EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Liquid Metal Engineering

The UK metal casting industry is a key player in the global market. It adds 2.6bn/year to the UK economy, employs directly around 30,000 people and produces 1.14 billion tons of metal castings, of which 37% is for direct export (Source: CMF, UK). It underpins the competitive position of every sector of UK manufacturing across automotive, aerospace, defence, energy and general engineering. However, its 500 companies are mainly SMEs, who are often not in a position to undertake the highest quality R&D necessary for them to remain competitive in global markets. The current EPSRC IMRC portfolio does not cover this important research area nor does it address this clear, compelling business need. We propose to establish IMRC-LiME, a 3-way centre of excellence for solidification research, to fill this distinctive and clear gap in the IMRC portfolio. IMRC-LiME will build on the strong metal casting centres already established at Brunel, Oxford and Birmingham Universities and their internationally leading capabilities and expertise to undertake both fundamental and applied solidification research in close collaborations with key industrial partners across the supply chain. It will support and provide opportunities for the UK metal casting industry and its customers to move up the value chain and to improve their business competitiveness. The main research theme of IMRC-LiME is liquid metal engineering, which is defined as the treatment of liquid metals by either chemical or physical means for the purpose of enhancing heterogeneous nucleation through manipulation of the chemical and physical nature of both endogenous (naturally occurring) and exogenous (externally added) nucleating particles prior to solidification processing. A prime aim of liquid metal engineering is to produce solidified metallic materials with fine and uniform microstructure, uniform composition, minimised casting defects and hence enhanced engineering performance. Our fundamental (platform) research theme will be centred on understanding the nucleation process and developing generic techniques for nucleation control; our user-led research theme will be focused on improving casting quality through liquid metal engineering prior to various casting processes. The initial focus will be mainly on light metals with expansion in the long term to a wide range of structural metals and alloys, to eventually include aluminium, magnesium, titanium, nickel, steel and copper. In the long-term IMRC-LiME will deliver: 1) A nucleation-centred solidification science, that represents a fundamental move away from the traditional growth-focused science of solidification. 2) A portfolio of innovative solidification processing technologies, that are capable of providing high performance metallic materials with little need for solid state deformation processing, representing a paradigm shift from the current solid state deformation based materials processing to a solidification centred materials engineering. 3) An optimised metallurgical industry, in which the demand for metallic materials can be met by an efficient circulation of existing metallic materials through innovative technologies for reuse, remanufacture, direct recycling and chemical conversion with limited additions of primary metal to sustain the circulation loop. This will lead to a substantial conservation of natural resources, a reduction of energy consumption and CO2 emissions while meeting the demand for metallic materials for economic growth and wealth creation.

The primary impact of the IMRC-LiME research will be on UK based businesses in the supply chain of metallic materials. This impact will be delivered in the following ways: 1) Materials suppliers such as Sapa, LSM and MEL will benefit from an increased range of high quality metallic materials based on secondary metals with reduced cost and environmental impact; 2) Materials processors such as Meridian, JVM and Aeromet will be able to offer an increased range of metallic components with improved quality but reduced cost; 3) Equipment manufacturers such as Foseco and Rautomead who incorporate process innovations into their product portfolio and offer these to markets worldwide; 4) Recyclers such as Norton and MEL who will provide high quality materials from recycled sources with reduced cost, but without expensive chemical conversion routes; 5) Component end users such as JLR and Rolls-Royce who will benefit from the availability of cheaper, higher performance castings to meet their targets for lightweighting; 6) The training and supply of the next generation of young researchers to work in this key area of the UK economy; and 7) The wider metallurgical industry will be enabled to undergo a progressive reconfiguration from one that is profoundly dependent on primary metal supply to a new one who thrive on secondary metal sources. The overall benefit to the UK supply chain will be enhanced by economic competitiveness in the global market and improved sustainability through technological innovation. The overall accumulative contribution, the UK economy could be in billions of pounds in the next 10-20 years. One of our long-term goals is to create an optimised metallurgical industry based on full metal circulation. Achieving this not only requires advanced technologies, but also changes in government legislation and the attitudes in a wider society. This may have a significant impact on policy makers such as international trade organisations (IAI, IMA), government departments (BIS), government funding bodies (EPSRC, TSB) and local authorities. Such policy makers need to direct research funding to the development of innovative technologies to achieve metal circulation, to increase the public awareness of the importance of metal circulation to achieve the environmental goals, and to reinforce metal circulation through legislation if necessary. The long-term impact of IMRC-LiME research on our environment, and therefore, the general public, will be highly significant. Take the aluminium industry as an example. Currently, 37 million tons of Al are produced each year. This uses 217 Mt bauxite and 1.67 trillion kWh electricity, and releases 444 Mt CO2 into space. 20 years later, if we have achieved full circulation with only 25% primary metals, each year we would save 163 Mt bauxite and 1.25 trillion kWh electricity (equivalent to 3 times of the UK's annual electricity consumption), and reduce CO2 emission by 333 Mt. The energy saving and CO2 emission reduction could be much more significant if other metals also achieved full circulation. The LiME Management Group (LMG) will be responsible for the delivery of the above impact. As well as embedding exploiters of the research in specifying the IMRC-LiME programme from the outset and in all our research, our proposal contains a number of additional specific initiatives to help ensure the delivery of the expected income, including: 1) Partnerships with intermediate organisations who are already engaged with our target community and comprising industry trade bodies including (CMF, AlFed), learned society (ICME), knowledge transfer networks (Mat KTN (IOM)), etc so we draw on best-practice without duplication; and 2) A Programme Manager and associated LiME Network budget to deliver a programme of out-reach and dissemination seminars, workshops, publications, website, etc where gaps appear in the existing provision of partners.