Small items of research equipment at Brunel University.

This proposal is to establish a suite of small items of research equipment at Brunel University in the area of metals manufacturing. The metals manufacturing sector is one of the most important UK manufacturing sectors and is worth an estimated £17 billion per year to the country's economy. The project is proposed by six early career lecturers, from two departments, five of whom are within the first three years of their appointment. It is aimed at significantly enhancing the breadth and depth of research output and the delivery of impact through establishing a comprehensive suite of research equipment, to (i) produce next generation of highly skilled researchers; (ii) develop interdisciplinary and industrial collaboration and delivery of impact; and (iii) enhance Brunel's research profile on the international stage.

With great ambition and to further advance the research and development in this area of research work at Brunel, the University has recently invested £2.5 million on large scale state-of-the-art facilities. These include high pressure die casting, transmission electron microscopy, induction furnaces), optical emission spectroscopy, and various advanced characterisation tools. This investment has provided a core infrastructural platform for growth in metallurgical and associated engineering and physical sciences research at Brunel. The proposed small items of research equipment complement the university's investment and further enhance the research capabilities. The new equipment suite is primarily aimed at supporting the research activities of early career researchers (ECRs) such as newly appointed lecturers, postdoctoral research assistants, and PhD and MSc students. Two departments within the university have identified areas of synergy necessary for metals manufacturing which falls within the EPSRC's manufacturing the future theme and 5 new critical research areas identified. This investment from EPSRC will benefit the ECRs by establishing their own independent research programs, improve the depth of their research output, and enhanced employability.

In addition to purchasing new off-the shelf equipment we will add value to the requested funds by: assembling in-house instrumentation; modernising used equipment procured from industry to suit lab scale experiments; make purchases based on flexible and modular systems that could be upgraded or enhanced as new research programmes come online; and leverage access Brunel University's Research Development Fund which offers research pump priming for lecturers in their first 3 years of appointment. The new equipment will promote broader collaboration between departments at Brunel by allowing property measurements to be made that bridge the gap between materials development and final application in engineering. There will be provision made for wider access to this equipment for all ECRs from all departments at Brunel and other national universities.

1. Enhanced Skills for Future Researchers & Technologists: At least 30% of engineering research students (currently 368) have experimental projects related to the development or use of materials and therefore the potential impact of the new equipment on these students is immense. The equipment will provide the basis for PhD students and also PDRAs to develop a broader range of technical and experimental skills for them to take into their future careers in academia or in industrial R&D. Through the proposed 'Researcher Directed Procurement Exercise' PhD students and PDRAs will have the opportunity, albeit in a limited way, to develop non-scientific skills for enhanced employability: planning, managing a budget, working to a deadline, negotiation and writing for a lay audience.
2. Industrial Impact: To launch a new component currently, car manufacturers take about 5-10yrs. The outcomes of research using the proposed equipment base: (i) opportunities to demonstrate materials in the form of representative parts; (ii) reduces cycle time for launching new products to ~3yrs; (iii) reduces manufacturing cost from prototyping to mass production; (iv) enables end users to design new components with much thinner structural sections; (v) further opportunities for the widespread use of Al and Mg components in place of steel; and (vi) enables manufacturing from lower cost secondary sources of materials without compromising performance.
3. Economic Impact: The industrial sectors that will benefit economically from the research described in this proposal are too numerous to describe here. We use the introduction of Al and Mg in the automotive industry as an example. In 2009, ~43.8Mt of Al products were produced globally. 28% of these were used in the global transport sector. The innovative technologies developed at Brunel will be applicable for all Al alloys and, depending on market penetration rates, the potential market opportunity for these technologies can be in the order of billions of pounds.
4. Societal & Environmental Impact: One key underlying objective of our research is enhanced recyclability of scrap so that manufacturers both save costs, but importantly benefit from secured metal supplies. Recent studies have identified that there is a need for securing the metal supply chain within the UK in a sustainable way through developing effective technologies for recycling metals so that primary metal extraction can be minimised. A large portion of Al scrap is either sent to landfill or exported to India or China. The production of recycled Al requires only 5% of the energy, and emits only 5% of the CO2, compared with that of primary Al. However, recycled Al contains high levels of impurities, mainly due to imperfect recycling processes, which prevent the use of recycled Al in high performance products. Technologies being developed at Brunel will allow direct closed-loop recycling of Al (and Mg), so that post consumer scrap becomes a valuable resource. This will make the UK less dependent on imports of expensive primary metal and contribute significantly to a lower environmental impact by reducing landfill, energy usage and emissions.
5. Public Engagement: A shortage in the supply of highly skilled academic researchers and industrial engineers has been one of the critical challenges facing the UK materials community, particularly the metallurgical sector. A conservative estimate suggests that over three times the current level of materials graduates and postgraduates is required to provide a pool of sufficiently high quality. The situation is even worse in the metallurgical sector. The number of metallurgical graduates from UK HEIs is extremely small and declining rapidly (only 16 in 2006). The situation for research training is equally worrying, as noted by the 2008 EPSRC International Materials Review. There is a clear need to attract students into undergraduate and postgraduate study of Materials, and Metallurgy in particular.