Titanium, zirconium and magnesium alloys—the hexagonal metals that form the backbone of aircraft engines, nuclear reactors, and defence hardware—are not performing as well as they could because the UK has never unified its scattered expertise on how these materials deform and fail. The problem is that these metals have a hexagonal crystal structure, which makes their mechanical behaviour far more complex than common cubic metals like steel or aluminium. Cracks, creep, and fatigue in hexagonal alloys depend on tiny structural details at the atomic scale, yet the modelling tools, experimental techniques, and industrial know-how needed to predict and control that behaviour are spread across different labs and companies with no coordinated effort. This project aims to pull those pieces together. If it succeeds, the impact is industrial rather than domestic. Aircraft engines could run hotter and lighter, cutting fuel consumption. Nuclear fuel cladding could last longer under irradiation. Manufacturing processes for titanium and magnesium parts could be optimised to reduce waste and cost. The UK would gain a competitive edge in aerospace, energy, and defence supply chains—sectors where material performance directly determines safety, efficiency, and national strategic advantage.
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We intend to make the UK the world leaders in the understanding, performance and application of hexagonal material systems used by the aero, energy and defence sectors. We wish to develop step-change technology by bringing to bear the extraordinary range of experimental, characterization and modelling techniques in which the UK holds many leaders but which have yet to be brought together to take full advantage of the synergy and multiplication possible. This simply remains un-achievable without clear UK unification of research effort. Hexagonal structural materials that are of industrial significance are all of close packed crystal structure (largely titanium, zirconium and magnesium alloys) and are strategic and profoundly important to the UK economy and find wide application. The implications of research success are profound in developing significant improvement in materials, material structure and processing conditions in optimizing manufacture, in optimizing component design with superior property-behaviour relationships, in improving operational efficiencies and in reducing production and running costs, thereby contributing to fuel efficiencies and very importantly, the UK's competitive advantage. Our ambition is to bring together the UK's experts in academia, supply chain and end-users, coupled with techniques to be brought to bear in four key themes in hexagonal metals which are fundamental mechanisms, micromechanics, performance in aero applications and performance in nuclear applications.
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