fishing communities. These will be located, respectively, in Kanyakumari, Thiruvananthapuram and Kollam districts in South India, a stretch of coast with one of the densest concentrations of artisanal fishers in Asia, using diverse craft, gear and fishing methods in a geographically diverse setting.