Developing wrought Al-alloys with high impurity-tolerance and high performance by narrowing the freezing range of last solidified liquid

We are recruiting new Doctoral Researchers to our EPSRC funded Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) PhD studentships starting 1 October 2024. Applications are invited for the project title Developing wrought Al-alloys with high impurity-tolerance and high performance by narrowing the freezing range of last solidified liquid

Successful applicants will receive an annual stipend (bursary) of £21,237, including inner London weighting, plus payment of their full-time home tuition fees for a period of 42 months (3.5 years).

You should be eligible for home (UK) tuition fees there are a very limited number (no more than three) of studentships available to overseas applicants, including EU nationals, who meet the academic entry criteria including English Language proficiency.

You will join the internationally recognised researchers in the Department of Brunel Centre for Advanced Solidification Technology | Brunel University London

Project

Aluminium recycling saves up to 95% energy and reduce 95% greenhouse gas emission compared to the primary aluminium production, therefore plays an important role in delivering Net Zero. The traditional Al recycling process requires large investment on the scrap Al sorting, and the extra cost in adding alloying elements and removing unwanted alloying elements to meet the customers specifications. Impurities is one of the biggest challenges for Al recycling. This project aims to develop wrought Al-alloys that are highly impurity-tolerant and high-performance so that they can be directly recycled without any need for special treatment. This project includes both fundamental understanding and the technique development. The research work involves using different types of casting ways, mechanical properties test (such as tensile test, etc.) and some highly advanced microstructural characterization such as SEM (Scanning electron microscope), XRD (X-ray diffraction) and TEM (Transmission electron microscope) etc.

Please contact Dr Zhongping Que via email to Zhongping.Que@brunel.ac.uk for an informal discussion about the project.

Eligibility

Applicants will have or be expected to receive a minimum 2:1 or 1st class degree in Metallurgy, Materials Science, or a related discipline. A Masters qualification is an advantage but not essential.
The applicants may have background in any aspect of Materials Science, Metallurgy, Physical science or Engineering.

Skills and Experience

Applicants who can demonstrate any 2 of the following skills are preferred;

Fundamental understanding of physical metallurgy/metal materials
Solidification processing of metal alloys
Microstructural characterisation using microscopy and X-ray diffraction techniques, etc.

Mechanical characterization using hardness, tensile test, etc.

You should be highly motivated, able to work independently as well as in a team, collaborate with others and have good communication skills.

How to apply

How to Apply

There are two stages of the application:

1.Applicants must submit the pre-application form via the following link

https://brunel.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/epsrc-dtp-24-25-pre-application-form-brunel-university-lon

by 16.00 on Friday 5th April 2024.

2.If you are shortlisted for the interview, you will be asked to email the following documentation in a single PDF file to cedps-studentships@brunel.ac.uk within 72hrs.

Your up-to-date CV;
Your Undergraduate degree certificate(s) and transcript(s) essential;
Your Postgraduate Masters degree certificate(s) and transcript(s) if applicable;
Your valid English Language qualification of IELTS 6.5 overall (minimum 6.0 in each section) or equivalent, if applicable;
Contact details for TWO referees, one of which can be an academic member of staff in the College.

Applicants should therefore ensure that they have all of this information in case they are shortlisted.

Interviews will take place in April/May 2024.

Meet the Supervisor(s)

Zhongping Que - Dr. Zhongping Que, lecturer of solidification, joined in BCAST in 2014. Prior to that she was an associate professor at Taiyuan University of Technology in R.P. China (2011-2014). Her expertise is in sustainable aluminium alloys development. She has worked (11yrs) and is working in development of resilient aluminium alloys with high performance and high impurity tolerance and delivering the pathways to overcome the recycling challenges. She has published more than 50 papers in scientific reports, JAC, MMTA etc. and holds 4 patents. She as PI, has full-industrial fund (£77K), iCASE studentship in sustainable aluminium. She is currently active in achieving more grants in development of sustainable aluminium. She has supervised 10 students (post-doctoral, PhD, graduate and under-graduate) as supervisor or co-supervisor. She is the guest editor of Crystals and the regular reviewer for multiple international journals (JAC, Materials today communications, material characterization, etc.) She has strong all-round research abilities in thermodynamic calculation, casting, crystallography examination and simulation, etc. Her research skills covered in most of the characterization such as DSC, SEM, XRD, TEM, tensile test, etc.

Related Research Group(s)

Mechanics of Solids and Structures - Internationally leading research in the areas of experimental testing and computational modelling of solids and structures.

Brunel Centre for Advanced Solidification Technology (BCAST) - BCAST is an academic research centre focusing on both fundamental and applied research on solidification of metallic materials.