Design of Novel Alloys for Metal Additive Manufacturing

4-year PhD studentship, Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham
EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Additive Manufacturing and 3D Printing

Applications are invited for a fully funded PhD studentship (4 years) within the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Additive Manufacturing in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Nottingham. http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/additivemanufacturing/.

Metal powder bed Additive Manufacturing (AM) defines a group of technologies that are used to shape metallic semi-finished products by melting and consolidating contiguous microscopic volumes of material at the time according to a desired digital file. As opposed to conventional metal manufacturing where the entire volume of material is either cast or shaped by compressive forces, the creation of parts by metal AM occurs “point by point”. It is this precise point-material interaction where the main value offered by AM lies as this ultimately translates into extended design freedom, shaping accuracy and limited material consumption. However the desire to manipulate the metal at smaller and smaller scales brings unique challenges deriving from the extreme thermal conditions (rapid heating and solidification) that repeat in each microscopic segment of the material that is being processed.
As readily available commercial alloys are not intended to respond to this extraordinary processing conditions, the properties of the printed parts are often not desirable or optimised. Research into new metallic formulations with physical properties that suit the additive process are therefore of growing interest. The proposed research aims to develop new series of lightweight high strength alloys in which the alloy composition will be design to improve the productivity by laser powder bed AM. The research will be carried out using the empirical and computation approaches for predicting phase formation in materials under the conditions posed by the AM process.

This study will provide a fundamental understanding of the metallurgy associated to additive manufacture and solutions to bottleneck problems that are currently limiting the industrial (automotive and aerospace) uptake of this advanced technology.

How to apply
Please send a copy of your covering letter, CV and academic transcripts to [Email Address Removed] referring to the project title.