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HISTORY

The University of Bristol has been involved in the measurement, management and application of residual stress technology for over 15 years.

As well as various other measurement methods such as incremental centre hole drilling and neutron diffraction, one technique called the Deep-Hole Drilling (DHD) technique has been developed extensively at the University of Bristol for the past 12 years with substantial funding and support from the Nuclear Industry. To that end, the Nuclear Industry has been using extensive DHD stress measurements to demonstrate plant compliance within the Regulator’s Safety Audit requirements.

In recent years the DHD stress measurement technique has also performed as an integral part in many collaborative UK, EU and Industry funded research projects (e.g. ELIXIR, ENPOWER, INTEGRITY, NET). The DHD stress measurement facilities at the University of Bristol have also been utilised by other well-known and respected academic and research Institutes to corroborate/validate their own collaborative projects.

So far more than 100 stress distributions have been measured on real component applications using the DHD technique, all of which have been supported by an extensive range of validation measurements on test components subjected to predictable applied loads.

This varied demand has lead to significant advances in the DHD technique and its use as a practicable and uniquely applicable stress measurement technique:

• 1999 – range of applicability extended to include steel components with a thickness from 20mm to 100mm, August 2000 – first thick section titanium component measured,
• June 2001 – range of applicability further extended to include components with a thickness from 10mm to 150mm,
• February 2002 – first thick section aluminium component measured,
• March 2003 – first time achieved residual stress measurements to a depth of 450mm,
• June 2003 – first “on-site” DHD stress measurements carried out. This was done on a European submarine section,
• January 2008 – first time achieved residual stress measurements to depths in excess of 700mm

With the DHD technique reaching maturity, and with growing and widespread demand, a route to commercialisation was realised, planned and entered into the University of Bristol’s “Business Plan Competition 2003”. Using the prize money, VEQTER Ltd was formed in May 2004 by Dr. Ed Kingston and Prof. David Smith as a University spin-out with commercially exclusive DHD intellectual property rights.

Therefore:

• May 2004 - VEQTER Ltd formed, and first measurement contract secured
• August 2004 – First overseas measurement contract secured and development of major measurement programme with Japan

In June 2007, Dr Chris Truman joined the VEQTER board as a non-executive director responsible for analysis and training.

Tel: +44 (0) 117 9878015 · Fax: +44 (0) 117 9039001 · E-mail: experts@veqter.co.uk

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