Extending useful metallic product lifetime through manufacturing
The project will be aligned with the newly established Circular Metals Hub hosted by Brunel Centre for Advanced Solidification Technology (BCAST) at Brunel University London. You will be interacting daily with researchers and academics in BCAST, Brunel University London and in partner academic and industrials organisations. In this close collaboration lies the foundation for your promising career path.
Applications are invited for a fully funded PhD studentship at BCAST for the project: Extending useful metallic product lifetime through manufacturing, starting 8 January 2024. Successful applicants will receive an elevated annual stipend (bursary) of £22.662, plus payment of full-time Home/EU tuition fees for a period of 48-months (4 years).
Project Details
Metals are vital to human society and have widespread uses across a broad spectrum of industries including but not limited to packaging, transport and construction applications. They are mainly used in load-bearing structural components. Such metallic components have limited useful lifetime due to dynamic environmental and mechanical stimuli, leading to the generation of defects, damages and eventual degradation of the mechanical properties and the failure of component. End-of-life components are then treated as waste which can either be disposed to landfill sites, incinerated or recycled. Waste from end-of-life components undermines the available material resources and poses threats to our environment with dire global warming consequence. Hence there is an urgent need to maintain and extend the useful lifetime of components, thereby increasing material usage efficiency, reducing waste and minimizing environmental damage.
This project aims to apply manufacturing process to maintain and extend the useful lifetime of metallic components by establishing a system for regular service of metallic components. This involves the fundamental study of the effects of heat treatment processes and conditions on the level of defects and damages in metallic components. This information will be correlated to the mechanical properties and performance of the metallic components in order to assess the degree of useful lifetime.
Eligibility
Applicants will have or be expected to receive a minimum 2:1 or 1st class degree in Materials Engineering, or a related discipline. A Masters qualification is an advantage but not essential.
How to apply
Please e-mail your application comprising of all the documents listed below in ONE PDF file to:
Professor Isaac Chang at Isaac.chang@brunel.ac.uk and
cedps-pgr-office@brunel.ac.uk by Noon on 25 September 2023:
- Your up-to-date CV;
- A one A4 page personal statement setting out why you are a suitable candidate (i.e.: your skills and experience);
- A copy of your degree certificate(s) and transcript (s);
- Names and contact details for two academic referees;
- Evidence of English language capability to IELTS 6.5 (minimum 6.0 in all sections), if applicable
Interviews will take place during October 2023
Isaac Chang - Prof. Isaac Chang is the appointed Professor of Metallurgy & Materials and Head of LiME Training Centre. Prior to this, he was a Reader and Head of Education at School of Metallurgy and Materials, University of Birmingham.
He received his DPhil in Materials Science from University of Oxford (1991) and BSc(Eng) in Materials & Metallurgy from Imperial College, London University. He specializes in the field of physical and powder metallurgy, as well as nanotechnology and ceramic science. His research is focussed on the understanding of the relationship between processing, microstructure and properties of materials for industrial applications in transport, energy, healthcare, defence and electronic sectors. He was the first to discover the solid solution with a face centred cubic (FCC) crystal structure in an equiatomic FeCrCoNiMn alloy (the so-called Cantor alloy) in 2004 together with Prof. Brian Cantor, which has contributed to a brand-new field of materials science known as ‘High Entropy Alloys’ or ‘Multiple Principle Element Alloys’.
He holds 7 patents and has published over 121 research papers in scientific journals, book chapters and conference proceedings. He is a Fellow of Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3) and a member of the editorial board for Journal of Materials, Chemistry and Physics.
His current research interest includes muticomponent lightweight alloys, high entropy alloys, metallic glasses, nanocomposites, graphene, high throughput material processing for rapid alloy discovery and synthetic biology for advanced materials development.