PhD scholarships: Materials science and engineering and in additive manufacturing
The university of Queensland Australia
Universidad Estatal, Examinar oportunidades similares
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Universidad Estatal, Examinar oportunidades similares
Supervisor – Professor Mingxing Zhang
Four PhD scholarships are available now within the School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering. The successful applicants will work on two Australian Research Council (ARC) funded Discovery Projects. One is one high entropy alloys and another is on additive manufacturing of metals.
The two PhD projects on high entropy alloys aim to design and develop a new and cost-effective high entropy alloy (HEA) or compositionally complex alloy (CCA) with superior mechanical properties and therefore enable the industry applications of this type of metallic materials. Big data analytics can be used to design the composition of the new alloys and additive manufacturing approach may be used to produce the CCAs. One project focuses on grain refinement to exploit effective grain refiners for the BCC matrix of the CCAs to refine the microstructure so that ductility and formability of the CCAs are improved. This objective can be achieved through re-design of alloy compositions based on the latest principles of grain refinement for cast metals (the edge-to-edge matching model and the interdependence model). Another project is to develop proper thermomechanical processes for the FCC matrix CCAs to produce high quality wrought alloys with superior mechanical properties. This thermomechanical process includes hot forming with focus on rolling or forging to be done in a Gleeble thermomechanical simulator, and heat treatment.
The two PhD projects on additive manufacturing (AM) are to develop practical and effective technologies to improve the AM processability of engineering materials that are currently hard to or even cannot be processed/fabricated via AM. Such materials include ceramics, most superalloys and copper alloys, the majority of tool and high ultrahigh strength steels, high strength aluminium alloys, and some titanium alloys. The development is based on the current understanding of factors that govern the quality of AM components and of the causes for low AM processability of these types of alloys. The most promising approach to improve the processability is grain refinement that can be achieved during solidification of the melt pools. Thus, the research is to exploit effective grain refiners for various materials produced through AM. One project focuses on ceramics, including MAX Phase materials, and another is on engineering alloys.
Upon successful completion of the PhD project, candidates will be trained to be experts on alloy design, high entropy alloys and additive manufacturing. In addition to gaining vast knowledge of materials science, candidates will also to be trained for advanced materials characterisations using the University's state-of-art facilities. Furthermore, high skills in writing scientific papers, reports and funding applications is another benefit the candidates will obtain from the research projects.
The University of Queensland's School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering (SoMME) maintains a world-class reputation and is at the cutting-edge of engineering education, research and expert consultation across the fields of mechanical, materials, mining, aerospace and mechatronic engineering. The School’s reputation for research excellence attracts academia from around the world. Our diverse research programs address the evolving needs of industry and society, and contribute to economic and social development. The School’s established research strengths in hypersonics, light metals, geothermal energy and mining technology, are complemented by continued growth in areas such as solar thermal, composites, steels, surface engineering, metals manufacturing and rock mechanics.
UQ has historical strengths in materials research and has been internationally recognised as one of the world’s leading research institutions on metallic materials, particularly grain refinement in cast metals. UQ hosted the headquarters of the CAST CRC for 20 years since 1993 and was a key member in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Design in Light Metals. The AMPAM centre has provides a unique platform for both materials and manufacturing research. the SoMME and AMPAM at UQ has state-of-art Laser Metal Deposition (LMD) system (the Optomec LENS 450 Additive Manufacturing System) and, SLM Solution SLM 125 metal 3D printer and a unique plasma melting furnace. There are also a well-equipped mechanical testing laboratory and a metallographic laboratory within the SoMME. In addition, UQ also has a world class Centre for Electron Microscopy and Microanalysis (CMM), fully equipped with state-of-the-art electron microscopes, including TEMs and SEMs, sample preparation facilities, such as FIB (the newest in Australia) and PIPS, and X-ray diffraction systems, which are essential for the project.
UQ materials engineering received the ARC ERA rating of 5 in 2010, 2012, 2015 and 2018.
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