AMP - Advanced Manufacturing Park

Companies at Rotherham's Advanced Manufacturing Park (AMP) pulled together to ensure Britain's skeleton bobsleigh athletes Kristan Bromley and Shelley Rudman could challenge the might of the world's top winter sports nations.

Working to phenomenally tight deadlines, the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre with Boeing (AMRC) and Materialise contributed to the athletes flying to Vancouver with sleds incorporating an enhanced aerodynamic technology package.

The technology package was co-ordinated by Bromley Technologies, which runs the Formula Ice 2010 programme to support athletes Bromley, Rudman and Team Minichiello, with the help of sponsors including the AMRC, Materialise, Fripp Design and Research, and Dormer Tools – all based at the AMP.

Materialise UK Ltd, the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre with Boeing (AMRC), and North American company Mentor Graphics Corporation (Nasdaq:MENT), worked with the Bromley Technologies engineers on an aerodynamic package to provide the extra performance edge needed at the Games.

Prior to the Games, the Bromley Formula Ice team had already had a successful World Cup season, securing all the eight medals won by the British Skeleton team, but knew from computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis and pre-season wind tunnel testing with a Formula One team, that the right aerodynamics package could give the vital extra few 100th of a second speed advantage.

As aerodynamics are relatively easy for competitor teams to copy, the ultimate design was finalised after the last race of the season, leaving a very short turn around time to test the proposed package, analyse the results and make the decision to go ahead with the new design or not. CFD simulations were undertaken by Bromley Technologies, using FLoEFD software by permission of Mentor Graphics Corporation, to assess potential aerodynamic gain, and finalise the potential pan design.

There was a two day window between the last race in Austria and the test session in St Moritz, Switzerland. Once the team at Materialise received the CAD design files for the prototype sled pan their team coordinated the materials to be used, capable of performing at -20c, and manufactured it at their rapid prototyping plant in Belgium. The pan was designed, manufactured and delivered within 48 hours; an amazing result which proved that rapid prototyping and Materialise could certainly deliver in very tight time frames.

The St Moritz tests proved the results of the analysis and simulations, and the decision was made to go ahead with the new design for the Olympics. This required a final mould to be manufactured; the pans laid up, made and trimmed, before final fittings and preparations prior to being shipped to Canada.

Once the final analysis of the data from the test was completed, the design files were finalised by the Bromley Technologies team over the weekend and forwarded to the AMRC. They immediately laid up the tooling block to the dimensions on the Monday and started machining a mould to allow the final racing pans to be made. The machining was completed by an AMRC 5 axis machine and the mould was lifted from the machine on the Wednesday afternoon, which was a remarkable turn around. The Bromley Technologies engineers then laid up the two pans to have them ready to fly out with the athletes on the Friday.

Mike Maddock, COO of Bromley Technologies said: “I just want to say a huge thanks to Mentor Graphics, Materialise and the AMRC for their help in bringing together the final pieces of the Olympic skeleton technology programme. Without their help and that of our other Formula Ice sponsor companies, we would not have had the successful World Cup campaigns this season, and certainly wouldn't have gone to Vancouver as medal contenders.

“It's great to be able to showcase such technological expertise on a world stage, and to illustrate through our Formula Ice programme how companies can come together to collaborate and help create something really special.”

Erich Buergel, general manager of Mentor's Mechanical Analysis Division added: “Mentor Graphics is proud to support the efforts of this elite athlete driven engineering company. We are glad that the ultra-fast turnaround time of our concurrent CFD software package, FloEFD, enabled Bromley to radically compress design cycles and optimise the performance of the bob skeleton in such a short timeframe to fit their competitive environment.”

Philip Hudson, managing director, Materialise UK Ltd, said: “We're pleased that Materialise have supported Shelley and Kristan's Olympic medal bid. It's been a real team effort both here in the UK and in Belgium, and shows the capabilities available through the latest rapid prototyping and manufacturing techniques.”

Professor Keith Ridgway, AMRC co-founder, said: "We are delighted to be working alongside a world-class company in Bromley Technologies, as with our combined expertise in engineering technology, we have developed an innovative package."

The Formula Ice 2010 programme from Bromley Technologies Ltd harnesses world class technological expertise from world leading companies and fuses this with Bromley's pedigree and proven highly specialised engineering expertise in bobsleigh sports. The F-ICE programme is a world's first and currently supports Shelley Rudman and Kristan Bromley (Skeleton) and Team Minichiello (Bobsleigh), and is designed to complement the athlete's world class training programmes. (www.formula-ice.com)