About us

BCAST was first established in October 2002, and is now one of the world's strongest solidification research groups. It comprises 60+ members of staff from academics, research fellows, postgraduate research students, technicians and administrative staff. Current projects cover a wide selection of topics that range from intensive shearing to direct chill (DC) casting to recycling to Molecular Dynamic Simulations of interfacial monolayers. In particular BCAST strives to realise a sustainable metals market and provide industries with environmentally friendly metal processing solutions. Our research activities span from fundamental research, to technological developments to industrial applications. Our research is well supported by EPSRC, TSB, EU and a network of industrial companies including Constellium, JLR and Aeromet to list but a few. We also provide a unique collection of state-of-the-art facilities.

Based at BCAST, the Future LiME Hub continues on the success of the EPSRC Centre LiME, which was established in February 2010. The long-term vision of the Hub is full metal circulation,  in which the global demand for metallic materials is met by a full circulation of secondary metals (with only limited addition of primary metals each year)  through reduced usage, reuse, remanufacture, closed-loop recycling and effective  recovery and refining of secondary metals (as illustrated below). This represents a paradigm shift for metallurgical science, manufacturing technology  and the industrial landscape. This vision is shared by both our academic spokes  and our industrial collaborators. The Future LiME Hub will lay down a solid  foundation for full metal circulation. 

BCAST is an internationally leading research centre and major global driving force for providing new knowledge, new processing technologies, new materials and their industrial applications in the area of light metals, and training future leaders in the field of metallurgy.

The long-term technical vision of BCAST is full metal circulation, in which the global demand for metallic materials is met by a full circulation of secondary metals (with only limited addition of primary metals each year) through reduced usage, reuse, remanufacture, closed-loop recycling and effective recovery and refining of secondary metals.

• To deliver nucleation-centred solidification science to underpin full metal circulation.
• To develop a group of resource efficient light metal processing technologies to enable full metal circulation.
• To develop a rationalised family of metallic materials, which are not only of high performance but are also closed-loop recyclable, to facilitate full metal circulation.
• To develop exemplary industrial applications to demonstrate the impact of full metal circulation.
• To develop strong international collaborations with world renowned research centres to magnify our effort for full metal circulation. This will be achieved by forging strong industrial links, in particular strategic industrial partnerships.
• To train the future leaders in this field who will sustain the legacy of full metal circulation and deliver its long lasting impact.

Continuing to focus our research on structural light metals
BCAST has focused on structural light metals research since its creation. This has been a key factor for our success at both the national and international levels. Remaining focused will be crucial to our future success.

Focusing on people
BCAST is foremost a group of people. BCAST’s goals will be realised by the collective effort of its members. BCAST’s success comes from the success of individual members under its shared vision. We will nurture the skills and expertise of existing members through development of an effective internal training programme; and develop new talent, skills and expertise required by the future needs of BCAST through recruiting new members of staff.

Consolidating fundamental research
BCAST has established its international reputation on its traditional strength in fundamental research. Underpinning industrial research with fundamental science sets BCAST apart from other large international research groups, and so consolidation of fundamental research will be critical to BCAST’s long term sustainability.

Developing strategic industrial partnerships
Based on our established reputation for industrial research, extensive scaling up facilities and the exemplary research partnership with Constellium, it is anticipated that the future growth in BCAST will be predominantly in the area of industrial research. By 2030, we intend to establish a number of such strategic industrial partnerships.

Increasing international collaborations
Our long term vision, full metal circulation, represents a paradigm shift for metallurgical science, manufacturing technology and the industrial landscape. Realisation of this vision is a global endeavour and international collaborations will play a pivotal role. We envisage that by 2030 BCAST will establish strategic partnerships with a number of internationally renowned research centres under a shared vision of full metal circulation.

Providing a world class training environment
BCAST will build upon its established PhD training programme by creating, with the support of industrial partners, a Centre for Doctoral Training in liquid metal engineering, which will catalyse a Masters course and short course training for industry.

Effective microstructural control can be achieved by control of nucleation during solidification through better understanding of liquid metal engineering. This represents a fundamental move away from the traditional growth-focused solidification research to a new nucleation-centred one. Nucleation largely controls the solidified microstructure, casting defects and performance of cast components, and if it can be enhanced to such an extent, crystal growth will become simpler and less important. Liquid metal engineering broadens the horizon of nucleation control through manipulation of the chemical and physical nature of both endogenous and exogenous nucleating particles prior to solidification processing. It promises in the long-term a new framework for solidification science, based on which advanced materials, highly efficient processing technologies and new products can be developed.  

High performance metallic components and feed stock materials can be manufactured by innovative solidification processing through liquid metal engineering with little requirement for solid state processing, which is energy intensive, time consuming and inevitably high cost. This represents a paradigm shift from the current solid state deformation based materials processing to a solidification centred materials engineering. This will profoundly change the configuration of the future metal processing industry, in which metal casting will deliver the required engineering properties with little or no contribution from thermo-mechanical processing and result in significant savings of energy and materials at all manufacturing stages.  

The demand for metallic materials can be met by an efficient circulation of existing metallic materials with limited additions of primary metal to sustain the circulation loop. After so many years of intensive mining and chemical extraction, billions of tons of metals have been produced, and primary metals production is still rising. The earth’s resources have been extremely exploited; this trend has to be reversed.  In the future (say 20-30 years), all metallic materials will be effectively circulated (e.g., in a 20-year cycle) through innovative technologies for reuse, remanufacture, direct recycling and chemical conversion and only limited amount of primary metals will need to be produced each year to sustain the circulation and to allow for growth and circulation losses. This will transform the current primary metal based metallurgical industry into one that thrives on secondary metals, and will lead to significant conservation of natural resources and energy.