Unlocking the diverse property profile of ultra-lightweight magnesium alloys. This project aims to develop the theory behind why micro alloying contributes to the formation of surface film properties. The exemplar is a prototype Magnesium-Lithium (Mg-Li) base alloy, with high specific-strength and corrosion resistance. This project will lead to the development of a new processable ultra-lightweight, corrosion resistant Mg-Li alloy family that is stronger than the prototype alloy, and with, at le ....Unlocking the diverse property profile of ultra-lightweight magnesium alloys. This project aims to develop the theory behind why micro alloying contributes to the formation of surface film properties. The exemplar is a prototype Magnesium-Lithium (Mg-Li) base alloy, with high specific-strength and corrosion resistance. This project will lead to the development of a new processable ultra-lightweight, corrosion resistant Mg-Li alloy family that is stronger than the prototype alloy, and with, at least, comparable ductility and corrosion resistance. Not only will the outcomes of the work be a fundamental advance to the fields of metallurgy and corrosion science, they will lead to the identification of an optimised compositional window for creating our second generation Mg-Li alloy family capable of being manufactured into ultra-lightweight, corrosion resistant metal products.Read moreRead less
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE140100003
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$280,000.00
Summary
Flexible forming facility for low cost light weight applications. Flexible forming facility for low-cost light-weight applications: This project will establish Australia’s first flexible roll forming facility. The facility will be unique in the world, being specifically designed to roll form the most advanced high strength alloys into complex three-dimensional shapes and investigate their material behaviour under a wide range of loading conditions. This technology represents a step change in com ....Flexible forming facility for low cost light weight applications. Flexible forming facility for low-cost light-weight applications: This project will establish Australia’s first flexible roll forming facility. The facility will be unique in the world, being specifically designed to roll form the most advanced high strength alloys into complex three-dimensional shapes and investigate their material behaviour under a wide range of loading conditions. This technology represents a step change in commercial processing and has the capacity to form materials with high strength and limited ductility. This will lead to the development of new techniques for the manufacture of new advanced materials including advanced high strength steels, composites, nano structured metals and light metal alloys for automotive and aerospace applications.Read moreRead less
Rapid process development for the assembly of lightweight metal components. This project aims to develop a new quality monitoring system and inverse method for identifying parameters of welding structures for automotive applications. The outcomes may assist automotive industries in improving process quality management and product performance of weld structures.
Developing an environmentally friendly, low cost solution to reduce wear and improve productivity in metal forming . Tool wear is an increasing problem for automotive manufacturers, resulting in significant loss of manufacturing efficiency. This project will provide new understanding of tool wear, innovative active monitoring systems and novel environmentally friendly lubricants to reduce tool wear.
Stamp forming of lightweight fibre-metal laminate systems. A key criteria in the development of new vehicles is weight reduction. The aim of this project is to investigate the formability of fibre metal laminates (FMLs) for automotive applications. These hybrid material systems have significant advantages in terms of strength, weight, noise and impact reduction over metals. The major research issue addressed here is how can such materials be formed for volume production.
Growing a multi-scale internal structure: new wrought metals for energy conservation. This research aims to reduce the weight of wrought metal parts so that transport and machinery will use less energy. It will establish how to grow novel multi-scale internal structures and will thereby pioneer a new class of metals that display superior properties.
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE0775499
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$130,000.00
Summary
High Performance Optical Profilometer for mapping micro/meso/macroscopic topography. Developing advanced, high performance new materials requires an understanding of surfaces and interfaces. Making a small area, low yield material or device is a regular occurrence within the Australian research community. The ability to create reproducible, high yield materials requires greater understanding of the stresses, uniformities and deformations in a material over large areas. The proposed instrument ....High Performance Optical Profilometer for mapping micro/meso/macroscopic topography. Developing advanced, high performance new materials requires an understanding of surfaces and interfaces. Making a small area, low yield material or device is a regular occurrence within the Australian research community. The ability to create reproducible, high yield materials requires greater understanding of the stresses, uniformities and deformations in a material over large areas. The proposed instrument can measure topography over many centimeters-squared with sub-micron spatial resolution, currently beyond the capabilities of researchers in Australia. By providing a quantitative method to measure surface textures, the instrument will also support Australian industries looking for improved process control.Read moreRead less
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE0347079
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$160,000.00
Summary
Surface and strain measurement facilities for the investigation of intelligent CAD approaches. The basis of machine learning approaches is the ability to learn or train a system from data gathered through experiments or experience. A major short coming in the development and application of such methods is the lack of good quantitative data. Here we propose the acquisition of dimensional and strain measurement facilities that will allow the investigation of such methods in the context of manufact ....Surface and strain measurement facilities for the investigation of intelligent CAD approaches. The basis of machine learning approaches is the ability to learn or train a system from data gathered through experiments or experience. A major short coming in the development and application of such methods is the lack of good quantitative data. Here we propose the acquisition of dimensional and strain measurement facilities that will allow the investigation of such methods in the context of manufacturing - in particular sheet metal components for the automotive industry. The facilities will enable a database of dimensional and strain information to be established in support of related manufacturing R&D projects.Read moreRead less
Design surface feature recognition for near net shaped manufactured components. The aim of this project is to investigate methods and techniques that, given an ab initio design requirement, allow databases of knowledge from previous designs to be intelligently searched for similar patterns, both geometric and physical state, that will assess the likelihood of a successful design and suggest potential alternatives based on previous experience
The plan is to approach the research problem from a m ....Design surface feature recognition for near net shaped manufactured components. The aim of this project is to investigate methods and techniques that, given an ab initio design requirement, allow databases of knowledge from previous designs to be intelligently searched for similar patterns, both geometric and physical state, that will assess the likelihood of a successful design and suggest potential alternatives based on previous experience
The plan is to approach the research problem from a machine learning/pattern recognition point of view. By mapping the characterized properties into a search space of reduced dimensionality in which feature patterns have been pre-classified through supervised training, it should be possible to identify similar features.
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Dimensional Control of Stamped Components for Optimized Assembly Operations. Dimensional control is one of the most important challenges in automotive body assembly. The aim of this project is to develop a method of characterizing dimensional variation in a stamped sheet formed parts such that the effect of this variation on assemblies can be analysed. This will lead to an approach to flexible fixturing to minimizing assembly dimensional variation and improve dimensional quality.