Huddersfield research centre expands into China

A research centre based at the University of Huddersfield has expanded into China.

University of Huddersfield’s Centre for Efficiency and Performance Engineering will be a focal point of a network involving seven leading Chinese universities

The universities have teamed up to create a research network which aims to ensure that machines ranging from aero engines to wind turbines operate as reliably and efficiently as possible, leading to cost savings and environmental benefits.

The University of Huddersfield’s Professor Andrew Ball and Professor Fengshou Gu, leading experts on diagnostic engineering, are at the heart of the development.

Professor Ball is the founder of the University of Huddersfield’s Centre for Efficiency and Performance Engineering (CEPE) and Professor Gu is the Deputy Director.

The Centre is the world’s largest research centre in the field of diagnostic engineering, with 15 academic staff, more than 30 doctoral researchers and more than 30 visiting academics working to improve machinery reliability and safety and to boost plant performance whilst reducing harmful emissions.

“We also have links with numerous institutions in China,” said Professor Ball.

“The network in the UK works well because CEPE is a hub with ‘spokes’, consisting of individuals or groups at other universities in the UK. We realised that we now needed a hub in China.”

Beijing Institute of Technology in Zhuhai (BITZH) – one of the institutions with which Professor Ball and his colleagues have forged links – offered to act as the hub for a new ‘CEPE China’, with ‘spokes’ to a range of highly-prestigious Chinese universities, including Shanghai Jiao Tong, Xi’an Jiao Tong, Tsinghua, Chongqing, Nanjing, Tianjin and Zhejiang.

Together the UK and Chinese CEPE hub and spoke institutions form a large international network which will foster close research collaboration, staff and student exchanges and host a large annual conference, held alternately in the UK and China.

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