Personnel involved in the FPeT project

The following is a list of the invesitigators on the project

Principal investigator

Martin Foster is Professor in Energy Conversion and Storage in the Electrical Machines and Drives Group at the University of Sheffield. His primary research interests are in the field of power electronics and energy storage. Much of his work has been presented at conferences and published in leading international journals.

Dr Jonathan Davidson

Jonathan Davidson studied both his MEng and PhD in the Department of Electronic and Electrial Engineering, graduating in 2010 and 2015 respectively. He was appointed lecturer in September 2015 as part of new team of academics to develop a degree in interdisciplinary engineering called MEng Engineering. He was made Senior Lecturer in 2022. He is currently Director of Education for Interdisciplinary Programmes in Engineering.

His research interests cover a range of interdisciplinary themes centred on power electronic systems. They include include resonant converters using both traditional magnetic resonant tanks and piezoelectric transformers (Grant: FPeT £600k, 2017) and lately high frequency supplies for chemical species selective reactions (Grant: Targeted waveform plasma reactor £980k, 2019). Notable successes in the field include the development of a design criterion for efficient piezoelectric transformers and a thorough exploration of the geometry requirements for transformers.

Work on impedance sensing and system modelling has been applied to several areas. With converters, it has driven the evaluation of piezoelectric transformer design and it is an enabling technology for the chemical species selection. In addition, it is the primary enabler of work on sewage sensing (Grants: Hydro Intl £200k, 2019; NBIC £50k 2020) which focusses on early detection of sediment build-up, examining the chemistry during destructive testing of electrochemical cells and producing accurate dynamic thermal models of power electronics.

Prof David Stone

David Stone studied Electronic Engineering at the University of Sheffield from 1982 - 1985, an graduated with a 1st BEng(Hons) before moving to Liverpool University to study a PhD. He graduated from Liverpool University in 1989 with a PhD in Automatic Weld Penetration Control, having developed a vision system and power electronics capable of controlling the penetration of a TIG welding arc through the workpiece.

After graduating with a PhD, he joined the University of Sheffield as a member of academic staff in the Electrical Machines and Drives (EMD) Group where he has been working to date, having been promoted to Professor in 2013.

His research interests include power electronics and energy storage, and currently, through CREESA, the research group operates the largest grid-connected lithium titanate electrical energy storage system in the UK.

Prof Ian Reaney

The main theme of Ian Reaney's research is the study of structure/microstructure property relations in electroceramics. He he has produced many key texts on microwave dielectrics and piezoelectrics and is currently developing lead free ceramics for actuators and sensors and researching materials for 5G applications. His group focuses on the development of sustainable functional ceramics and as part of this initiative he has published several papers on their comparative life cycle assessment. He is also developing ultra-low sintering technologies for ceramics to reduce the carbon footprint of their manufacture.

Prof Derek Sinclair

Derek Sinclair was appointed to the academic staff at the University of Sheffield in 1999 as a Lecturer in Functional Materials following from Lecturer appointments in the Department of Chemistry, University of Aberdeen (1994-99) and the Department of Materials Science, University of Leeds (1993-94). He obtained his BSc (1st Class Honours) and PhD (supervised by Professor Tony West) in Chemistry at the University of Aberdeen and held post-doctoral research appointments at the University of Aberdeen (with Profs Tony West and John Irvine) and the Interdisciplinary Research Centre for Superconductivity at the University of Cambridge (with Prof Paul Attfield), before joining the academic staff at Leeds in 1993.

Derek is a recognised for his ability to probe the structure (crystal and defect)-composition-microstructure-property relationships of a wide range of functional oxides, spanning from superconductors to dielectrics via mixed conductors and solid electrolytes.