Welcome to the Western Region
The Region covers the five Areas listed below (with Chairmen):
Bath & Bristol - Mark Woolfrey
Devon & Somerset - Jon Smith
Gloucester - Max Gough
Plymouth - Tub Aves
Swindon - Neil Grant
In addition there are Young Member Panels centred around Bristol and Plymouth. There are also three Divisional Centres for those with specialist interests in the Aerospace, Automobile and Railway industries.
Western Young Members (Bristol) - Tom Knight (Secretary)
Devon & Cornwall Young Members - Andy Bevan
Aerospace - Martin Soltau
Automobile - Chris Brace
Railway - Andrew Skinner
The Region is supported by a professional Regional Manager, Alan King.
If you click on the Events link you will find information about forthcoming events in the Region. Similarly information about events and contacts for each Area or Panel is provided in their respective pages.
The overall programme for the Region aims to provide a mixture of learned society activities including prestige lectures, talks on popular subjects, visits to industrial organisations, aspects of Continuing Professional Development, student prizes and social functions.
Details of the programme, typically comprising around 90 events organised by the Region, Areas, Young Member Panels and Divisional Centres, are printed on a single card, which is sent to all our members during September each year via an insert in Professional Engineering.
I believe it is important that the members in our Region are properly supported, if you would like to discuss any of the above please feel free to contact me, or any of the Area, Panel or Centre Chairmen.
Max Gough
Chairman
Currently running throughout the Western Region is the 'Flying Start' schools scheme. More details can be found HERE. Please take a look and get involved.
13 January 2009 | 19:00 - 21:00
The Bristol-based company, Cameron Balloons Ltd, is the World’s largest manufacturer of hot air balloons. Don Cameron, the founder, will give an illustrated talk about the history of hot air balloons and their manufacture.
14 January 2009 | 19:00 - 21:00
A unique articulated compound locomotive, Garrat K1 was built in Manchester in 1909 for export to a working life of 20 years in Tasmania and then survived a retirement of 70 years before being restored to full service condition by the Welsh Highland Railway. IMechE have recently awarded Garrat K1 the prestigious Engineering Heritage Award in recognition of this locomotive’s unique place in British engineering history. Paul Inman, examines the influences beind the Garratt design and describes the life and restoration of the locomotive in an illustrated lecture including recent DVD footage of K1 in action.
19 January 2009 | 19:00 - 20:30
Public Lecture --
Title: Marine Renewable Energy --
Speaker: Professor George Smith, University of Exeter, Cambourn Campus --
Synopsis: The lecture will review the opportunities for generation of power from renewable marine resources including wind, tidal and wave power --
20 January 2009 | 19:00 - 21:00
Growing demands for energy in the modern world require increased efficiency in the use of resources to generate power. This
talk will identify the opportunity for technology development in this space, and the requirements for a solution to this issue. Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) at megawatt scale offer a potential solution at high (60+ %) efficiency and benefit from fuel flexibility. This talk will present the Rolls Royce Fuel Cell Systems Limited (RRFCS) technology to deliver a SOFC system at this scale and address
the inherent challenges.
29 January 2009 | 19:00 - 21:30
18 February 2009 | 16:30 - 21:00
Visit to Constellation Europe
23 February 2009 | 19:00 - 20:30
Public Lecture -- Title: Concentrated Solar Power -- Speaker: Dr Peter Foreman -- Synopsis: The lecture will examine the feasibility of large scale electricity generation by concentrated solar power in the hot deserts and distribution of this electricity to temperate regions using high voltage direct current transmission.
24 February 2009 | 19:00 - 21:00
11 March 2009 | 14:00 - 15:00
This is a rare opportunity to view the A380 Landing Gear Test Rig. This fully size facility is used to life test the system, equipments, modification packages and failure modes. It’s a fascinating visit.
15 April 2009 | 18:00 - 21:00
As part of an ongoing development by Corac with the support of Oil & Gas
majors; ConocoPhillips, Repsol-YPF and Eni; a prototype Downhole Gas
Compressor (DGC) has been designed, built and tested in a full scale
flow loop closely replicating downhole conditions. The technology
offers the opportunity to increase natural gas production by as much as
30-50% and significantly impact ultimate recovery even when liquids are
present. It can be applied at any point during the life of a gas field
and will find favour during the decline phase in tubing constrained
wells. It may also be used to extend the life of a field and hence
delay abandonment.
The DGC design includes compressors in series with each driven directly
by permanent magnet motors supported on gas bearings. The motors are
powered by individual high frequency solid state inverters specifically
designed for a downhole environment. Electrical power is delivered
downhole by a low loss DC link enabling upwards of 0.5MW of wellbore
compression power. The engineering of these technologies, extending
over 2 years and culminating in full-scale testing will be discussed, as
will the beneficial effect wellbore compression has for unloading wet
wells and significantly increasing production.