Precision Acoustics Limited has been named Design Team of the Year winners in the prestigious British Engineering Excellence Awards (BEEAs).
The BEEAs recognise and celebrate innovative British engineering design. Precision Acoustics entered the Design Team of the Year category for which nominees had to illustrate teamwork in creating an engineering or electronic product or system. They had to demonstrate the team’s composition and interaction, how they worked within a target budget and how well the team met project milestones, with emphasis on problem solving.
Precision Acoustics’ winning entry was the reDRESS project. They had worked in close collaboration with Ionix Advanced Technologies, TWI Ltd and the University of Sheffield, across a period of 21 months.
The goal of the reDRESS project was to construct a reliable ultrasonic testing sensor that offered an alternative to commercially available ultrasonic sensors, which have limitations in terms of temperature and radiation exposure. High radiation, in particular, can cause failure of such sensors.
Each partner brought their own areas of expertise, and Precision Acoustics’ input was the design of a radiation resilient ultrasonic transducer range (RRUT) based around piezopolymer sensing elements. The resulting sensor will allow inspections to be made close to the core of nuclear reactors, an extremely hot (>350°C) environment with high radiation levels. A heat and radiation resilient ultrasonic sensor like this will push the maximum operating window (in terms of temperature and radiation) of piezopolymer and piezoceramic ultrasound transducers for defined periods of time.
The BEEA judges said, “As part of the reDRESS project, Precision Acoustics brought together different scientific principles to deliver an outstanding and innovative product.”
Gary Livingstone, Managing Director of Precision Acoustics, commented on their win, “Well done to our amazing team at Precision Acoustics. This is a fantastic achievement for all those involved in the project.”