Moratuwa Uni., Access Engineering collaborated research with Cambridge and Oxford win prestigious innovation award

The collaborative research project involving Sri Lanka's Moratuwa University and global beers Cambridge and Oxford and Access Engineering Plc and WSP of the United Kingdom has won the prestigious "Collaborate to Innovate Award 2023" from The Engineer magazine UK.

The team won the award in the highly competitive category of "Information, Data and Connectivity" in which there were five shortlisted entities.

The award recognised "Innovative Pre-Straining Tools and BOFDA Technology Assessment" which was an outcome of a research project backed by Access Engineering as part of its "Idea Nest" initiative to introduce cutting-edge technology to Sri Lanka.

Fibre optic monitoring technology is a widely used application in Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) due to its immunity to electromagnetic interference and corrosion resistance and this research initiative explored the use of Brillouin Optical Frequency Domain Analysis (BOFDA) which is a relatively a new fibre optic monitoring technology.

In a full-featured article about the fibre optic monitoring project, the latest issue of the Engineer magazine highlights some of the key outcomes of the project.   

New IPS publication explores trade wars in EV supply chains and Sri Lanka’s graphite industry