Author: santiagoc

Yuxiang Wu is currently a research fellow in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Monash University. His work involves quantitative studies of microstructure development with both experimental and modelling components. He received his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Monash University in 2019. In the mineAlloy training centre, Yuxiang will provide support on the design, modelling and characterisation of wear-resistant steels.

Congratulations to George Galis for successfully completing his confirmation of candidature at University of Queensland earlier this month. In this way, George joins the cohort of mineAlloy students who completed their confirmation of candidature this year, including: Abhishek Jain at University of Queensland, and Vamshi Chennuri, Roshan Sasi and Eigor Petry at Deakin University. In addition, Guillaume Bruel was recently awarded a Masters degree from Deakin University for his work on ‘Precipitation hardening of Fe-Mn-C steels for wear resistance improvement’. We celebrate the hard work and success of our HDR students in such challenging times. Well done, guys!

Xin Zheng has started his Master of Engineering project with the mineAlloy team at Deakin University. The project will use DEM modelling to develop design principles for titanium carbide inserts embedded in the mantles of cone crushers.

Xin recently completed his Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering (Honours) degree. His thesis was titled “Computational fluid dynamic simulation of drainage cannula in veno-arterial ECMO applications”.

Xin also completed a three-month internship with the mineAlloy team in 2019. During his internship, Xin became familiar with the Rocky DEM software, while conducting fundamental studies of particle-surface impacts and the effect of modelling parameters on the outputs.

LEAP Australia and ESSS delivered a workshop on Rocky DEM software to graduate students and postdoctoral researchers from the Institute for Frontier Materials and the School of Engineering at Deakin University.

The presenters, Marcus Reis and Leon White, had originally planned to visit Waurn Ponds, but they had to deliver the workshop over ZOOM instead, because of the recent COVID19 travel restrictions.

The workshop covered the capabilities of this DEM software package in a broad context, and the researchers discussed its particular use in wear applications. The presenters also introduced some of the new features included in forthcoming versions of Rocky, expected to be released later in 2020.

The mineAlloy team at Deakin University is accepting expressions of interest from PhD candidates to join the mineAlloy training centre and related projects. The research topics gravitate around wear resistant materials, additive manufacturing and repair technologies, as well as advanced modelling and testing techniques.

To find out more, please follow this link and send your CV and any related questions to mineAlloy-enquiries@deakin.edu.au

Alban de Vaucorbeil recently published some of his work using the Material Point Method (MPM) to simulate engineering problems involving large displacements, large deformation and contacts. The article appeared in Computer methods in applied mechanics and engineering earlier this year (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cma.2019.112783).

This article follows the publication of another paper dedicated to the simulation of damage and fracture of ductile materials using the Smooth Particle Hydrodynamic (SPH) method (https://doi.org/10.1002/nme.6306) which was also part of Alban’s postdoctoral work with the mineAlloy team at Monash University.

Prof Matthew Barnett, from Deakin University, delivered a workshop on deformation of materials to an audience composed of students and researchers of the mineAlloy training centre and beyond. The deformation mechanisms of metallic materials have a significant effect on their mechanical properties and wear resistance. The workshop covered both fundamental and practical aspects of dislocation motion, strain and shear microstructures.

The mineAlloy team had its annual meeting in Waurn Ponds earlier this week. The meeting was well attended by delegates from around the country and from overseas.

The morning session included presentations by Prof Veli-Tapani Kuokkala from Tampere University (Finland), Mr John McCracken from Australian Ceramics Engineering in Perth, and Prof Matthew Barnett from Deakin University.

The afternoon session was dedicated to the students and researchers, who gave short presentations about their respective projects. Finally, the researchers met with their counterparts in industry to discuss the progress and to plan the next steps.

The attendees described the conference as a fantastic opportunity for cross-learning and collaboration.

mineAlloy is hosting Materials Australia for a training course on wear of materials and wear testing. The course will take place in Waurn Ponds Estate on Wednesday 6th of November and will be delivered by Paul Huggett, who has over 30 years experience in research, manufacturing and failure analysis of wear resistant materials. The content of the course is designed to bridge the gap between theory and practice. For more information, please follow this link.

George Galis officially commenced his MPhil at the University of Queensland in October 2019. He will work on NiHard white cast iron for ore chute liners under the guidance of Dr Jeff Gates, researching advanced alloying additions to enhance the wear performance.

George recently obtained his Bachelor’s degree (Honours) in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Queensland. His thesis was dedicated to the influence of alloy properties and testing conditions on the performance of white cast Irons in the ball mill abrasion test.

Researchers from Monash University attended the IUMRS-ICA conference in Perth, between 22^nd and 26^th September 2019. Xiaohan Weng and Chunkit Sit presented their work on “Advanced steel design for abrasive wear resistance” and “Direct laser deposition of WC/Co cermets as wear resistant coatings” respectively, in the session dedicated to Advanced Structured Materials chaired by Prof Chris Hutchinson (Monash University), Ma Qian (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) and Michael Ferry (University of New South Wales). Matthew Barnett, from Deakin University, also attended the event to deliver an invited talk on Advanced Metallurgy.

Vadim Zolotarevskiy recently joined the mineAlloy team at Deakin University as a postdoctoral research fellow in FEA and DEM modelling. Vadim received his MSc and PhD degrees from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. During his Master’s Vadim investigated the effect of tangential loading on tribological phenomena in elastic-plastic spherical contact. Vadim’s PhD focused on heat transport in low-dimensional model and mechanisms of energy diffusion leading to normal heat conductivity.

After completing his PhD, Vadim worked as a postdoctoral research fellow in the Faculty of Science and Technology at Bournemouth University (United Kingdom) in collaboration with SKF Research and Technology Development Centre (Netherlands). The project focused on finite element modelling and analysis of lubricated silicon nitride rolling elements with surface imperfections. Vadim also worked as simulation software developer in a Knowledge Transfer Partnerships programme between Bournemouth University and BEASY Ltd.