A highlight of the taught component of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Composites Science, Engineering, and Manufacturing (COSEM CDT) is the Design, Build and Test (DBT) group project. Each year, the cohort is tasked with an exciting new project that ties into real Bristol Composites Institute research. This iteration of the DBT project saw the students tasked with producing a demonstrator for a wing spoiler deployed through sequential buckling rather than a conventional actuator.
The students had to consider and complete all aspects of this project in collaboration with each other. This scope covered many varied elements and skills. Throughout the project, the students went from creating models of the interaction and designing an appropriate test method to producing the samples and testing the demonstrator in the lab.
The cohort documented their progress and work throughout the duration of the unit, and with the aid of James Griffith (2021 CDT cohort), this has been compiled into a short video of the entire project.
Matthew Lillywhite, who focused on the design aspect of the project, said: “This was our first taste of real, collaborative research. The DBT project gave us a space to use everything we had learned over the year and put it into practice while gaining new skills I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise, such as project management."
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