The prestigious British Engineering Excellence Awards has announced that Tom Kelley has been shortlisted in the Young Designer of the Year awards. He will now have a nail-biting wait until the results are announced at the awards lunch being held this year at the Honourable Artillery Club (HAC) in London on the 5th October.
About Tom Kelley
Tom has a B.SC. (Hons) in Natural Sciences and has worked at Precision Acoustics since October 2011 as a Research Scientist.
Project to design and build an ultrasonic phased array
Dr. Andrew Hurrell, Principal Research Physicist at Precision Acoustics writes;
“Tom has been the major participant in a project to design and build an ultrasonic phased array for the identification of tiny defects in very difficult to reach locations. Due to access restrictions, the entire product could be a maximum of 8mm high and was designed to locate and identify defects that were smaller than 0.5mm. Furthermore, due to the high value and delicate nature of the item being examined, none of the outer casing could be made from metal as this may cause unacceptable surface damage. Tom was involved with all stages of the project from modelling, design, prototype build and testing
The phased array probe described above involved a wide range of disciplines. Tom has had to design components for manufacture by: precision engineers, flexible and rigid PCB suppliers and by 3D stereo lithography. He has then had to combine these components with in-house piezo-polymer laminating and vacuum deposition techniques to yield a product with the correct ultrasonic properties. To the best of my knowledge, never before has this wide range of skills been combined to produce a solution for such a demanding ultrasonic application. This is all the more remarkable given Tom has been in industry for less than 6 years.
Tom offers a rare skill combination by having the willingness to pursue difficult academic concepts through to understanding with the dexterity, practicality and meticulousness needed to make small high-tech sensor arrays. He enthusiastically tackles new learning challenges whilst taking the time to teach and mentor our more junior technicians. Tom is a shining example of what a Young Engineer has to offer the profession and should be recognised and commended for his achievements.”
