Game Changers support for challenge bids

Game Changers support for challenge bids

Long-term monitoring of air ducts in storage facilities was the focus of one of Game Changers’ latest challenges issued on behalf of Sellafield Ltd. The challenge attracted a large number of highly competitive applications which were whittled down to four successful proposals.

Packages inside the stores contain materials resulting from nuclear reprocessing activities over the past 60 years. The environment within their storage is carefully controlled and Sellafield wants to explore long-term sensor solutions allowing them to remotely monitor the condition inside the ducts of the storage facilities. Early indications of duct degradation or corrosion are of particular interest.

The four successful organisations awarded feasibility funding of £10k each are:

Wilderness Insights (Ayrshire)

This company will use expertise gained from designing self-monitoring sensors requiring zero maintenance in harsh environments to explore the use of energy harvesting to power a new sensor module suitable for use in restricted air ducts. The module will be capable of monitoring parameters such as temperature, humidity and airflow.

Ambisense (Chester)

Chester-based SME Ambisense will explore the use of an Internet of Things (IoT) radar device and cloud-based analytics platform to provide an inexpensive monitoring solution to remotely assess corrosion in ventilation ducts. Ambisense leverages next generation IoT devices and artificial intelligence (AI) to optimise the safety, compliance and performance of environmental assets.

Inductosense (Bristol)

Inductosense will investigate the application of corrosion monitoring technology (WAND) that they developed for the oil and gas sector. They have commercialised and globally deployed wireless, battery-free ultrasonic sensors which have been used extensively to monitor corrosion or erosion of metal infrastructure. The project will help determine how the WAND technology - passive sensor, a data collection device and integrated software - can be deployed in ductwork.

Loughborough University

The university will work with the National Nuclear Laboratory to evaluate the potential of self-powered wireless sensing for long-term monitoring of air ducts. The project will explore the possibility of airflow energy harvesting, multi-parameter sensing (temperature, humidity, salt deposition, airflow and corrosion) and hybrid wireless communication to provide a tool capable of showing early signs of corrosion or damage.

It is expected that the feasibility projects will be completed by January 2023.