Propulsion challenges

Universities and research institutes in the U.K. are playing an ever-growing role in EU aerospace development projects as well as maintaining an independent industry workload.

In aerospace and beyond, there are a lot of human activities now being challenged to become more environmentally friendly. As a result, there is a lot of impetus to change the way we do things to protect the environment. Aerospace is doing its fair share and, in some ways, a lot more than its fair share because many applications developed in aerospace are finding their way into other sectors, one example being reducing pollutants.

The roots of some of these developments can be traced back to universities, with those in the U.K. having a particularly strong presence. Within the department of Power and Propulsion School of Engineering at Cranfield University, for example, the efforts made within aerospace can be categorized in three areas.