Mr Nick Wright
Nick Wright is a research student within the Control Systems Research Group in the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering. His areas of interest include condition monitoring, fault detection, control systems, vacuum systems, cryogenics and nuclear fusion technology. His PhD research is on the design of a health monitoring scheme, for use on the neutral beam heating system used on the Joint European Torus (JET). The research is sponsored by the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE).
Expertise
Applications of advanced control techniques
Fault tolerant control
Feedback control systems analysis and design
Keywords
Condition Monitoring
Health Monitoring
Cryogenics
Vacuum Systems
Neutral Beam Heating
Nick Wright studied at Loughborough University as an undergraduate, and completed a MEng in Electronic/Electrical Engineering in 2009.
He is currently a PhD student in the Control Systems Research Group at Loughborough University and is attached to the Engineering Design and Evaluation Group at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy.
Nick Wright is currently researching the design of a health monitoring scheme for use on the neutral beam heating system currently used at the Joint European Torus (JET). The aim of this scheme is to increase the availability of the neutral beam system, to reduce unplanned maintenance activities and to reduce the workload of the operations staff at JET. The neutral beam is a long running experimental system, with many recent experiments being used to help shape the design of the next generation of heating systems used in the upcoming ITER experiment. As such the research may demonstrate the usefulness of health monitoring in future nuclear fusion systems. The focus of the scheme is on the vacuum systems deployed in the neutral beam heating system, in particular, the cryogenic pumping system. Process data from the cryopumping system is being used in a novel way to provide useful infomation not only about incipient faults in cryopumping system itself, but also about the state of the ultra high vacuum which it maintains.