Transport & infrastructure
Future engineering innovations in transport and infrastructure fundamentally depend on the design and discovery of next-generation structural materials enabling better performance under more challenging conditions. Next-generation structural materials often need to combine a number of outstanding properties including superior strength, ductility and corrosion resistance, often at higher temperatures, while also being lighter, safer, more cost efficient and more recyclable than currently available materials. All of these properties can be unlocked by advancements in materials synthesis and manufacturing, and this is further closely tied to the detailed evolution of the microstructure during manufacturing and service. Examples of applications for next-generation structural materials are in aerospace, automotive, biomedical, construction, defence, energy and tooling.
There is presently a renaissance occurring in structural materials research due to the variety of new manufacturing, characterisation and testing tools available, all across multiple length scales. This, coupled with the exciting developments happening in Australia and its economic region, represents an outstanding opportunity for fresh structural materials research in our state-of-the-art in-house labs, and in collaboration with our national and international partners across academia and industry.
The academics and their groups within this theme are leaders in processing-structure-property relationships of next-generation structural materials. They possess complementary skills in areas including design of complex alloys, advanced thermo-mechanical routes, 3D printing, microstructure design of alloys and coatings, multiscale materials characterisation, advanced mechanical and corrosion testing, and computational tools. Check out the links below for more information.
