Professor Ian Jennions

Areas of expertise

• Computational Fluid Dynamics
• Gas Turbines & Propulsion
• Power Systems & Turbines
• Vehicle Health Management

Background

Ian's career spans over 40 years, working mostly for a variety of gas turbine companies. He has a Mechanical Engineering degree and a PhD in CFD both from Imperial College, London. He has worked for Rolls-Royce (twice), General Electric and Alstom in a number of technical roles, gaining experience in aerodynamics, heat transfer, fluid systems, mechanical design, combustion, services and IVHM. Ian moved to Cranfield in July 2008 as Professor and Director of the newly formed IVHM Centre, and ran the Centre until July 2020. The Centre has been funded by a number of industrial companies, including Boeing, BAE Systems, Thales, Meggitt, MOD and Alstom Transport. He has led the development and growth of the Centre, in research and education, since its inception. The Centre offers an IVHM short course each year and has offered an IVHM MSc. A new Head of Centre was appointed in July 2020 and Ian became the Centre's Technical Director. Ian is on the editorial Board for the International Journal of Condition Monitoring, a Director of the PHM Society, Vice-chairman of SAE's IVHM Steering Group, contributing member of the SAE HM-1 IVHM committee, a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of IMechE, RAeS and ASME. He is the editor of five recent SAE books: 1. IVHM - Perspectives on an Emerging Field; 2. IVHM - Business Case Theory and Practise; 3. IVHM - the Technology; 4. IVHM - Essential Reading; 5. IVHM - Implementation and Lessons Learned and a co-author of the book: ‘No Fault Found – The Search for the Root Cause’.

Current activities

• Running the Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM) Centre and participating in the No Fault Found (NFF) project of the Through-life Engineering Services Centre. Total staff of around 20 people
• The Environmental Control System (ECS) in an aircraft keeps the air in the passenger cabin at the right temperature and humidity. With Boeing and BAE Systems we are trying to understand the way in which such systems degrade and what sensors and data are necessary to effectively monitor them. The work involves both physical and functional modelling as well as significant experimentation and design process interaction
• The Alstom Health Hub. Aimed at providing information on the degradation of train brakes, wheels and pantograph, also on doors and external lines. The data is collected as a train comes into a maintenance yard and then we run prognostic algorithms to determine when components need to be changed. This work is done in conjunction with Critical Software, to produce a production system for Alstom
• Current active research includes: IVHM and safety, knowledge management, bearing lubrication, intermittent fault detection, UAV health detection, and power converter prognostics
• Previous projects have involved: IVHM architecture, OSA-CBM implementation, IVHM for legacy aircraft, hybrid prognostics, benchmark prognostic dataset from a filter clogging rig, energy harvesting, rotor dynamic balancing, health management development process, benchmark diagnostic dataset from a fuel rig, IVHM design system, on-board / off-board optimisation, IVHM requirements, business case, health assessment of gears, 11kV power distribution simulation, and acoustic sensors for SHM.

Clients

The IVHM Centre's clients, over its 8 years of operation, have included:

• Boeing
• BAE Systems
• Meggitt
• Thales
• Alstom
• Rolls-Royce
• MOD
• Western Power Distribution
• DRS
• Safran
• Novartis

Publications

• Articles in journals
• Conference papers
• Books