EPSRC and SFI Centre for Doctoral Training in Advanced Metallic Systems: Metallurgical Challenges for the Digital Manufacturing Environment

Metallic materials are indispensable to modern human life. From everyday items such as aluminium drinks cans, to advanced applications like jet engine turbine blades and the pressure vessels of nuclear reactors, the positive social impact of metals is difficult to overstate. Yet despite major advances in our understanding of the manufacture and properties of metals, significant challenges remain. Constructing the next generation of electric cars will require improved lightweight alloys and joining technologies. Development of fusion power plants, which will provide near-limitless carbon-free energy, will require the development of advanced alloy systems capable surviving the extreme environments found inside reactors. For the next generation of hypersonic air and space vehicles, we require propulsion systems capable of over Mach 5. Alloys will need to survive 1800 degrees Celsius, be made into complex shapes, and be joined without losing any of their properties. Overcoming these challenges by improving existing metallic materials, developing new ones, and adapting manufacturing methods, then the benefits will be substantial. Now is a particularly exciting time to be involved in metallurgical research and manufacturing. This is not only because of the kinds of compelling challenges specified above, but also because of the opportunities afforded by the emergence of new advanced manufacturing technologies. Innovative techniques such as 3D printing are enabling novel shapes and design concepts to be realised, whilst the latest solid-state processes allow for the design and production of bespoke alloys that cannot be made by conventional liquid casting techniques. Industry 4.0, or the fourth industrial revolution, provides opportunities to optimise emerging and established technologies through the use of material and process data and advanced computational techniques. In order to fully exploit these opportunities, we need to understand the complex relationships between the processing, structure, properties and performance of materials, and link these to the digital manufacturing environment. To deliver the factories of tomorrow, which will be critical to the future strength of UK plc and the wider economy, industry will require more specialists with a thorough understanding of metallic materials science and engineering. These metallurgists should also have the professional and technical leadership skills to exploit emerging computational and data-driven approaches, and be well versed in equality and diversity best practice, such that they can effect positive changes in workplace culture. The EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Advanced Metallic Systems will help to deliver these specialists, currently in short supply, by recruiting and training cohorts of high level scientists and engineers. Through collaboration with industry, and a comprehensive training in fundamental materials science and computational methods, professional skills, and equality and diversity best practice, our graduates will be equipped to become future research leaders and captains of industry.